City Council Meeting   11/4/2019

A little cold today.

A little cold.

A little cold.

All right, I'll call this meeting to order.

All right, Ms. Thomas, roll call please.

Here.

Mr. Signer.

Here.

Here.

All right.

OK. All right.

I think we have a few trickling around.

I can go first.

The Parks and Recreation Department is setting up two community meetings for parks projects.

The first is on Wednesday, November 13, from 5.30 to 7 PM at Burley Middle School Auditorium.

Regarding the Rugby Avenue Trail and Greenleaf Park Playground public discussions.

The second is Wednesday, November 20th from 4 to 6 PM at the Water Street Center at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District.

That's on the community forest plan public meeting for the 142 acre acquisition adjacent to Ragged Mountain.

All right.

And Walker, I have one.

The Schossel City Council will meet in a special work session on Friday, November 15 from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Carver Recreation Center to discuss the disposition of the Sacajawea Lewis and Clark statue and to hear directly from the members of the Shoshone Tribe, descendants of Sacajawea.

We will also be joined by members of the Monacan Indian Nation and other native representatives as well as city staff.

I'll have a few.

Good evening, everybody.

Happy Birthday to you.

Happy Birthday to you.

The first is from the DMV.

So can't get to DMV, the DMV is coming to you.

The City of Charlottesville at City Space on Monday, November 25th from 10 AM to 3 PM.

You can come down here to City Hall, get all of your DMV needs met.

They offer a wide variety of services including the real ID, the driver's license, identification cards, adult and child, disabled parking place cards.

or excuse me, placards, vehicle titles, address changes, vehicle registrations, EZ Pass, transponders, compliance summaries, transcripts, as well as hunting and fishing licenses.

So you can view the mobile operations calendar at www.dmvnow.com.

And again, they will be at City Space from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday, November 25th.

I have a couple more announcements.

Mayor Walker, if you don't mind.

Above and beyond the call of duty, the commemoration of the African American military experience will take place on November 8th and 9th at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

So on Friday, November 8th, there will be a large exhibit, and this will be from 9.30 AM to 3 PM, and there will be guest speakers throughout the day.

On Saturday, November 9th, they'll have exhibits from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. And then the Jefferson School, or excuse me, and again, this is all taking place at the Jefferson School.

For more information, you can contact Ms. Maxine Holland for, to go and partake in the commemoration of the African American Military Experience for Veterans Day.

A couple more.

On Saturday, November 16th at 9am, starting at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, there's going to be a 5k run, a turkey trot.

Vice Mayor Hill and I were just talking about we're going to be trotting for turkeys, right?

Kind of.

All right, maybe.

So all proceeds will go towards the annual turkey giveaway, which will take place on Sunday, November 24th.

And last year, many of you participated.

And I know a lot of y'all donated turkeys.

You guys donated shoes.

So we're going to do that again.

But this year, we're going to have a turkey trot 5K first.

So I don't want to hear any complaining.

A lot of y'all came out to the last run this summer.

This time, it's a little bit shorter.

It's not four miles.

It's only 5K.

Dr. Richardson, you down?

You do a half?

That ain't going to cut it.

Mayor Walker, where you at?

You with it?

Mike, don't leave me hanging.

Mike, where we at?

Where we at?

We'll talk.

Ms. Galvin?

I was a cheerleader.

The cheerleader?

I know you need to run.

Mr. Blair, Ms. Thomas?

Gobbling it up.

Gobbling it up.

All right.

In any event, so we hope we have some more support from y'all than my colleagues leave me hanging.

Saturday November 16th again at 9 a.m. you all can go online and sign up WeKote2Cville.com again 100% of the proceeds are going to the annual turkey giveaway let's make sure that we do all that we can to provide some turkeys for the families in need as you all know the line is normally wrapped around the building and the turkey giveaway is on Sunday November 24th at the Jefferson School at 2 p.m.

Gobble, Gobble, Turkey, Turkey, let's run, let's eat, let's have a good time.

Thank you.

All right.

Ms. Thomas-Roth, oh, we did that, sorry.

Any proclamations?

And consent agenda, that's where I was.

Jeffrey Fogel, I live in Belmont here in the city.

I've raised this issue before.

As you know, one of the problems, well look, the main thing that we could do in our society is to take the issue of drugs and mental health out of the criminal justice system and put it in a public health system.

But unfortunately that doesn't appear to be happening at any time in the near future.

So we have a mental health court for which you are tonight, I think, only authorizing 45,000.

But the point here is that, as you should know, in order to avail yourself of the help that's being offered by this court, you must plead guilty first.

If you do not plead guilty, you cannot get help, no matter how much you want it.

And so you're being coerced into pleading guilty in order to get help.

As I understand it, by the way, in this behavioral treatment court, four people have passed through this year so far.

So you may want to think about whether your expenditures and your authorizations are producing a worthwhile result.

or whether there's something getting in the way.

But the notion that people have to plead guilty is something that came up for example in the death penalty cases when states were requiring people if they pled not guilty they could get the death penalty but if they pled guilty they would get life in prison and that was deemed to be a coercion on the defendant's right to plead not guilty and have a trial.

That's exactly what's going on here and it happens in the drug court as well and there's no reason for it unless you believe

and maybe you do and maybe the people who run it do as well that punishment is the goal of these rehabilitation efforts because that's what's happening.

They punish people in order to get them to comply and then claim they have a wonderful record but nobody's looking at that record as it goes out the number of years.

Wonderful record in year one, not such a wonderful record in year two or in year three because these

Cases require follow-up and not simply a short-term intervention with the stick of the court in people's eyes about getting help in that court system.

Last time we were here, I think there were people from OAR, and I do recall Neil Gutlow.

I think it was Council Galvin who asked him, is that a requirement in order to have a behavioral treatment court?

And he said he didn't know, and he would get back to you.

Now, I haven't heard anything, and I wonder whether you have.

I suspect not or something might have been said.

Well if you haven't heard anything that means either he can't find the answer, he doesn't know about the answer, he doesn't care about the answer, or he knows that it's wrong.

He knows that it's not required by the Supreme Court and that we could be treating it in a very different way.

That council, that $45,000 that he just mentioned was the grant that's coming from our, which we received from the Supreme Court of Behavioral Health docket grant.

We've contributed $55,000 as well as Albemarle County contributed $55,000.

And what that is is basically just a 6 to 12 month program, whereas if the folks that are allowed to be in that program, they complete it, their records can be expunged.

So it's a total of $155,000.

And I agree with the points that were just made and especially when we are assessing diversionary programs.

We need to look at if they're punitive and how can we make them not so.

There's also a requirement for this, and I know we're not evaluating this program, but it's just good to have it on record that the participants are required to

take medication to be in the program and that's just something else that I think should be looked at when this program is being evaluated.

So just making sure if we have these diversionary type measures in place that they are more helpful than some of them.

So that's just something when we are assessing that

and for individuals out there who are running the program that we hope that they start thinking about early on.

Okay, so that's later.

Anyone else who would like to speak on a matter on the consent agenda?

A, minutes, September 16, 2019, special and regular meetings.

B, appropriation, Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant, $45,000, first of two readings.

C, appropriation, Parks and Recreation Gift Guide Memorials Account, $3,260, second reading.

D, appropriation, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, $14,230, second reading.

E, Resolution, waiver of Charlottesville area transit fees for election day, one reading F, Ordinance, releasing a gas line easement, Oakley development on Rio Road, second reading G, Ordinance, vacating a public utility easement on a property at Emmett Street and Barracks Road, second reading H, Ordinance, repealing chapter 31, section 31-103, Buck Mountain, surcharge for water connections, second reading

I move that we adopt the consent agenda as read.

Okay.

And the only other comment is the same comment I made last year about appropriation D. Just making sure that there isn't a requirement to report for the state criminal alien assistant program.

But they said no last year, but I just want to, you know, still point that out, that the fact that this information is being collected, just that we know what it's being utilized for.

All right, any other comments or questions?

All right, please vote.

Alright, that carries 5-0.

Thank you Madam Mayor, members of the council.

I just wanted to confirm that the date was correct for November 18th for the Department of Social Services advisory board.

They will be presenting their annual report to the council.

The second item is, I know there's a question pertaining to the audible signals being placed at Preston and Rose Hill.

This will be completed in late 2019.

This is primarily due to conduit work as well as scheduling, so that's why it's going to take a while to be able to get that done, but there will be audible signals at Preston and Rose Hill.

One other item that I wanted to bring to your attention was that the CAT, they will be waiving the fees as was mentioned in the consent agenda for riders on election day.

What I wanted to do this year is to put on agenda for the first time to have it as a resolution.

This was primarily to create a record for future councils as a reference or anyone else who sits in my position, I work in the city, to have a record of it rather than just a formal announcement that we will be waiving the fees for tomorrow for those who use CAT transportation in hopes of, for a good cause, to be able to get to the polls throughout the city.

Would you like to say a few, put you on the spot?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Walker and members of council.

It certainly is a privilege to have been selected for this position.

And I'm really looking forward to the exciting things we're going to accomplish ahead of us.

All right, so next we have Community Medicine.

Good evening.

I'm Robert Myers, a lifelong Charlottesville and Albemarle resident.

This is a different subject, but in light of the recent renewed attacks on the monuments, I would like to offer a pre-21st century view of Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

And this is from an op-ed 20 years ago in the Washington Post, titled In Defense of General Lee by Dr. Edward C. Smith, an African-American

Professor of History at American University in Washington and co-director of its Civil War Institute.

He says, let me begin on a personal note.

I am a 56-year-old third-generation African-American Washingtonian who happens to be a great admirer of Robert E. Lee.

He notes Lee was top of his class at West Point, a Mexican war hero, a Mexican-American war hero and president, superintendent of West Point.

General Jackson was not U.S. Constitution.

His statue here is one of the finest equestrian statues in America.

Dr. Smith also notes it is important to remember that the 13 colonies that became the 13 states

reserved for themselves a tremendous amount of political autonomy.

In pre-Civil War America, most citizens' first loyalty went to their state and region.

Referring to the United States of America in the singular is a purely post-Civil War phenomenon.

In other words, it was the United States are, not the current United States is.

All this should help explain why Lee declined command of Union forces after Fort Sumter.

After much agonizing, he resigned his commission in the Union Army and became a Confederate commander fighting in defense of Virginia, which he was sure it would, as it was, soon attacked.

I disagree, but I can clarify that later if I'm given time.

But anyway, he even opposed secession.

Martin Luther King was one of the few civil rights leaders who clearly understood that the era of the 1960s was a distant echo of the Civil War literature.

He came to admire and respect Lee.

After the war, Lee was so respected, even in Washington, that he is memorialized with a statue in the US Capitol and in stained glass in the Washington National Cathedral.

He then devoted the rest of his life to educating young people, becoming president of Washington College, which became Washington and Lee, and working for post-war reconciliation.

It was there that he made

The poignant remark a few months before his death, before and during the war, I was a Virginian.

After the war, I became an American.

Dr. Smith finishes by saying, I have been teaching college students for 30 years and learned early in my career that the twin maladies of ignorance and misinformation are not incurable diseases.

My name is George Worthington and I'm a resident of Albemarle County.

I'm here tonight as the convener for Dementia Friendly Central Virginia, an organization of volunteers helping make our communities more accessible and welcoming of people living with dementia and their caregivers.

In Charlottesville, more than 1 in 10 residents over the age of 65 is living with some form of dementia, often undiagnosed.

Another group of people under 65 and as young as 30 is living with younger onset Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia.

And African Americans are twice as likely as white Americans to develop dementia.

But dementia does not just affect the person with the condition.

Hundreds more family members and friends provide care to the 80% of residents with dementia who live at home.

Almost every family in Charlottesville will have been touched in some way by dementia.

We are fortunate in our area to have many supports and services for these folks, such as the Alzheimer's Association, Java, and the Memory and Aging Care Clinic at UVA, one of the only clinics in the state dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of dementia.

These organizations and many more help make our area relatively dementia-capable, meaning that systems to support people living with dementia are in place.

but due to a lack of awareness about dementia and the resulting stigma, many of these folks still find it difficult to engage with their community.

Many people living with dementia and their families will withdraw from social engagement due to embarrassment, fear of being judged, and other forms of stigma.

Research shows that maintaining social engagement can help slow the progress of the disease and improves the quality of life for people living with dementia.

This is where Dementia Friendly Central Virginia comes in.

This initiative is part of a national and international movement to help ensure that people living with dementia and their caregivers are fully able to engage with their community and to continue to thrive in their day-to-day lives.

We want to help people maintain their links with this vibrant community by providing free training in dementia awareness to businesses, organizations, and groups of individuals.

These sessions, led by volunteers, offer important information about dementia and encourage people to think what they themselves can do to be more dementia-friendly at work or in their community.

Over the past year, our action team has laid the groundwork for this effort, and in September, we were thrilled to join Dementia Friendly America's national network of dementia-friendly communities.

This does not mean that Charlottesville is now dementia-friendly, but it does give us the opportunity to learn from initiatives in other communities around the country as we work towards that goal.

We are now at the point of rolling out our training and partnering with businesses and organizations to help them become dementia friendly.

As this initiative develops in the months and years ahead, we look forward to working with the city of Charlottesville to create a dementia friendly Charlottesville.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, council members, good evening.

I would like to address the holiday tradition of our Christmas tree.

The city has always displayed a beautiful Christmas tree, along with other decorations on the light poles on the downtown mall.

Last year, Dr. Bellamy was influential in making sure that was done.

Thank you, Dr. Bellamy, on behalf of the citizens.

The tree has always been the center of the mall holiday decorations.

The tree has always been located in the center of the activities and pedestrian traffic on the mall like shopping, dining in our many restaurants that are located on our mall.

The location has always been at the fountain near the Paramount Theater where people can see it and admire it.

Everyone passes the fountain location when they are shopping, dining, going to the Palomar, or just walking the mall to enjoy all the holiday decorations and to get into the holiday spirit.

This year, it has been decided to install the tree at the far end of the mall in front of City Hall and the Pavilion, where no one ever goes.

If you have ever walked our mall on a Friday or Saturday evening or Saturday afternoon, you would have noticed that at the end where they want to plan to install the tree this year, the only people that you ever see are the ones that are going to the parking garage.

I have conducted a non-scientific survey.

I have spoken to

shop owners, restaurant owners, and not one of them are in favor of putting the tree in the location where their patrons will not get a chance to see it and enjoy it.

They all said that the location of the fountain helps to bring customers into their business, which generates taxes.

It makes no sense to put the city tree where no one will see it.

Instead of the location that is planned for the tree, it would be best just to leave the tree on the, and I'm gonna screw this up, bombed off property and save the taxpayers money that the city was going to spend to move the tree and install it in the planned location.

I plead with you not to move the location of our city Christmas tree where it would,

wouldn't be enjoyed by anyone.

Please, just put it where it has always been.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Fogel.

Good evening, Councillors.

My name is Kim Roa.

I'm an attorney at Legal Aid Justice Center at 1000 Preston Avenue, and I'm here to discuss a memo that was sent to you earlier today by community members, including representatives of the initial Civilian Review Board and the People's Coalition regarding this

regarding the Civilian Review Board proposed bylaws and ordinances.

My colleague is handing you a copy of that memo.

It's two enclosures and detailed red lines to the proposed bylaws and ordinances.

So we understand from your agenda and the materials that were released on October 30th that Council plans to attempt to pass

The CRB ordinance and bylaws this evening.

We are proposing 10 amendments to those bylaws and ordinances that were released with your agenda materials on October 30th.

And we believe those amendments will satisfy both council and the community's desire to establish a strong foundation for the Civilian Review Board.

We've organized those ten amendments into four categories to help counselors hold all of those as you have your conversations this evening because I know it's a lot.

I'm going to go through those ten amendments and the four categories as a broad framework and then other community members will come up during public comment to describe in detail the motivation and intention behind some of those amendments in more detail.

Category one, simplify access to the civilian review board complaint review process.

First amendment, allow the civilian review board to review all Charlottesville Police Department complaints as necessary, regardless of the internal affairs investigation finding and without requiring written approval of the complainant.

Second amendment, require the Charlottesville Police Department to forward all complaints filed with CPD to the civilian review board's executive director.

Category 2, establish collaborative communications between the CRB and the city and the Charlottesville Police Department.

Third amendment, require written explanations from the city manager when the civilian review board recommendations regarding the hiring and termination of staff are not followed.

Fourth Amendment, require a written response from CPD to the Civilian Review Board when the CRB makes policy recommendations, comments on proposed policy amendments, and issues complaint review findings.

Fifth Amendment, add the Charlottesville Police Department's biased-based policing, disciplinary procedures, constitutional procedures, and use of force policies, general orders, to the November 4, 2019 resolution policy review list.

Sixth Amendment, Institute a minimum one year trial period for the auditor position.

Category three, facilitate public access to the staff and civilian review board work product.

Seventh Amendment, ensure the CRB's annual report is a public document and include minimum requirements for what must be included in the report.

Eighth Amendment.

Mandate the executive director produce a special annual report on the auditor trial period and future auditing recommendations.

And the final category, fourth category, transparent staffing and self-governance.

Ninth Amendment.

mandate that the names and qualifications of all applicants and finalists for the executive director position be posted publicly.

And the final 10th amendment, sever the proposed ordinance and bylaws so there are no duplicative provisions.

I want to get it right.

Adeolu and K-Day Legal Aid Justice Center.

I'm here to talk to you following up on my colleagues comments specifically about amendments number six and eight.

They're the amendments that deal with the auditor position.

Amendment six requests that city council institute the auditor position for a trial period minimum one year.

Amendment eight requests that city council require then the work of that auditor

to be captured and communicated to the city and the community via a special first annual report from the executive director.

We understand that council has some trepidation about funding a full-time auditor position.

To the extent that that owes to council's

unfamiliarity with what work product an auditor would produce and what data an auditor would review, we think that a minimum trial period of one year is a low stakes way for council to show that one, you do have a good faith in trying to move forward a CRB that will be proactive instead of reactive.

And two, it will give you the necessary clarity and insight into what an auditor does and how an auditor completes his or her functions so you can make an informed determination as to whether an auditor should be instituted permanently.

The city's proposal has the executive director making a decision in a really compressed timeframe, something that could be less than 60 days, to report to you all whether or not an auditor should be hired permanently.

That's an unrealistic and unreasonable timeframe for you all to make a decision of such importance.

Instead, if you institute the auditor for a minimum one year trial period, what you will have is an auditor who can review policies and data in a limited category of areas.

And if you look at Memo Enclosure Tool, you see that there are five suggested areas where the auditor on a trial basis can begin his or her work as a consultant to the executive director and the board.

and then produce with the executive director a special report showing you the work that an auditor does.

And that can inform and should inform your decision making.

That gives both the city and the executive director who will be newly hired time to settle into the role and to get a deeper understanding.

And we think that represents a very reasonable compromise on trying to move forward

And so I wasn't, when I was talking about the ability to hire a consultant was to kind of help the ED start this work and give us that information.

We didn't have to have a report within the 60 days, but I thought we were seeing that

If that report came in more quickly than not, that would give us the information, the beginning of the information to move forward.

Right, on the resolution that was discussed at the last council meeting, I do know that

This is a different proposal to that.

All right.

Good evening.

Good evening Madam Mayor.

You always speak.

Mary Curry, you said the President.

What the people just said about the PCRB, I agree with you.

and on top of that I was going to talk some about it, but it makes me angry.

So I better leave it alone.

And then the other second part was transit.

A lot of candidates are saying that they've been, just running for city council, are saying that they've been pushing for transit for years, but the transit is not making the money.

that they should be making because the transit was taken out of the black communities and now you're building up there on Crescent Avenue so you want to bring it back.

And why?

Give me an answer.

Tell me, why is it coming back?

When for years and years, Ms. Ida Lewis and Ms. Josephine Morrison, Mr. Paul Long,

Michael Payne, myself, hundreds of other people.

Been trying to get that transit back up there on Grady Avenue, 10th and Page, 8th Street, Preston Avenue, all up in there.

Just black neighborhood.

Now, you're building up up there again for what you always call in Charlottesville, affordable housing for rich people.

And

because they the only one that can afford it and they can't halfway afford it because they probably cheat on their taxes.

But anyway, now you want the transit back up there in the black neighborhood.

Wonder how you're going to arrange that.

I don't know.

But anyway, every time you want to make some money, you look at the black community.

That got to stop.

This 20 what?

What is this?

2019 or 1865?

I don't know from what that young man said up here about Lee not having no slaves.

He had to sell his slaves because he was a drunk and he was losing his property.

That's real history.

They don't tell you that.

But anyway, I'm like this.

If Charlottesville Transit is going to run and make any money, you're going to have to run it through the black community.

And we've been sitting around letting y'all do what y'all want to do to us ever since we set foot on this land, on this continent.

Times is changing.

Just because the more things stay the same, they don't have to be the same.

Thank you very much and have a good night.

I hope so because I talked to him and he asked me, I gave him a direction to go in because Ms. Ida Lewis, she used to be a sheriff in town.

and Miss Josephine Morrison.

She was living down on 8th and Page, which Mr. Bellamy promised those people that he was going to get that transit running back down there four years ago.

But anyway, Miss Morrison, she had to go through the hell of having people in University of Virginia parked in front of her house because people that just moved in there in the neighborhood were white people.

They had put up some kind of

Park and Pass, then they cut the transit out because the folks that moved in said the fuels was bothering them.

Thank you.

And I think about the route changes.

Counselor Galvin and I, we were on the RTP, and we were in a meeting with a consultant who had proposed route changes that we didn't recommend within the city.

And they were all concentrated, well, four of them, in our black neighborhoods.

And so we both talked about how that was not

A route that we were going to take and so in the past even how that information was, you know, how we received that information I'm sure was problematic because we barely, you know, we didn't know about it until that report and that just happened because of this committee and that committee is a new committee.

And Mayor Walker, if I may add, this report that Mayor Walker is referencing is a state required report and it was kind of an automatic thing that was just happening and they were making recommendations and the changes were happening and they had not been coming to council.

So there is more transparency now with the regional transit partnership meetings and I think both Mayor and I agree that Mr. Williams is doing an excellent job and he will be making

All right.

Hi, Walt Tyneke, Amherst Street.

I just want to first say that Stokely is in the house to say happy birthday to her father tonight.

She missed it.

I wanted to drill down a little bit on the PCRB issue by going over a couple of the amendments that were raised before under the category of simplifying access to the CRB complaint review process.

Amendment 1 calls for us to allow the CRB to review all CPD complaints as necessary regardless of the internal affairs investigation finding and without requiring written approval of a complainant.

It should be simple and easy for community members to access the CRB complaint review process.

The CRB should be able to review all complaints regardless of the internal affairs findings and without a community member necessary to have having to file a written approval of needed oversight.

If the CRB is tasked with overseeing the investigation of complaints to ensure the thoroughness, completeness, accuracy, objectivity, and impartiality of the internal affairs investigations, they should be able to review even those complaints that the IA determines are sustained or founded.

A finding of sustained or founded does not make an IA investigation immune from the flaws that, if spotted in the review, could be easily corrected and thereby strengthening the IA process and community confidence in the process.

Further, requiring a community member to provide a written approval before the CRB can review a complaint, even after a majority of the CRB members have determined to review as necessary, could frustrate oversight when it's needed the most because a community member is frightened of retaliation

or otherwise unwilling or unable to participate publicly in the review process.

The default should be ability to review when the CRB determines it is necessary with the option provided to community members to opt out if truly opposed.

Amendment 2 is to require CPD to forward all complaints filed with CPD to the CRB's executive director.

This will help ensure that all complaints are tracked and reviewed at the end of the IA process, even if a formal review request and associated hearing are not initiated by either the community member or the CRB.

If CPD shares all complaints that it receives with the CRB in a timely fashion,

the community can be assured that the CRB will be aware of all complaints and the CRB can more effectively and efficiently exercise its review authority.

Under the second category, established collaborative communications between CRB and the city and CPD, Amendment 3 says require a written explanation from the city manager when the CRB recommendations regarding the hiring and termination of staff are not followed.

The executive director plays an outside role in CRB.

Operations and must work closely with the CRB members to accomplish board functions.

As such, board members input regarding the ED's hiring or continued employment should be given considerable weight even where the ultimate authority to hire or fire belongs to the city manager.

The bylaws currently allow two CRB members to be on city managers interview panel for hiring an executive director so they can provide advice and recommendations

Should the city manager reject a joint hiring recommendation from the two participating board members, she or he should provide a full board a written explanation after his or her reasoning.

Similarly, where the city manager terminates the executive director of his or her own accord or fails to terminate the executive director at the request of the board, she or he should provide a written explanation to the full board.

Thank you.

She's here, she was here earlier.

She left?

Myra Anderson?

No.

All right.

Mayor Walker, quick question while Kate is walking up for you as well as Dr. Richardson.

One of the items that Ms. Anderson bought up and we've discussed briefly before was in regards to the Sankofa Center, in regards to the specifically having African American health professionals to address some of those issues.

Is it possible for us to maybe review that again or get an update in that regards?

I'm not sure if that's what she would be talking about tonight.

The non-profit?

Yes.

Hi, Kate Fraley, Charlottesville resident.

Hello everybody.

I'm just going to continue on with the amendment number four and I want to draw your attention to the fact that you have this in the memorandum if you want to read along at the same time.

Amendment four require written responses from CPD to CRB after the CRB makes policy recommendations, comments on proposed policy amendments, and issues complaint review findings.

The CRB recommendations and findings are not effective tools for change without a response from the CPD.

Substantive public written responses from CPD to the CRB policy recommendations or review findings will foster collaborative communication between the CPD and the CRB, will allow the community to better understand the CPD's decision making process, and will sharpen the CRB's understanding of how to improve future communications with the CPD.

Amendment 5 adds CPD's biased based policing, disciplinary procedures, constitutional procedures, and the use of force policies to the November 4, 2019 resolution policy review list.

We already know that the above named policies will have a direct impact on the CRB's complaint review functions.

as these policies are at the heart of most community interactions with officers that may result in complaints.

Moreover, these policies were already turned over to the initial CRB during the formation of its proposal.

There is no reason to wait to add these policies to the resolution.

Amendment six, institute a minimum one year trial period.

Wait, Adeola already did that.

Number three, facilitate public access

access to staff and CRB work product.

Amendment 7, ensure that the CRB annual report is a public document and include

Minimum requirements for must be included in the report and the original CRB thing had a list of it.

Providing detailed direction regarding the CRB's annual report will ensure that the public is adequately informed of the CRB activities.

Public knowledge of the CRB's efforts and activities will strengthen the community's trust in the CRB and ultimately improve community relations.

I want to take an aside here because this sounds awfully complicated.

And I just want you to know that a number of people, thank you very much, wrote all the changes.

So on memo enclosure number one, when you do the amendments, you can easily say amendment one, yes or no, and the changes in what you all had from two weeks ago from Wednesday are in here.

So nobody has to do any

Individual work to make those changes they've already been done for you.

One more.

That's, where was I?

All right.

Tanisha Hudson.

Good evening, Tanisha Hudson.

Good evening.

I just want to say, summer over.

We need to get the heat on in here.

It's cold in here.

I'm going to continue also part 4, transparent staffing and self-governance.

Amendment 9, require the names and qualifications of all applicants and finalists for the executive director position be posted publicly.

Releasing the names of applicants to the public will allow the community to see that the strongest applicants were considered as finalists and the best candidates were hired.

This will help the public develop and maintain faith in the CRB as the first board starts its work.

Amendment 10, sever the proposed ordinance and bylaws, no duplicative

Provisions.

The current proposal contains multiple instances where the ordinance and bylaws contain duplicative provisions.

The effectuate

The current language of 2-464, allowing the CRB to amend its bylaws without the constant need for City Council action.

Provisions in its bylaws must be separate from those of the ordinance.

Otherwise, any amendments to duplicative

sections of the bylaws would be ineffective in light of the ordinances, control and authority.

Conclusion, because the ordinance bylaws and resolutions are intersecting documents, some of those

Some of these amendments necessitate changed language in multiple places.

We are enclosing two documents that amount to a section by section breakdown of where changes would go along with suggested implementing language.

We hope you find this helpful.

suggested language to implement amendments to the ordinance bylaws and resolutions.

Amendment one, allow CRB, is this the same thing?

Allow CRB review, all CB, is this already?

Yeah, this is already, all this is already been said, so.

Gloria Beard

Hello, my name is Gloria Beard.

And I was with the initiative of CRB.

We did the bylaws together.

And you heard what everybody had to say and all the changes we made.

Because we still working behind the scenes trying to make this work.

We need this board and we need an auditor for real and an executive director.

it's got to work you all don't throw this together real quick because the people that you hire has to do the work we don't want people fussing and arguing and we need this because back in the day when it was 2017 I kept seeing a hashtag that said a new Charlottesville

If we want a new Charlottesville and stop doing things as it was, we got to do some work.

And we need this board to help the relationship with the community and the police force.

If you have a police force that nobody trusts anybody on that force, what good is it?

If something happens to you, you're scared to call, then you put the law in your own hands, then what?

You're going to jail.

So we got to get this town together because look they moving us out slowly but surely we are being displaced and it's awful.

I see people laying down here but I come down here in the evenings on the sidewalks, homeless people.

That shouldn't be.

California's bad enough.

We can't do this to Charlottesville.

We have to make an improvement.

We got people in place to do these things.

Step up and do the work.

They got people in place of housing.

They're not doing anything to help these poor people.

I want two paychecks for being homeless with their own self.

So where am I going if I can't live in my house?

We got to do something.

I don't know what in the world is going on and how we got in a place like this.

You got to think about all the people, not some of the people.

And the people need to stand up and walk together.

I see, I come to these meetings, not just here, but everywhere.

I don't see people that should count.

I don't know where these people are.

I guess they're hopefully at home watching this, but I don't know why some of these people don't stand up with us.

Lord knows, but anyway, please take consideration what we have done.

And please make it work, you all.

Don't just throw it under the bridge.

We got to make this work.

Because look, this is my town, too.

Thank you.

One I want to talk about.

I didn't realize that the West Haven area and 10th and Page area have cameras now that we wasn't aware of.

We see them sitting up under the bridge.

Is that an effect?

I'm not aware of it.

As you come up under the bridge on H Street?

It's like a little ball right there where they put the new sidewalks at.

Are you going to be home tomorrow?

Yeah.

Okay, and now- Was that part of the discussion when you all had that meeting?

Didn't you all have a meeting after the incident last year about potential cameras going up?

Yeah, it's right there where the new park is.

Well, is the new park supposed to still be coming up in the 10th and Page area?

Yeah, so that's where the ball is.

It's sitting right there.

Also, before I get back to the CRB, what's going to happen with housing?

Now that Grant is resigning and going somewhere else and the people that are there are already taking care of the property and doing the necessary things that need to be done and did you ever get the answers Ms. Galvin about the vacancies that were supposed to be in housing?

I didn't think so because it's a lot of lives going on in housing and I still want to say thank you.

I ended up getting a lawyer letter, a letter from the lawyer where you can't help me.

They didn't want to give me a piece of paper to sign for you to help me and now I have to deal with their lawyers in order for housing to help me with an issue that should have been done two years ago.

Yeah, I hope so because this is tiring and it's drawn out for me.

And the CRB, the initial CRB put in a lot of work.

And thank y'all so much, Adeola, Jeff, everybody, you know, Joshua, you know, everybody's put a hand and a leg and a foot and a mouth.

and to this organization to push forward to make sure that this goes forth.

We've done something that took people years to do and I think that what we're asking for is really not a lot, it's just making people accountable for the actions.

How many units there are online.

We have that data.

And it was presented at the Housing Authority meeting last Monday, but just for informational purposes, the Housing Authority will be presenting at the very next council meeting on Monday, November 18th.

Yes, ma'am.

So there was a housing authority retreat last Saturday in which there were a litany of different decisions made in regards to how the housing authority would be proceeding forth.

It was also discussed at length at the Housing Authority meeting this past Monday in a public setting.

And again, they'll be providing that update to everyone at the next council meeting on Monday, November 18th.

I'm Robin Hoffman.

I live in the city.

I just want to comment a little bit about being here today and I always like to listen to what's going on in the city.

I just feel like it's very important that the infrastructure is being worked on because I came from New York.

And they kind of neglected the infrastructure a lot, especially housing.

And it's a mess, okay?

And it shouldn't happen.

You know, we have to support people who are working here and we have to certainly honor, you know,

them and respect them, especially if the policing is not honorable or whatever.

You know, we have to give trust to everybody and all that.

But more importantly, not really more importantly, but I'm here because I want to say that a follow up on the Charlottesville Community Media Center.

Could Katrina come up here for a minute?

Katrina and I and four other people had orientation.

What did you think?

It was fun.

And also, did you have a really good time with your new show?

We interviewed each other, and when we interviewed each other, we kind of, you know, saw how we were going to be.

We were in front of the camera.

We also did audio.

And what else?

Audio, the visual, the CG, which is computer graphics, right?

We did that.

And anyway, so it's going to be followed up with editing and fielding next.

So there were six producers and Caltech, who ran it, it was great.

said that it was like the most exciting group.

You guys were, you got it right away.

I felt like that too.

So what happens is we all exchange through each other's programs and we're live, so to speak, on TV and it was really fabulous.

And also I just wanted to say, if you could honestly say, like, were you nervous?

like did you know I know you were like she was like so professional instinctively just went right into it and I was like you know it being interviewed and I was like very you know it was very professional

So yeah, so that was great.

And I'm really happy that we're sort of going to be producing.

But I want to say real quick, because the time's running out, 9 to 5, if you have lunch, you can go there and do a show.

OK?

So don't feel like you can't do a show, right?

It was easy.

It was easy.

It was great.

Thank you.

I am John Edward Hall of the Fry's Spring neighborhood.

To the members of our city council, the members of the excellent, outgoing faculty of UVA who have elected not to run for council again, our fine city manager, Dr. Taryn Richardson, and members of our audience,

I will be our director of the CRB.

We are very interested in our civilian review board and police body cameras are the key to success here.

Body cameras work around the necks of police officers.

are automatic smartphones.

They have automatic smartphone capability with chat box capability and texting.

These technologies brought to us by Steve Jobs of Apple and his pioneering work throughout his lifetime can be directed toward reform of the justice system

for the better.

And this can be done by automatically performing the tasks that need to be done for the appropriate legal people, as well as victims of injustice.

Just by using the technology we now have at hand, we can speed justice reform

Direct the context.

Body cam information that police collect at crime scenes passed on to newly hired paralegal psychologists at Region 10 for mental health evaluation of persons suspected of mental illness.

Collect at crime scenes passed on to newly hired the perpetrators

being accused of crime and persons bringing charges after a 48 hour delay so that everyone can kind of collect their thoughts and really accurately record exactly what happened.

Perceptions are clear and texting of accounts can be emailed attached to appropriate lawyers and civilians for civilian review.

I believe this will

Speed Accurate Verdicts, and Justice Reform.

We can expand all services in a large City Hall complex, large enough to encompass City Hall, the Transit Station, the General District Court, the Police Station, with room for OAR and the new

Paralegals and Region 10 personnel for Water Street to Marcus Street housing the parking garage and the CV transit, Charlottesville transit that is.

With several change machines added to boot, we can extend our CAT services all the way to

Just one thing as Mr. Harrell is walking up, I think it's important for us to note that everyone has shortcomings and in certain situations it's important for us to show grace and a level of just grace to different people.

Regardless of what we may think and regardless of what's going on, there's a level of respect and grace I think that needs to be shown to everyone.

regardless of when they're speaking.

And as we talk about different issues and showing support to different people specifically revolving around mental health and so forth, it is important for us again to show a level of maturity and the same grace that we would want others to show to potentially our parents or those who are going through different situations.

I want to give a couple minutes before that can soak in.

But then afterwards I want to make sure Mr. City Council Bellamy doesn't call people like me an old man anymore to show some grace as well.

So Madam Mayor, City Council,

Mr. Richardson, staff, how y'all doing this evening?

Good evening.

My name is Quentin Harrell.

I live up 29 North and I'm a local businessman and a volunteer in this community.

I've been a businessman for more years than I was a volunteer and that's what most people know me as but my volunteer work in the last five to ten years has been I would say 90%

directed towards the upliftment of the African American community.

I'm all about black folks, lifting up black folks, and I'm very intentional about it because I truly believe that the upliftment of the African American community feeds into the greater prosperity of the entire community.

We are at a point in history right now in our city where we have an opportunity to right a lot of historical wrongs.

There are inklings and there are signs of

Things improving.

Things are changing.

As I look up at the dais, I can see that change from where I am.

But I think there's much, much work to do.

That's why there's still rage, frustration, and angst in the community.

But I think that we're on the way.

So first I would like to say thank you.

Thank you all.

I'm here in support of New Hill Development Corporation.

Thank you all for your vote of confidence and partnering with New Hill, bless you, New Hill Development Corporation.

And I think what you all will see tonight as you all entrusted them to create a small area plan, I think you all will be quite pleased in the work that was done.

The work is serious.

I think it addresses racism.

We all need, or you all need the different lanes of people holding you all accountable.

We have passionate people in our community that come in here and hold you guys accountable on a regular basis, but you also need partners and both of them are important.

and we look to partner with you all to create a new economic landscape in this community.

We think a new economic engine in this community will create black wealth in this community and that's what I'm all about and that's why I'm passionate about New Hill Development Corporation.

Thank you.

Samore Cooper.

I saw her.

Did she leave?

All right.

Shamour.

Oh, Shamour is here.

Shamour.

So I'm not going to keep drilling down about the CRB.

Y'all got what's in front of you.

Before I start, those folks who support the CRB, please stand.

People believe in what we just did.

And the blood and sweat that the initial CRB did was tremendous.

But what the People's Coalition did was try to do something within two weeks to have this on the plate.

We hope y'all take into consideration and do the right thing.

No?

Can I make one more announcement?

I know I've talked a lot, but I haven't told my wife happy birthday.

Her birthday is Thursday.

And I want to make sure her and my lovely daughter back there know how much we appreciate mommy and her sacrifice.

So happy early birthday to you, honey.

Y'all give it up for my wife.

All right.

So yeah, we have the CRB discussion coming up just after the city charter amendment.

So it's the second item after we come back for break.

and we have the New Hill report on here at closer to the end of the evening tonight.

All right.

I have a question for Dr. Richardson.

Yeah, that is correct.

We are moving it.

We're having the big celebration in the pavilion this year.

What we want to do is move more people into those areas where it gives more space and more people can enjoy that festive activity and then be able to see it later on as they come up and down the mall walking.

So that's what we were worried about, just being able to

Have more people enjoy it, rather than a slight group of few people where it's so jam-packed, where it gives more space and more opportunity.

So you're moving it to Central Place?

No.

No, no, no.

No, no.

Right, right.

We're just going to be starting the pavilion for the actual ceremony, please.

OK. OK, thank you.

All right, so if we could be back at 805.

All right, break.

All right.

I call this meeting back to order.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I just want to make sure everybody heard me correctly.

The tree will not move from the pavilion.

The tree will be in front of City Hall.

The events of the Grand Illumination will be within the pavilion area.

The Grand Illumination starts on, well, the date is Friday, December 6th at the Sprint Pavilion and it starts at 4.30.

All right, thank you.

Next we have the city charter amendments, a public hearing and

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Councillors.

You might call this charting a new course.

Boy, tough crowd.

But in all seriousness,

Before you tonight, the current city charter was granted to the council in 1946.

And there has not really been a comprehensive update of that document since 1972.

And before you tonight, there are a number of what I've termed technical amendments to the document.

Number one, gender terms are going to be removed.

Also, references to specific state code provisions are going to be taken out and replaced with general laws of the Commonwealth.

The city charter requires an act of the General Assembly to be amended so general laws of the Commonwealth would avoid having to go back every time that the state legislature passes a law if you had a specific code section referenced, having to go back and ask for a charter amendment.

But there are really four major

The changes that I'd like to highlight that are before you tonight, one is the city council elections.

The charter still states they are held in May.

The charter would be updated to reflect the current practice of holding those elections in November.

Also, the school board is still, the charter has states that it's an appointed body.

It's been an elected body for over a decade now, so that would be updated.

Bonding, which there are a number of provisions in there that relate to bonding and specific limits.

Those have all been deleted in favor of having a general clause that says that the city of Charlottesville has the same bonding capacity and powers that all cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia are granted through the Constitution of Virginia and the laws of the Commonwealth.

And finally, which I think is something that is really important to this body, the current charter reads that if a member of council resigned, the vacancy must be filled at the next regular meeting of council.

So in the unfortunate incident that somebody on council resigned, let's say last night,

The council as the charter is currently written would have to fill that vacancy tonight.

So what's proposed is that again filling vacancies would be in accordance with the state law which allows 45 days which would allow council to take applications and have a more thorough process if there was a vacancy that opened up on council.

All right, so we have a public hearing on the matter, so I'm opening the public hearing.

We didn't have a sign up sheet up, so if you would like to speak, you can just come up to the mic.

So charter amendments, is there anyone who would like to speak on the charter amendments?

All right, closing public hearing.

Second.

Alright, please vote.

Alright, that carries fast.

Thank you.

Again, good evening Mayor Walker, Councillors,

Tonight before you, there were some changes requested at the last meeting, but I think there have also been a number of amendments proposed tonight during the matters from the public.

So what I'd like to do is go over some of the changes from the documents before you that were made between October 21st and November 4th.

and then I know that the body would probably like to discuss some of the proposals you've heard, well received today and heard about tonight.

So first the auditor resolution, there were some changes made to that at Councillor Galvin's request as well as Councillor Hill.

The resolution before you, and again I know there's another resolution that's been presented tonight, but the resolution before you would require an executive director to report to you by June of 2020 or within 60 days of the executive director's appointment, whichever is later, about a couple of different topics, one being

the recommendation of whether to hire a full or part-time auditor or contract that position.

There would also be a recommendation about a memorandum of understanding between the Civilian Review Board and the Chief of Police.

Additionally, this resolution says there will be a sufficient appropriation

The City Manager would recommend a sufficient appropriation to the Council to employ a consultant to assist the Executive Director in composing their report.

These were changes that were requested at your last meeting about the resolution.

Another change before you is

the policy resolution that came up at the last meeting and uh...

I know Miss Burke, I didn't see her tonight but uh... she made some comments to the mayor previously and the mayor brought them up uh... about the idea that the ordinance read in a way that the only advance notice that would uh...

I guess I use the term advance notice that's inaccurate the

Only policy that the CRB would review in advance of Charlottesville Police Department enactment was the internal affairs investigation policy.

Based on the council's discussion as well as Ms. Burke and others from the initial CRB, now

The CRB would be empowered to review policies that are contained in a resolution.

Right now that resolution only contains one policy, which is the internal affairs, but the CRB is empowered to make recommendations to add further policies to that resolution to the council in the future.

I do know again materials presented tonight I think listed three other additional policies they'd like the council to add to that resolution which I've composed and is in your packet.

The composition of the Civilian Review Board, that was a topic at the last meeting.

We used the colloquial terms of 4-3 or 3-4, but actually the council's preference

from historically disadvantaged communities or residents of public housing, one member who is a member of an organization that advocates for racial or social justice, and then three other members.

And I think we colloquially call that 313.

Can I just have one question about that?

I think that's an interesting point.

If the council would like to do that I'm happy to make that change but I want to point out that in section 2-453 of the ordinance says the seven voting members will be residents and then one of them

will represent an organization that seeks racial or social justice on behalf of historically disadvantaged communities and I think you're right there was some debate about whether that had to be a Charlottesville specific organization or

Well, I'm thinking, let's say, if it were someone, let's say, from Legal Aid who may work at Legal Aid in Charlottesville, but they may not live in the city.

Could that person, I mean, I think that person would serve, potentially serve the board well if they wanted to apply.

So, for the

I have no problem with that being an allowance for the member of the CRB.

I do have pause about the executive director not being a city resident.

I really do think that that is an important criteria.

I agree with that one, but earlier we were talking about the executive director being able to live outside of the city.

I didn't have that discussion.

So we're just talking about the one position.

I had stated that I thought that all of them should live in the city, but I'm flexible for it.

So what I will do then is change the ordinance and bylaws to reflect that six members shall be residents of the city of Charlottesville.

But live or work in this.

There have been a few technical amendments I wanted to go over.

One had been to limit the review to a findings of unfounded exonerated or not resolved.

You will see internal affairs complaints in which one portion may be sustained.

You know, one aspect of the complaint will be sustained.

Is that nine?

Or these are on the technical amendments that I've made.

The reason for that is quite frankly it could create an awkwardness in the employment law context if there is a complaint against an officer and CPD ultimately sustains that complaint and makes a disciplinary action based on that complaint.

If that were then allowed to be reviewed by the CRB and the CRB came to an opposite conclusion about the sustain and said instead that needs to be unfounded, I think you, quite frankly, could set up the city for an employment lawsuit that

The individual could challenge the original CPD decision to discipline the officer as arbitrary or capricious because you've got another city advisory body saying that the officer in fact didn't commit the offense that was sustained against that person.

Another technical amendment was to clarify the term grievance proceeding.

In Virginia, police officers, or I should say law enforcement officers, have an option.

They can either go through the city's grievance proceeding or what's called the Virginia Law Enforcement Officers Procedural Guarantee Act.

So that's been changed to reflect they have that choice.

And then in terms of, there have been, I've added that the complainant needs to consent to have the CRB review their complaint.

And there are a couple of reasons.

Number one would be,

that the bylaws and the ordinance require that the complainant appear before the CRB and give a presentation about why they are appealing.

But number two, I think there is an issue with something called the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Act where if a complainant

doesn't consent to their data being turned, somebody filed an internal affairs complaint with the police department.

If they don't consent to turning that data over, I think there could be an issue there as well.

So the ordinance and bylaws read that there would need to be consent.

before the complaint to go before the CRB.

And then I wanted to sort of at this point kind of turn it over to Mayor Walker.

So we received this earlier today and I think from the discussions that we've been able to have since we received them that Amendment 2, which would require

CPD to forward all complaints filed with the CPD to the CRB's executive director.

What the police department will do, because we've been having this conversation back and forth for months, is just add a clause to their complaint form

that gives the complainant the ability to opt out if they choose to.

Other than that, they will forward all complaints unless that box is checked.

And I think that's it.

So yeah, I just had a brain freeze.

So that's moving forward.

That's the only addition there.

And if the box is checked, the CRB will be notified that there was a complainant who said that they did not want it forward.

And that's just in case if a individual which

I don't, well I'll keep my opinion, but if an individual wanted to file with the CPD but not the CRB for whatever reason, then that individual would be able to opt out of the information being shared, but the CRB would be notified that that complainant opted out of the information being shared.

So the CRB would be aware of a complaint either way.

Number three, require written explanation from the city manager when CRB recommendations require the hiring and termination of staff are not followed.

So Dr. Richardson is open to that being added with no problem.

Number four,

agreement to add the following require written responses from CPD to CRB after CRB makes policy recommendation, comments on proposed policy amendments, and we would not add the issue complaint review findings.

Number five.

So in agreement with all of number four except the last after and issue complaint review findings.

Number five, add CPD bias-based policing.

Disciplinary procedures, constitutional procedures and use of force policies and that's fine.

Right.

Well, Mayor Walker, before Mr. Blair does, just for the record, me personally, I'm in favor of their proposed, the entire amendment for number four.

Mayor Walker to your question in terms of the policy review there is a provision here in terms of if you can give me one second to find this provision

Policy recommendations, you just wanted me to highlight in section 2-458, the last paragraph does say, upon the determination of the chief of police in consultation with the city manager and police civilian review board executive director, that it's impractical to present an amendment to a policy listed on the November 4th, 2019 city council resolution.

to the Police Civilian Review Board at least 30 days before its enactment.

The City Manager may waive the 30-day advance review requirement.

The amendment shall still be presented to the Police Civilian Review Board for review and comment.

That is

That's sort of what I would just call an emergency measure in case for instance there was a court ruling or something of that nature that required an immediate policy amendment.

I don't think there would be, but it is worth having that in there in case there was some legal mandate to change a policy.

I think the city would do that upon a court order.

And it may be that it would be impractical for the 30-day review period.

Okay.

And then seven, to ensure the CRB's annual report is a public document and include minimum requirements for what is to be in the report.

And the discussion here was just that the executive director along with the board would be the

basically decide what the report should contain.

If there were other factors that council wanted to have discussed, then we would say that, but we wouldn't lay out what the report should include, but definitely supportive of it being public.

So the questions are?

Mayor Walker, specifically in regards to number six, the auditor position.

I understand that we discussed during the last discussion potentially having a consultant of sorts and allowing them to have a trial capacity.

And it seems as if my colleagues are very clear in regards to not wanting to move forward from number six.

So would a healthy compromise be if the CRB gets started and they already have a pot of money, quote unquote, to be able to outsource for a consultant?

So I think the dollar amount there would be different, but I think what, I know there was concern about the 60 days, the 60 days and the short time frame.

I think what we, I think what I hear us saying is that at whatever point the executive director and the board said that

So if the executive director comes in and within a month says, look, this work is a lot different from what we originally thought it should be.

We need to bring an auditor in.

We'll proceed forth with authorizing he or she to be able to do such.

My understanding, Mayor Walker, is that it's a position full-time employee, FTE, is not budgeted for this position with the next fiscal year.

But in the interim, during the first year startup, there will be funds provided to allow the executive director in consultation with the CRB.

a conversation from the last council meeting we would get that report by June and then we would know that by July 1 that it would be in that budget cycle so what you're saying

That position is addressed.

I mean, again, if the executive director comes in and says, within a month, or let's just say two months, this work is a lot different than what we expected.

We really need an auditor.

Does that individual, again, he or she have the autonomy to say, I need to draw down on funding to be able to go and hire, in consultation with the CRB, an auditor?

I think all of us have expressed support for recognizing that this auditor position is going to need to be filled.

It's just the manner in which it's filled is what we want to leave up to the executive director and the PCRB that's in place to determine what that looks like in this shorter term period.

So if that's the case, then why not just let them get it?

because we all have said that they know the position is needed.

I'm just using this logic.

If we all have said they know they need the position and eventually they're going to get it, why not just let them start with it?

Or at the very minimum, if we're not willing to do that, let them start with it from the beginning.

Let's allow them to have the autonomy to do such in a time period, again, in which they deem necessary.

because if I'm not being clear, it's fine.

Why doesn't that solution work for you in the time it'll take?

Maybe that could be the long-term solution.

It's not that it necessarily doesn't work for me, I'm just saying I think in my personal opinion we need to allow the board to have the autonomy to be able to decide when they need to shift from the consultant to moving forward in terms of we need to be able to go ahead and hire the auditor.

If they get hired in January, it would be within 60 days if they want it to be.

which is why I don't think, so if we remove the time period piece, like within the, if we remove the 60 days piece, it gives them the ability for them to determine when, so i.e.

using your example, if the individual is hired, he or she, the executive director is hired in January, just hypothetically speaking, because I doubt, yeah, if they're hired in January and within that first month, they're saying, like the amount of complaints is coming in, they're doing the reviews and they're just saying,

There's something that really needs to be different here.

Even if they get a consultant, they come to the realization, I don't need a consultant.

I need someone who's going to be long term.

Is that clear?

Yes.

And I think what you're really getting at is this first paragraph of the resolution.

And it says, be it resolved.

by the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia that the Police Civilian Review Board's Executive Director shall issue a report to the Charlottesville City Council in June 2020 or within 60 days of the Executive Director's appointment by City Council if the appointment occurs after April 30, 2020.

I think the 60 days was added at the

Suggestion of Councillor Hill in case there was somebody, let's say the first batch of applicants, nobody liked them.

And you had to go back out and get a new batch of applicants.

It could be after April 30th before an executive director was hired and I think her point was there's just an expectation such a report would be 60 days and you wouldn't want to say, well,

You're hired June 1st, be here before June 30th with a report.

But we can add in your language or earlier as determined by the executive director.

Yes, please.

I understand why you did it but I think adding that language it just addresses both sides.

Item 7.

We said that we weren't proceeding forth with 7, correct?

No, we are.

OK, I didn't mark that.

We aren't proceeding forth with 8.

Correct.

And I think it's important for us to at least inform them, inform the community, not them just who are here, but inform the community in terms of why not nine.

Oh, we were having a discussion.

She was doing that.

OK. Well, go ahead.

You can leave.

No, I'll.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Happy Birthday.

Wish I could throw this cookie down.

I'm also, in terms of number nine, this is one of the, I mean I was in favor and understood where a lot of the members, the amendments came from.

Nine was one in which me personally gave me a little heartburn mainly because when you have individuals names in the public like that we've seen sometimes it has the adverse effect.

People not want to

put themselves out because they think that they're then going to be doxxed in some regards on social media.

They're going to be opened up to getting trolled.

Individuals are going to say negative things about them, and they don't just want to expose themselves to that until they absolutely have to.

And I think we need to be cognizant of that's how some people are, and those could be good people who could actually benefit and do well on the board.

And that discussion was just centered around just HR policies and not wanting people to not apply that then were concerned about if

you know if their names if they had other jobs and they didn't get the position and their names were out there and then their employer and it's the same conversation that we've had around having the public forums with like even city manager you know police chief you know things like that there are certain positions that are higher up where they know that once you're a finalist is the you know expectation but the concern here was just

Since it's not one of the, while it's a very important position, not wanting to not have the best applicant pool possible as a result.

Mayor Walker, I'm not sure procedurally what the best way to do it, but no more comments on this, so should we deal with this batch of the CRB materials before Vice Mayor Hill and my resolution about the qualifications of the executive director resolution could come forth?

Does that come under B?

Yeah, does any of that relate?

So, Mayor Walker, earlier today I had sent digitally the resolution that Vice Mayor Hill and I worked on that deal with outlining the professional qualifications and responsibilities of the Executive Director for the Police Civilian Review Board

That was something that was discussed at our last meeting that we felt was important and that we really did, and I want to use the expression that Vice Mayor Hill uses, leverage the work of the original initial CRB.

And so what this resolution does is pretty much take the language out of the initial documents that talk about the kinds of qualifications that an executive director would need.

And this was to provide direction for the city manager

as the city manager goes about hiring.

So it may be helpful to read this because it hasn't, we didn't get it in time to post it, but that's your pleasure.

So I'll go read it then.

So this is a resolution on the professional qualifications for and responsibilities of the executive director of the police civilian review board.

Whereas the initial Police Civilian Review Board report of July 2nd, 2019 provided the Council of the City of Shostler with an overview of the professional staffing requirements for the Executive Director position and firmly stated that, quote, the Executive Director position is foundational and fundamental

to the oversight mission of the PCRB and whereas there are many facets to the executive director's work that cannot be fully addressed by a board comprised of civilian volunteers requiring support, training and procedural guidance, be it resolved that the council of the city of Charlottesville directs the city manager to ensure that at a minimum

and the position of executive director for the PCRB shall have the qualifications and professional expertise to be responsible for executing the following tasks in the following manner.

One, organizing board operations and developing and administering procedures and policies pursuant to the PCRB bylaws and ordinance adopted by this council on November 4, 2019.

to coordinating community outreach and facilitating the PCRB's ability to go to the community.

Three, serving as an in-house board resource inclusive of organizing and developing necessary training to ensure that PCRB board members are made privy to highly sensitive departmental files and personnel information and given support

to ensure that members handle all materials competently and with the requisite circumspection for serving as an initial point of contact and conducting complaint intake

in processing in a responsive, professional and confidential manner that is sensitive to the complainant's circumstances which may involve trauma.

Five, analyzing police data and writing evidence-based reports, memorandum of understanding, resolutions, request for proposal for outside professional expertise in areas such as evidence-based research and independent police department auditing.

and job descriptions for an independent police department auditor and six, possessing in-depth knowledge of and experience with police processes and working with police data as well as trauma-informed training and a working knowledge of the importance of providing a safe physical space

where confidential information exchanges with complainants can take place.

So that is the complete resolution.

You know, I was just going to say a lot of this is just we want to make sure that, you know, there's some concerns around the qualifications and obviously the budget that we allocate and this is really just setting kind of the tone foundationally for this is the caliber of applicants that we're looking for and this again came directly from the recommendations from the initial PCRB.

Okay.

I'll make sure I have that exact language.

Okay.

So, Mayor Walker, then I am making a motion to amend the resolution authorizing Police Civilian Review Board.

Oh, excuse me.

There's too many documents here.

I'm making a motion to amend the resolution authorizing Police Civilian Review Board Executive Director to prepare a June 2020 report to City Council to include

The resolution on the professional qualifications for and responsibilities of the Executive Director of the Police Civilian Review Board.

Okay, so we're not there yet.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

No, the probably A through D is where we are.

So I'm just interested just for maybe any, are you all open to

I was literally going to request if, I mean, similar as we did last time, could we have a 10 minute, if we literally kept it at 10 minute, could we have a 10 minute public comment?

So maybe instead of, Mayor Walker just suggested, I'm sorry, instead of us doing two minutes per person, if we literally set a 10 minute timer like that, and then it just counted down, and then individuals come and speak.

I have a question of clarification.

So because

The decision about the auditor is going to be taking place after a report is done.

Then, at least that's how it stands right now, right?

Then a new ordinance and new bylaws have to be written and read twice by council in order to make the position and the job happen.

Is that how it would work?

because all the other executive director is in the ordinance and in the bylaws and everything.

So what procedurally would have to

Right, I mean I think it depends again on structure.

For instance,

You know, the Executive Director and the CRB, my anticipation would be this, that in fiscal year, I guess we'd be in fiscal year 21 next year,

There would be a budget presented by the executive director that would include, like all departmental budgets, a list of full-time, what do we call it, full-time equivalents?

Is that the full-time equivalents?

and there would be a line item probably for an auditor in that and if the council adopted that budget through an appropriation of funds that in and of itself would authorize the hiring of the auditor.

Now to the commenter's point you would probably go back at that point and amend the ordinance and bylaws but I think when you look at it from a fiscal year perspective if you're hiring the auditor in fiscal year 2021 and that was needed

The audit, the ordinance and the bylaws could be amended or that position could, it doesn't have to be listed in either one.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think that addresses that in that regard, right?

So with that additional information from Mr. Blair, it seems that what you're proposing then is

Almost the same thing as the community substitute resolution on the auditor except you won't be including actual time and space for someone to learn all the things you're expecting to go to

to support a recommendation as to whether or not an auditor should be hired.

And that's what's in the substitute resolution submitted today from community members.

Having looked at countless review boards, dozens upon dozens across the country, it is almost impossible to get someone who will be this executive director as described in

the alternate or the additional resolution proposed by Ms. Galvin and Ms. Hill.

Those qualifications are unique.

The person you're describing in your additional resolution who will have administrative skills of an executive director as well as data skills as well as other familiarity with policing

is not someone that is readily found in and amongst people of that profession.

An executive director, that skill set, is a completely different skill set than what an auditor would do.

An auditor is essentially a data scientist.

An executive director is an administrator who runs processes and operations

to keep things moving forward.

It's not the same and you can't blend those qualifications to then think you will hire that person who could within 60 days or sooner then make

a sound recommendation as to whether or not an auditor should be hired.

It's just not a very well thought out or informed approach because you will be hard pressed to actually find someone who will meet the qualifications and be able to turn around what you are hoping they will be able to tell you.

The alternate resolution submitted by the community today says same time frame for fiscal year 2021 when a proposal would come to council to say yay or nay

on an auditor, whether that be a full-time FTE, part-time FTE, or consultant.

So it leaves open that possibility of what type of relationship the auditor would have, and then gives space for the executive director and administrator to hire a data scientist on a consulting basis to inform them for a year as to what's happening

with the data in the Charlottesville Police Department to then give an informed judgment as to whether or not an auditor needs to be hired on a full-time basis, part-time basis, or continue in a consulting role.

I'm sure that we agree.

I mean, this came in a response instead of staggering the two positions.

The community demands to hire them both at the same time when there was not an agreement to hire them both at the same time.

So this has been the attempt to compromise from the community demands.

On a trial period, consulting, not full-time FTE or part-time FTE.

But I still think in that year, the year commitment there is where, as a council agreement, we did not make yet.

And so we would still be back to waiting until the executive director was on that initial report and then moving forward after that.

So I think the compressed time frame, I understand, but it's been trying to respond and compromise with the request that we are hearing.

No, I get that that's what's trying to be negotiated, but I think it's misguided because you are not giving the executive director the help he or she needs with the actual qualifications an executive director will have to actually make an informed decision about an auditor.

What the auditor's skills are look different from an executive director's skills.

And there was different skills outlined for the auditor.

We literally were taking the skills that were recommended for the executive director.

And all we were doing was outlining the qualifications for the executive director.

So Mayor Walsh or CRB may explain behind, again, as Vice Mayor Hill said, the qualifications that came out of the initial CRB's work are embedded in this resolution that I just read.

What is added is the knowledge base that needed to be in the executive director so that an executive director would know what he or she would need

in finding an auditor, not that he or she would be the auditor.

That was not the intention.

It's not written as such.

So the idea of a person in this position has got to be able to read reports that have police data.

They've got to understand what they're reading as an executive director.

It doesn't mean that they're going to be doing the research themselves or auditing the police reports and the police functions themselves, but they've got to know how to understand that information and they've got to know who they're looking for because they're going to be the key person writing the job

the draft job description to give to the city manager, the key person who would be having to write the RFPs, request for proposals, to get outside consulting for an auditor.

So that's why that had to be embedded in this resolution about the executive director.

So that they're not left high and dry, not understanding, and they can't be of a

But what I'm saying is, with respect to that point, which I understand wholeheartedly where you're coming from, I think it's hard pressed for us as counselors, and I appreciate the work you all put in, but it's difficult for us as counselors.

You can stay in from the CRBs.

Yeah, but even for us, right, but even us picking which specific parts to put together for the job description, we are not experts in regards to doing that.

We also have our city attorney who's been advising us as well.

By refusing to work on amendments 1, 6, 8, 9, and 10, you have basically gutted the proposal from the original CRB.

And I say shame on you for doing that.

This is the capital of the resistance.

Is this what the capital of the resistance does after 2017 when there was racial injustice and white supremacy in this town and the rest of the city and this town and the country is looking for you to do something completely different and not boilerplate?

Is this what you do?

You nickel and dine your own professional CRB into doing something that is completely symbolic, just like the Human Rights Commission, and won't work.

If you don't build it right, they won't come.

And I think you know that.

I think you know that.

The post-2017 resolution that you put together was really strong.

And the statements that some of you made in the newspaper were incredulous about how much we needed to stop, stop and frisk in racism in the police department.

You said it.

I have it on my computer.

What you said in the newspaper, you're not following through on those statements or that commitment.

initial CRB delivered on what you asked and it was itself the result of a negotiated order that what you got from the initial CRB was negotiated and compromised down and now you're watering it down and nickel and diming it down even further I don't understand how we get from 2017 and your resolution to this

What are you thinking?

What are you thinking?

Why are we tinkering with this if it's a matter of racial justice and racial equity?

Right?

It's important for you to signal to the community that you're serious about this.

That this is a serious commitment to solving a serious racial inequity in this town.

And what you're doing tonight is tinkering with that and watering it down in a way that I find unbelievable.

I know your hearts are in the right place but I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but this is not it.

And you know it.

This is tinkering it and fooling around with it and turning it into the Human Rights Commission which has no teeth and nobody uses the way it should.

You're going to do the same thing and you're going to waste our taxpayer money on that again.

So I don't know why you're doing it.

Why do we have business as usual again?

This is business as usual.

It's not post 2017 thinking.

You're not providing an example to the community.

You're not providing an example to the rest of the country.

That's waiting for us to do something different.

They're waiting for us to show them how you respond to white supremacy.

So we canceled eight, correct?

Because we said eight is a duplicate of six, right?

Right, excuse me, eight and seven, sorry.

We did.

We said we were going to.

Okay, let's go through procedurally where we are.

A is listed as the ordinance.

First thing I guess I'd look to all five Councillors.

Mayor Walker mentioned an earlier amendment that the 313 framework that's been proposed there would be six city residents and then the individual

The member who represents an organization that seeks racial or social justice on behalf of historically disadvantaged communities must either reside or work in the city of Charlottesville.

Yes.

Second, there were a series of amendments that Mayor Walker just proposed and those amendments would apply to both the ordinance bylaws and one of the resolutions which is the one that lists the policies.

What I would probably ask for right now would be a motion and

to adopt those amendments.

And just before that, I do have, I know that the public didn't speak a lot on the matter of a council member being on the board, but you all still

So is this a motion to direct the city attorney to amend the ordinance bylaws and resolution consistent with the proposed amendments that have been outlined?

Is that right?

And what I will do, I will look at the materials presented tonight and just make sure they're

Okay.

All right.

Yes.

And we need to vote.

And now there are two resolutions.

One should be, I think, simple because it would incorporate those new policies in addition to the internal affairs policy.

And I think you should probably just vote on that separately right now.

And that is the resolution that's entitled Resolution Listing Charlottesville Police Department Policies Pursuant to Charlottesville City Code Section 2-458.

Alright, so I move to adopt a resolution listing Charlottesville Police Department policies pursuant to Charlottesville City Code section 2-458.

Second.

That's what I meant.

All right, please vote.

Okay, and now we will get to the executive director resolution.

First, does any counselor oppose Dr. Bellamy's

Okay, then what I would do is at this point I think there was some questions about adding Councillor Galvin's resolution as an amendment to this resolution.

So procedurally, you're amending this resolution before you that includes Dr. Bellamy's language to include what Counselor Galvin read about the Executive Director.

To include the comment, the edit in paragraph one.

It's the one in here.

About the executive director's preparing a report and we're going to add the language that Dr. Bellamy requested and also this additional layer of another resolution.

Is there a second?

So that's everything that was already posted today, adding what Councilor Bellamy wanted to add in terms of having more flexibility with the executive director.

Correct.

This resolution, and I'll just go through it, that first paragraph, if you want to take a look, it is

The document that's called under lowercase b in section 3 of your packet, that first paragraph will now read, be it resolved by the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, that the Police Civilian Review Board's Executive Director shall issue a report to the Charlottesville City Council in June 2020

Respectfully to Dr. Bellamy's proposed amendment to allow the Executive Director to make the period for the report briefer, it seems like what the community is asking for is actually to allow more time.

The concern seems to be that there needs a more robust engagement with the auditor positions.

It seems like the hesitance is that council doesn't want, it doesn't feel comfortable committing to an extended auditor position even on a consultant basis, but I just, for clarity purpose, I think the anxiety I'm hearing from the community is that that's too brief of a period for an auditor to provide meaningful guidance to the executive director who's also being onboarded during that period.

The 60 days is just not enough time, and there's not a specific

But that was I think the initial discussion was the having it by June, which we were told was too long.

And so I think this should cover whether it's brief or by June, right?

Right.

In effect to the individual's comment

If the council adopts Dr. Bellamy's proposed amendment, the executive director, once he or she is hired, can at any time propose the auditor position and present a report to council.

However, if they're hired before April 30th,

They must make a report by June 2020.

If they were hired after April 30th, let's say they were hired May 15th, they would be required to present a report to Council by July 15th.

And again, that's the council's prerogative.

So instead of 60 days, have 90 days or something like that?

Well, I think the point is that what I think is covered, we either need to commit to hiring this, authorizing to hire this position now or

the process that we have right now.

And so I don't think that there's another agreement.

So the discussion isn't whether there's a misunderstanding, it's just they're two different paths, right?

and the additional thing.

Right.

Okay.

So we're going to vote on this.

We've already motioned and seconded it.

Yeah.

Okay.

And Kathy South, second.

And I just have a question for the initial CRB.

Is there any concerns that this was not part of the qualifications that you all had listed in your report?

So what Counselor Galvin and Hill, they are saying is that they pulled directly from the report that you all gave these job, um, the qualifications for this position.

As far as I could tell, if you could come, somebody, if you want to speak.

As far as I could tell from the oral recitation that seemed to be the job description that we set forth in the initial draft, I'm still concerned about

what it means for the executive director to use that criteria because in a sense the criteria as we came up with it was sort of the best we could do putting our heads together.

The ultimate determination about whether an auditor is needed is going to come from a thorough going examination

of the data, but this goes back to the cart before the horse problem that Adeola was describing, which is we can all wrap our heads around the kinds of qualities that an auditor will need.

But you need the auditor to evaluate the evidence to justify the auditor's existence, which places the executive director in a sort of insoluble bind.

We wrapped our heads around the fact that at the end of the day,

We think an auditor is needed.

We would be 100% confident of that if we had had access to the data that we were requesting throughout the year.

We never got that.

I fear the executive director won't get that.

So I'll be real brief.

My main concern is that in a board that's meant to be transparent, the public hasn't seen this document.

We're just hearing about it, but we don't have time to look at it and review it.

And that seems to be the opposite of the transparency we're trying to create with this board.

What we found over the course of a year is very difficult.

to put these pieces together because there's lots of moving parts.

And when we try to piecemeal this by taking a little bit of this and a little bit of that, we're sort of diluting the entire process.

So we created something for oversight and now we're trying to piece together a weak review board.

We were honestly just trying to be responsive to the feedback we were hearing.

And there's not interest in this.

I mean, I just want to know.

We were just trying to kind of bridge a gap.

So we can leave this out in the – when you all are putting the job description together, you all will have access to the documents that they presented and the HR director and – It's fine.

It would be good if we could read it what I read into the minutes.

So I just think it was a public record.

Okay.

Okay.

I move to adopt the ordinance with the amendments as presented by Mayor Walker for both and adopt the bylaws with the amendments as proposed by Mayor Walker.

So it's four to one.

And that's that.

All right.

So I just need a five minute.

Meeting back to order.

Next we have the resolution for the Planning and Coordination Council Dissolution.

Good evening Mayor Walker and Councillors.

I will give a brief presentation and then turn this over to Vice Mayor Hill.

This is about the University of Virginia, Albemarle County, and the City of Charlottesville in 1986 entered into what is referred to as the three-party agreement.

And what that agreement really did was it coordinated land use policies between the three entities.

As a portion, or I should say a component of that agreement, the Planning and Coordination Council was established, colloquially known as PAC.

And PAC has since that time been the entity where members of council, the Board of Supervisors and the University of Virginia discussed

I believe right now the meeting schedule is four times a year the land use projects that would affect the entities themselves, most specifically the University of Virginia.

This year the PAC and a group of individuals, staff members, have come up with a new proposal

It's called the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee.

And just to give you a brief explanation, and I'll again colloquially use the acronym LUPIC.

LUPIC would be maybe not the best term.

Maybe something better will come up, but LUPIC.

will ultimately expand, it will be a committee of 13 staff members from UVA, the city, the county, Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, as well as the University of Virginia's Real Estate Foundation.

It will be 13 members and it will include one planning commissioner from the city of Charlottesville and one planning commissioner from Albemarle County.

This staff oriented body will meet to discuss not only land use issues but also environmental and infrastructure issues that will be part of projects from the University of Virginia as they relate to its land use activities within the city of Charlottesville or Albemarle County.

This body, since it's a staff body, is not subject to the FOIA meeting requirements.

However, any documents that are a product of LPIC would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act's public records requirements.

But in addition to LUPIC and the Freedom of Information Act public records requirements, the proposal also is going to create a biannual meeting in which all city councilors, all members of the Board of Supervisors, and officials from the University of Virginia will convene in an open public forum to discuss

What projects which I think traditionally had been discussed by the PAC.

Thank you for having me.

Chip Boyles, Executive Director for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

Our role in this has just been to help facilitate, convene.

I have participated with Mr. Mike Murphy, who at the time was the interim city manager.

and Mr. Jeff Richardson, the County Executive for the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and working with some of the administrative staff for the University of Virginia.

I think Mr. Blair has described it very, very well.

I do think one of the items that was a very important

that may have been left out was that trying to create the ability for the three entities to discuss beyond the land use planning.

The original intent was around, you know, fast growing university, fast growing communities and addressing the land use issues.

But since that time, a lot of other things, law enforcement, safety, traffic,

you name it, which was not included to be able to be discussed by PAC.

So I think

One of the intents was to be able to address common issues outside of what PAC would allow.

The other thing that we have found, quite frankly, because we've had some questions about is this further limiting discussion?

Will this have the transparency by only having two meetings a year?

We went back and looked at the last several years and given trying to pull that group of people together and sharing the management of it, the past practice has been the City of Charlottesville would oversee the meetings one year, Albemarle County would the following, UVA would the following.

With all of that, this group is only averaged between two and three meetings a year.

Anyway, so you aren't really having very fewer meetings than you have been in practice.

So that's kind of been some of the discussion behind

I just want to kind of go off of what you just said please Dave.

Major issues I can say that in the two years I've been on there anything that's been presented to us are things that we've been already well aware of and I don't see it as really a decision-making opportunity but rather honestly an information sharing and I think that's been the feedback that other elected officials I know have had and so it was a huge reason for you know why I got behind us really having to relook at this along with honestly just how narrow even trying to recommend transportation items being discussed

Yeah, we've been having the discussion since the first meeting about how productive the meetings are not, I guess, and what we could do to make them better.

There was a lot of concern, and I was one of the main people voicing those concerns about transparency with kind of

you know breaking off like this leadership group but then also having this kind of you know these joint sessions I think because the as was stated because the range of topics that we would now cover I mean I said in the first meeting and the first question I asked was

that this was basically just a meeting for UVA to tell us what they needed.

It didn't seem like a partnership.

And so that was my first comment and my very first PAC meeting.

And it seems like having these joint meetings could potentially open the door.

One, it'll be public.

All three entities will be there.

And we would have an agenda.

that would cover a range of topics.

In terms of the transparency piece, I know it was coming.

Was it Liz?

Liz.

OK.

When she was at the last meeting, so just a lot of concern there.

specifically around just the staff portion of the meeting not being a public meeting.

But the comments around that was that a lot of that information hadn't been worked through and may not have been necessarily ready.

Mayor, if I could add one other thing that I think we've kind of glossed over, just haven't spoken of yet too.

One of the other things I think to address the transparency, as I did mention, each of the three entities took turns managing that year's agenda and documents.

which meant they were never, documents that were presented were never in one place and so they were very, very difficult for the public to find.

if available at all, quite frankly.

So I have a question.

So I've heard some reforms.

So there is currently a PAC has a tech technical committee.

I don't think it was ever 13 members, but it sounds like my question then is, why not just make the PAC tech more robust?

but you still have the quarterly meetings between the principals of the county and the city and the university.

And then you would also, you could still have TJPDC as the repository of all those documents.

That's twice a year with the everybody together.

The goal is to have four meetings with the county a year, two of which would include the university.

And then I guess the next question is, in terms of procedure, since this is going to be something that we move to change to have the full board and the full council be weighing in twice a year with the university, why wouldn't we have this discussion at the next joint

Well we discussed it as a PAC organization and that group I guess came short of making a formal recommendation but agreed that they would put this proposal in front of both bodies so we're looking at it tonight and the county's looking at it on Wednesday to have a decision come in that way because

But you could change that definition of PAC and still have the quarterly meetings with two counselors, two supervisors.

and then to high level executives of the university.

I'd like to ask a question about the suit.

I was the representative along with

with you during the first two years.

And there was a lot of debate and history about this and we got a couple emails from former mayors and so on talking about it.

It was designed to be a meeting of principles.

I remember I asked Terry Sullivan when she was the president of UVA, I said this is something you're supposed

It seemed like it would only be effective in the way that it was designed, which was to be a policy-making body or priority-setting body among the leaders of the organizations.

And what it had become was kind of a presentational body where delegates were being sent, and that's why it feels the way that it feels, where you're kind of just

receiving very pre-cooked briefings, and it's not actually the leaders from the body sitting there and really working over tough problems.

It's more like watching a pitch deck or a slide deck on something, and it feels not like that functional.

So I'm

I can totally understand where the frustration is coming from because if it's irretrievably become that way, which is already where like I spent a little bit of time trying to get it to move more toward the thing where like the city manager and the COO of the university or the president of the university would go and they would really feel like they were there making decisions or at least setting policy, working over policy.

The president came a couple of times.

But it wasn't set up to be a forum where the respective leaders are actually considering or working.

It was just to hear presentations.

serve its purpose.

So it wasn't actually anything to plan and coordinate.

It was kind of to here.

So I would think that it could only, it does feel a little, it feels like the one's kind of hasty because it's sort of making a decision right away.

Again, but it's like, is that a function of

something intrinsic or something that just needs to be changed and I'm just thinking how hard we work to get two elected officials from each body to be seated on the CACDB because we wanted to have a local elected presence talking directly with you know key stakeholders in a major industry in our community.

UVA is a critical

industry in our community.

They're COO.

So I just I just I'm having some troubles here understanding why this this is becoming so staff driven staff are ought to I think it's two parts just like it's two parts now but two parts that we're hoping that is more functional and there is a goal to review the decision in a year to see if

There needs to be any changes with what has been proposed.

Having, instead of just two people who couldn't necessarily make a decision, having it be a public meeting where all the council was present.

So if there was a vote that needed to be taken, all the county, all the board of supervisors, and the leadership at UVA who could make some decision, if there was a vote needed,

that we needed to take, we would have the ability to do that.

I do think that was a very important part of the discussion is that under the new setup,

Lueck, the technical group, whatever the name is.

They could do work, they could prepare a report, they could prepare a recommendation, and they could bring that to one of the two joint meetings of the city council, board of supervisors, and the university's administration, and a decision could be made there.

Under the current setup, the technical committee could bring a report to PAC,

But PAC could do nothing with it.

And I had some concerns about the staff group and brought those up, being able to have these discussions that were not public and how much information from the discussion came out.

I'd like to call a question.

I'd like to make a motion if we don't mind.

I so move that we, as described in the meeting packet, dissolve the PAC.

I second it.

Well, colleagues, I just

I can't agree with this.

I just don't understand why.

I'm going to vote for it reluctantly, because I do think that if there's been another couple of years of what I saw, I do think that maybe a phoenix needs to rise from the ashes

and where it's ended up for a new era of high-level cooperation.

And I've talked to Dr. Richardson about this.

I do think that we need very robust coordination with the highest levels of universities.

It's absolutely urgent.

And I think that President Ryan has already been doing this a lot with the mayor.

And it needs and it should be structural.

OK. All right.

Please vote.

All right, that carries four to one.

Sure.

This is the annual State of the Forest, and it's traditionally been presented by the Tree Commission.

All right, thank you all very much.

I'm Paul Josie, the chair for the Tree Commission here this evening.

Our role is advisory to council to talk about trees and how the state of the city forest is.

So I'll quickly go through some of these slides.

start about sort of upcoming events here.

So first we'll just start off with a few trees around town.

These are images of things you may see around town.

So this one here is, this is something you may recognize from Preston Avenue.

This is right across from Mona Lisa Pasta.

This is in January.

This is how we actually drove by this.

We drove by this in January and saw that, let's see if I can get this to be full screen.

What else?

All right, well, this was, so anyway, there's some utility work you can see going on nearby.

This was one of those projects where you were, I stopped to take some, to look at it.

And you can look, it's very easy to kill a tree.

You can sort of see in this image here, this is just, you know, very close to these trees.

This was the idea of how you're cutting around the roots.

This was sort of a concern about the utility work done in this, so with those trees, so we wrote to council, wrote to staff,

Knott Council and notified them the next day.

Drove by that same site, and you can see the trees did indeed fall down on their own accord thanks to being cut.

Anyway, this is a city entrance corridor.

You can see that tree right there.

Actually, the trees were, the limbs were actually ripped from the trees by the equipment as they accidentally knocked that tree down.

So this happened in January.

This is last week around one of the remaining trees there.

This is also your city entranceway corridor.

I don't know if anyone was notified about this work.

This is generally the approach we see sometimes with trees and utilities in the city.

This is another project.

This is 2nd and Garrett Street.

This is a very healthy tree that was designed, the building was designed around.

They removed over 50% of the canopy of that tree, and then they said that tree was saved.

That tree, you can see that it has lost most of its canopy, but it's preserved, so to speak.

They redid this project

For a new building next to it, this is upcoming, so you can see there's a proposed tree protection fencing in this area, but then they actually trenched through the entire root zone of that tree, any remaining roots, they had built this wall a few years earlier cutting off all the roots of that tree, and then they had trenched to it, so this is our preservation, this is another

Another slide, this is just the same project actually, this is more tree preservation work that's done and this is a problem.

So this is where, who are you going to call, right?

So the Tree Commission, we're here to look at these things.

It's like, what the heck?

How do we help this situation?

We're looking, we started off this year, we were really excited thanks to a lot of great work from a lot of late nights and people sort of getting around with the standards and design manual, rewriting and overhaul the entire standards and design manual chapter 10.

This is the tree and landscape.

We've changed it from landscape and lighting chapter.

So before it was about lighting and now it's about trees.

So we really clarified the language.

We referenced the city's best management practices, also streets that work.

So this is a really helpful document that's really clear for anyone working in the city how to work around and work with trees.

So we're excited with this, thanks to the good work of Mark Rylander and Peggy Vanyares and other tree commission members.

And also Mike Ronane, the city arborist, and others from staff, Marty Silman, and such.

So we also submitted site plan comments on a lot of projects, Belmont Bridge, Friendship Court, the Kaiser family, Seminole Square, Zero Carlton.

We're really looking at the site plans and making sure they meet city codes.

So this is something that we're sort of closely looking at these site plans.

and really trying to catch maybe big errors and also seeing how we interpret our codes.

We're also on a lot of steering committees, East High Street, Fontaine, Barracks Road, really advocating for trees, for root zones, and for really walkable streets.

While we could be renamed the Tree and Pedestrian Committee, I think we really represent pedestrians very well.

So that's one thing we're looking at, these site plans.

As a project, if you're familiar with these trees here, this is Owen Garrett.

And the streets that work, this was one of the best streets for tree line streets in the city.

This is our signature street in the updated for the phase one master plan of Friendship Court.

Those trees are being removed.

A number of them were taken out.

They're also building a parking garage right underneath these trees.

So even if they're projected to stay, they're not actually saving the root zones of these trees.

Excuse me, can I just interject something because I want to really make sure I understand this because I did pursue that question with Sunshine Mathon and the trees were identified as being in a precarious situation.

They're not identified to be taken down, they're being identified to be protected.

They, according to the plan, say they're protected.

But if you remove the root zone of a tree, it's not protected.

I mean, by building a garage next to these trees that has a sheeting and shoring and you're dropping down 20 feet into the ground or more, you are essentially severing all root zones of those trees.

So even though you're keeping the tree itself,

You're not keeping the root zones of those trees.

If you actually use the city's best management practices for root zone mapping, you would have a 20 to 30 foot offset from building phase to save those trees.

So this was our challenge and why we really wanted to address in the standards and design manual how to make it easy for developers to read this as well as city reviewers to review this.

So what's going to happen in the next phase?

Are these trees protected?

We're spending $100,000 on our mall trees to make sure they're well preserved and protected.

And then in our neighborhoods where we have mixed income housing, which is two blocks away, what are we spending on our big trees here?

Are we really looking after them?

So these are what we're looking after is what we care about, these spaces for these communities.

This is also really great work from Roxanne White and others in our planning committee.

We've continued to map out all the data of where trees are planted in the city, how much money is spent for these in the city.

So this is looking at our canopy loss in the overall city.

We've noticed in 10 years we lost over 350 acres of trees roughly of canopy.

Yes?

This is done with aerial mapping.

It's a grant that's provided every five years.

We should have had this year, but the state deferred the grant till next year.

This is the city's 2013 comp plan goal 2.2, expand and protect the overall tree canopy.

This is a key mission that we're looking at.

So we have a goal set forth for the city.

This is just a Washington Post article about shade and the value of shade in communities.

A lot of poor neighborhoods don't have shade.

This is something found across the country.

And what you see is in these areas, there are heat-related illnesses that often affect kids and people over 65.

Two key demographics we're trying to protect with shade and comfort in the communities.

And so providing trees are really valuable to providing good in communities.

This is just a quick example of mapping temperature versus vegetation.

These are correlated elements that really impact our communities.

This is our goal every year is 200 trees.

You'll notice each year, this is looking at 2017, 2018, 2019, we're not hitting those goals for 200 trees a year.

Last year in 2018, we're actually removing more trees than we were planting.

This is with our budget that's allocated through the CIP process for planting.

All new tree plants are allocated through the CIP process and requested every year.

So again, this is looking at

Again, this is where the trees are planted.

We are planting canopy trees, but we're not hitting those numbers of over 200.

This is, again, looking at those diagrams.

Besides the first image there from 2016 that we actually had the McIntyre Exchange Project, which a lot of new trees went in, generally we're not hitting our 200 goal this year.

Last year we did, thanks to other projects.

These are by different departments in the city.

So what the tree commission has done is started a free tree program.

We're working with the CATS, the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards.

This is a program where we actually work with the tree stewards, thanks to Rosa and Simone and others in the tree commission, to knock on doors of streets that are missing canopy and ask if they want a tree within 15 feet of the right of way.

There isn't right of way in this city.

That's just a fact of the city.

There's very little right of way to plant in.

And so we're looking at how to do this.

Independently raising this money through grants.

This is all done through CATS and the Tree Commission.

Last summer we planted 25 trees.

Excuse me.

This is how we found neighborhoods.

We looked at neighborhoods that were lower income neighborhoods, that were block grant recipients.

We targeted neighborhoods that had the most available, over 100 acres of possible planting area, because not everyone wants a tree.

That's just the fact of it.

We knock on, say, 100 doors, and we get 25 people who want a tree, a free tree in their front yard.

That's a surprise to some, but anyway.