City Council Listening Session, 4-7PM   8/4/2020

Sure.

Why don't we ask the audience if you're on via the webinar, click the raise hand icon.

and this will just give us a sense as to how many people plan to speak to council.

We will lower everyone's hands and start this process over as we form the line.

But if you're interested in speaking, click the raise hand icon or press star nine on your telephone.

Okay.

That's 18 out of 127 people currently.

Then we will proceed if at this point 18 people are raising their hands.

We will proceed with the normal three minutes for speakers.

If I don't

We are planning, we do need to do to keep this as close to seven o'clock tonight as possible.

Our staff worked last night and everyone had to be back in early this morning as well.

And two late nights in a row is really a lot to ask.

I understand this is very important, which is also why this will only be, again, the beginning of this type of listening and working forward.

So please, if you don't speak today, please feel free to email, to phone call, to reach out in many different ways and know that we will be soliciting input in the future too.

And with that, I'm calling the meeting to order.

Ms.

Since this has been determined to be an official meeting, we will take roll.

Mr. Payne Present Mr. Snook Here Ms.

Walker is absent.

Ms.

Magill Present Ms.

And with that, I'm going to turn the meeting over to Dr. Richardson to speak about the intentions of this listening session.

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor, members of city council, and to the public.

I know many of you were with us last night.

Thank you for joining us again today.

As many of you know, since the death of Mr. George Floyd and even prior to that,

We've gotten a lot of emails pertaining to our police department.

And I've tried to take as much time as I could as the city manager to meet with many of you in the community, as well as listen to a lot of issues that you have dealt with with the police department over the years prior to me getting here as well as after I got here.

But as we talk more about

Mr. George Floyd is untimely and just basically is untimely death.

We received a lot of emails, phone calls, and a lot of one-on-one conversations with many other residents in our community pertaining to defunding the police department.

as well as talking more about policing in our community.

So tonight, I think, and I'm pretty sure that the council members will echo this, is what can we do to improve our overall relationship with the community through our workings with the police and the community as a whole?

And tonight, we have approximately, well,

a little under three hours now as well.

Stop talking in a minute and then listen to the public in your comments.

But the main thing is just get a better, we want to get a better understanding of your thoughts as it relates to if we went in the direction of defunding the police.

What does that really mean to you so that we can look at it from our side in terms of our budgeting as well as our organizational staffing in those areas?

and then on top of that, to really understand, you know, I wanna really hear your ideas.

I know as the council does too, you know, just particularly what about, to understand about policing and how can we overall better our relationship with the community?

You know, not only from my standpoint as city manager, but also too from, you know, the policing aspect so we can build a great community

along with our police department.

So I don't wanna belabor the point.

I just wanna move forward and basically go into our public comment period.

And I hear from you and then hear from you and then hear your ideas and your thoughts and your comments.

And then we as a collective body, meaning myself and the city council, we'll get back together, talk about those various things that you mentioned tonight and come back

later on and then to express our thoughts on your comments, ideas and thoughts and then bring back something that we can do to try to improve our relationships with the community.

Great.

City Council will now take public comments.

I'll call on people in the order in which they've raised their hands.

You can raise your hand by clicking the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you are joining us via telephone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine.

At this time on the webinar, we have 130 attendees, and we have eight people who've initially raised their hands.

Each speaker will have one opportunity for up to three minutes to share information about the future of policing in Charlottesville.

Hello?

Not sure where that one's coming from.

Ah, I found it.

All right, we've muted that one.

As I was saying, we'll take as many comments as possible between now and 5.30, when council and staff will take a 15-minute break.

Then we will resume at 5.45 and take comments until shortly before 7 p.m.

So, Vice Mayor Magill, our first speaker is going to be John Faults.

He'll be followed by Don Gathers.

John, you're now on the webinar.

Good.

I'm very interested.

I'm questioning whether we should defund the police department very much.

We have been robbed in our house.

I've had a generator stolen from my front yard.

Crime does exist.

If we were going to change anything,

The question would be domestic violence.

Should we have Region 10 be the respondent to domestic violence?

They could do that.

They'd have to have a party 24-7, and no crime has been committed as yet.

Second thing I'd like to just mention is an officer in the high schools.

When our daughter,

was in high school.

A bunch of unruly students savaged the library, tearing down all the books, throwing them into the hallway, and none of the teachers felt that they could cope with this crowd.

My wife taught art when she came here in 1970.

She had unruly people in her art class, destroying other people's work.

She was unable, I mean, they were bigger than she was.

She solved it by quitting.

I don't know how many other teachers are gonna quit if they can't handle it.

Now that's the school board's problem, not yours.

But let me urge, let me just comment.

You're going to make a decision now, and whatever decision you make, you're gonna have to live with.

The situation now, everybody can live with.

Are you sure any changes will be tolerable to everybody?

Thank you for hearing me.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Don Gathers, who will be followed by Elizabeth Stark.

Don, you're on with city council and staff.

I can hear you.

We can.

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you and good afternoon everyone.

First of all, thank you all for putting together this session.

As many speakers or a good number of speakers last night stated, it's well past time for the city council and city personnel to get behind the idea and ideals of a viable functioning and working CRB.

City council members, many of

whom were just recently elected, certainly ran on the platform of supporting a functioning CRB.

And we need for you all to uphold that campaign promise, if you will.

The need is there.

The evidence of the need is there.

And as the previous caller just referenced,

You need to be sure that you can live with the decisions that you make.

The community needs to be sure that we can live with the decisions that you make.

We need to make sure that people live with whatever decisions that you make or in some instances don't make.

We can't wait on the information or actions to come out of Richmond, out of the legislature,

We need to go ahead and take actions right now while we have the opportunity to.

We've certainly seen what goes on, what has gone on across the country, and God help us should anything like any of those incidents happen here.

But they hadn't happened anywhere until they actually happened.

So if we can take some steps to try to prevent those things, if we can take some steps to try to prevent or put some things in place so that when things do occur,

we have a means, a method and a vehicle in order to check those things before they balloon out of control.

We certainly need to do so.

And there's nothing wrong with having a system of checks and balances outside of the organization in which you represent.

I hope that the city council and administrators will indeed listen to what the community has to say

and I certainly hope that we can get on board with this.

Give the CRB the powers that they so sorely need, including subpoena power, which the city manager can do right now through his office.

Just get behind it.

The initial CRB put in a lot of work, a lot of man hours, a lot of time to get this up off the ground.

And the newly appointed CRB is putting in a ton of work

and we just ask that you respect that work, respect the individuals doing it and get behind.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Elizabeth Stark, followed by Anna Mendez.

Elizabeth, you're on with city council and staff.

Hi, yes.

We can.

Okay, thank you.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Stark.

I live on Fairway Avenue in the Woolen Mills community.

And I want to talk about defunding the police and what folks mean when they talk about that.

Defunding, another way to say it is reinvesting.

Right now, we spend $18 million

so that police can respond to mental health calls, substance use disorder calls, chronic homelessness, chronic houselessness, and domestic and sexual assaults.

And these are not activities that are well suited toward police responses.

So the defund movement is asking that we shift funds away from paying the police to respond to these kinds of calls.

with being poorly equipped to respond to these kinds of calls and support the community by putting into place a robust network that is trained and able to answer these calls with the kind of sensitivity they warrant.

So when people talk about defunding, it's really about reallocating resources to support the community and eliminate the need for harsh policing.

I think it's important to note though that some of our institutions like Region 10 or social services don't have the community's trust.

We need to work to create

organizations that the community does trust, right?

And so, you know, that's what we're asking for.

Eighteen million dollars is a lot of money and we should be using the most we should be using much of that money to invest in the community instead.

I also want to say, though, that policing probably will continue in the short term.

And within that, we need oversight.

We need robust oversight and

It's high time to support a fully empowered police civilian review board.

They need to be given the chance to audit police to keep track of complaints, to subpoena, and take disciplinary action.

We have the disproportionate minority contact report.

We know that policing, that Black and Brown communities in Charlottesville are over-policed and it's time to take action and the PCRB is a starting place for that.

So in the short term, we want oversight.

We want accountability.

But in the long term, we want to invest in communities and not policing and not jails and prisons

and punitive measures.

We want to support people because that's what they need.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Anna Mendez, followed by Jeffrey Fogle.

Anna, you're on with council and staff.

I can hear you, Mr. Wheeler.

We can.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you, city council members, Dr. Richardson and Chief Breckne.

for hosting this session.

My name is Anna Mendez and I'm the Executive Director of Partner for Mental Health.

Earlier today, I submitted our comprehensive written statement to you and I am grateful for this opportunity to reiterate some of our most important points.

As mental health advocates, our interest regarding deconstructing the police relates to the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system.

Local data here in Charlottesville lets us know two things.

One is that black and brown people are treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than are white people and at the same time people with mental illness are treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than are people without mental health challenges.

Addressing this issue is going to result in recovery for some of our most vulnerable members of our community.

In our letter to you, we brought to your attention the significant impact of alcohol misuse in our community.

I would be interested to hear what Chief Brackney would think if no one ever misused alcohol in our community.

Again, how different her police are watching her raise her eyebrows right now.

We would, as part of defunding police, we call on the city of Charlottesville to provide immediate access to a continuum of trauma-informed culturally competent and evidence-based alcohol treatment options for all residents of Charlottesville who desire it at no cost to participants, regardless of their insurance status, even if they have no criminal justice system involvement.

The second most important thing that we think

City Council can do around deconstructing the police in the best way possible is to establish the work group as proposed by Myra Anderson, leader of Brave Souls on Fire, charged with reimagining mental health crises without police intervention to guide the creation and implementation of a continuum of interventions to prevent the criminalization of mental illness in Charlottesville.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeff Fogel, followed by Kristin Ardrey.

Jeff, you're on the city council and staff.

As I see it, there are two issues here.

One has to do with the structure of a police department, which has already been addressed, the kinds of things that police officers are not well trained to do and frankly don't want to do.

The second part of the problem, and I think the trickier one, is the culture of policing.

When I was in law school, the Supreme Court threw up its hands with respect to the disrespect by police across the country for the Fifth and Sixth Amendment, the right to remain silent and not incriminate yourself, and the right to counsel and impose the rule that we would throw out truthful evidence because that seemed to be the only way to deter the police.

The same thing happened with respect to the Fourth Amendment.

And so there's been a general hostility since all three of those amendments do interfere with fighting crime, but they do so in a way that's consistent with the Constitution.

Now, what are the other problems?

We've known for a long time, certainly as I was a child watching Serpico on TV, that police officers are in danger if they tell on another police officer.

We know that the police are now talking about shifting from a warrior attitude to a guardian attitude, and that's wonderful.

But that's coming from the top, not from the bottom.

We have to know that all of our police officers, not simply the chief,

believe that guardianship is their role and not warriorship.

The problem is that we've had an attitude towards the police in this country of hero worship and warriorship.

And so the people on police forces around the country are people who grew up hoping to become warriors.

Now, you can't shift that by simply having a police chief who says, now we're transitioning to a different attitude, which is guardianship.

It can't happen.

And we haven't heard any proposals for making that happen.

We know that the police have difficulty historically in policing themselves.

And so the institution by the city council of the Police Civilian Review Board is a very important step forward.

But we have yet to see what impact, if any, it's going to have.

And so I'm left with the conclusion that we cannot live with the current policing.

We must transition to a new police department, a police department where everybody who comes in shares the mission

of being a guardian and not a warrior, where every police officer shares the mission of reducing disparity in policing, not simply the top brass, because very little control is being able to be exercised by the top brass when police officers are on the street.

We need to know that our police officers will share the mission of the police department.

And that mission in this regard is, as I said, guardians

and protectors.

And I think the only way to do that is to start anew.

Thank you.

Right now we have 146 attendees in the webinar and we have 11 people with their hands raised.

Our next speaker is Kristin Ardry and she'll be followed by Robin Francis.

Kristin, you're on with city council and staff.

Awesome, thank you.

I appreciate y'all guys gathering today.

I know that, you know, parts of Virginia just got hit by a hurricane.

I'm not sure if that affected any of y'all, if y'all guys aren't in Seville, but I appreciate y'all guys gathering today for this subject matter that is kind of hard to answer and probably require a very much long-term solution process.

But I have two very specific questions.

The first one will be directed towards Chief Brackney herself, head of CPD.

My question is, if CPD does go through the reconstruction process of, you know, being defunded, does the department plan on firing curtain police officers?

Or do they plan on the long term of phasing out how many police officers are being hired on?

And my second specific question is for the General Counsel of Charlottesville.

And my question is, I know that the main focus is to look on, you know, reallocating funds from CPD to mental health

Mental health, I guess I'm looking for mental health programs and stuff and workers and social workers throughout Charlottesville.

Is it only CPD that y'all guys are looking at to defund or are there any other departments across Charlottesville that are also having their budgets looked at when it comes to helping aid the budgets towards mental health and social programs and stuff across Charlottesville which have been

underfunded for years.

Thank you.

And just for everyone's knowledge, Council will not be responding to questions as they come up, but we are documenting all of that information and Council will find the appropriate time to respond at future meetings or other communications.

Our next speaker is going to be Robin Francis, followed by Susan Bashline.

Robin, you're on with the city council and staff.

I can hear you.

We can.

Excellent.

I want to first thank you all for giving us the opportunity to speak today.

So thank you for giving us this time.

In thinking about

The city manager's question about what defunding the police means to me, I think I agree with the with a previous caller's assessment that it's really not defunding, it's more about reinvesting

funds and resources.

And that's how I see it.

I think defunding is really a poor term.

I think that if we could have more funds poured into mental health resources, have more funds poured into other resources that the community needs, like translators.

And so that

Other segments of the community can also be understood when they need help and social workers.

I think that it will help to create more trust in the community and more trust in the policing.

I also firmly agree with having a strong civilian review board.

I think that that also will go very far.

in creating trust in the community.

I know for myself, I have unfortunately had the experience of trying to lodge a formal complaint with internal affairs after witnessing an assault on a small child by a police officer.

And I unfortunately was somewhat dissuaded from going forward.

and I think that incidents like that are unfortunately, and it happened about a year and a half ago, I think incidences like that are unfortunately not unusual and it's incidences like that that I think that erode the trust that the community needs in the people who have sworn to protect it.

So again, my hope is that those resources will be made available

so that there will be more attention paid to, again, mental health resources as well as resources for Black and Brown communities while keeping us safe.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Susan Bashline.

She'll be followed by Ellen Contini-Morava.

Susan, you're on the city council and staff.

Yes, thank you.

My name is Susan Bashline.

I co-own Magpie Knits with my business partner Blair Williamson.

We're at 111 West Main Street.

My views I think are a little different than what I've heard so far today.

I think what I really want to talk about are things that I see every day.

I'm downtown every day.

One example of something I saw today that is total opposite of what, you know, things I'm hearing.

The police officers that I see daily have an amazing relationship with most people on the downtown mall.

myself as a business owner.

The people that you see that I know work on the mall, they know them, they know them by name.

They also know pretty much every homeless person by name, interact with them and form a relationship that I think is very important.

I heard a siren this afternoon and I walked out on the mall to see what it was and it was, I'm sorry I don't know the gentleman's name, the police officer I see every day, on his three-wheeled motorcycle, whatever it is, and he was working with a young boy and showing him how the bells and whistles on his

Tricycle thing works.

And it was amazing.

It was just that it was a interaction that really just, you know, it was touching and it just gave me so much faith in what's happening.

You know, we we hear the bad, we never see the good.

But I see the good every day.

I unfortunately have had occasions to have to call the police.

And

Some of the occasions have been for criminal reasons.

Someone running in the shop with a gun, someone chasing someone else in the shop.

And I've had people in the shop that have obviously need help.

It's obvious that they need mental help.

But who do we know to call?

The only person we know to call is 911.

and when they get there, they obviously can assess whether it's criminal or someone that has a mental problem.

But I have to say, all my experiences with these frontline people, knowing what they put up with every day has been nothing but positive and they work very hard and I think there's way more good than there is bad in this situation.

and I think that strong leadership is how we're gonna get the results we need from the people on the force.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ellen Contey-Morava.

She'll be followed by Brenda Brown-Grooms.

Ellen, you're on the city council and staff.

You'll need to unmute your microphone.

Can you hear us, Ellen?

Well, we will try the next speaker.

We'll come back to Ellen.

I can.

We can.

Thanks for listening to me.

I'm grateful for this opportunity.

I'm Brenda Brown-Grooms.

I'm one of the pastors at New Beginnings Christian Community here in Charlottesville.

Let me begin by saying that Dr. Brackney is the first and only police officer I've ever trusted, which is consonant with my experience as an African American person.

I have no delusion about whether or not we need a police force.

Of course we do.

However,

Charlottesville does not need tanks and bombs to take care of the citizenry.

We really do need to put money in other areas, mental health being one of the foremost areas.

Police are not trained to take care of the many mental health traumas that I see as a pastor and just in the neighborhood.

That's something entirely different and we need to recognize that.

At the same time, however, we need to recognize that every department in this city needs to be prepared to work together if we're going to have a greater good come out of our doing any work at all.

Even though it's 2020, the city is very much Jeffersonian.

We are a landed gentry group.

People have their fiefdoms.

Fiefdoms don't work in the 21st century.

has to work.

What we've got to skew our minds to is figuring out how to be more global in every way possible.

And that's important because if we won't get ourselves together, we're all going to destroy each other.

It's just a simple fact.

Listening is always good, and I thank you for the opportunity.

But then you must know that after you've listened to us, we're watching to see what you're actually going to do.

and I will hold you accountable as I expect you to hold me accountable.

Thank you.

We'll go back to Ellen Contey-Morava.

Try one more time.

Oh, yeah, I'm Ellen Contini-Morava.

I'm a resident of Charlottesville.

I live on Montebello Circle.

I would just like to, I think it's not harmful to repeat some things, even if you've already heard them.

So I just want to express support for those who have talked about needing for police to not always have to be the first responders in every emergency situation.

That, for example, people who call 911

There should be the possibility for a responder who is trained in mental health, for example, to respond rather than the police.

And there should be funds available for peer crisis services, for crisis hotlines,

or warm lines for people with behavioral or mental health problems so that it doesn't come to the kind of crisis where 911 has to be called.

I also would support

We're allocating funds from things like military style equipment to mental health services, housing, youth and community development, and education.

and I also would support a functioning CRB that it should be supported, that it should have oversight, it should have accountability.

I suppose that you're already talking to other cities who are working on this same kind of issue.

For example, Eugene, Oregon has,

a crisis assistance team with a medic and crisis worker with mental health training who respond to emergency situations.

This kind of thing would be worth trying to emulate, consult with other cities and find out what has worked for them.

Okay, that's basically what I wanted to say.

Thank you.

We've heard from our first 10 speakers.

At this time, we've got 149 people as attendees and 12 people have their hands raised.

Our next speakers are Roy Van Doren followed by Rosia Parker.

You can raise your hand by clicking the raise hand icon in the webinar.

If you're joining us via telephone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine.

And I'll continue to call on people in the order in which their hands have been raised.

Next up is Roy.

We can.

Well, I want to talk.

I'm Roy Van Dorn.

I live on Rugby Avenue, but I'm also involved with downtown very much.

And I have been blessed to, in working with downtown, visit other downtowns similar to ours, including Burlington, Vermont, and Boulder, Colorado, which

Remarkably are very similar to Charlottesville and many of the issues they have.

Both of the other two locations have the same kind of challenges we do.

Downtown is a commercial destination, but unlike all commercial destinations in the area, we're the only one that has a public aspect to it.

and it's a challenging environment with business and banks, tourism, locals, and we have a challenge with misbehavior by some people that are daytime residents on the mall.

You know, of one of the speakers that will probably be before me and after me talked about mental health.

I urge the council and

Dr. Richardson to look at Burlington, Vermont.

Burlington suffers from an opioid crisis and they've been having this challenge for about the last eight years.

And with the opioid challenge comes a lot of mental health issues, bad behavior, erratic behavior, and that community really pulled itself together and said,

let's come up with a solution to this problem for everyone.

And what they adopted was kind of an ambassador program where there would be hired people, they have a downtown organization that kind of manages downtown.

And the ambassadors are on the mall all the time, very similar to what our police department does now.

and they are there to work with all parties and they are the kind of the eyes and ears of the community.

And they can approach and say, this is a mental health issue and direct that resource to the problem.

Then sometimes when it's criminal, they can instantly call 911 and deal with it that way.

The problem for merchants and everybody else on the mall and everybody downtown is that we have a challenge in trying to decide who is the best resource.

And Burlington really worked extremely hard to solve that problem.

Thank you.

And I'll mention for those who joined the webinar late that we do have four members of council participating in the webinar.

You can see two of them on your screen and Lloyd Snook and Heather Hill are also participating.

Their cameras are just not on.

Next up, we have Rosea Parker.

She'll be followed by Sarah Burke.

Rosea, you're on with council and staff.

Yes.

Okay.

One, we need to abolish the police foundations or organizations who work with them on their behalf of some of these laws that they fight for with legislation, because the laws that they fight for give the police the right to be the law enforcer instead of protecting and serving the community that they took the oath to do.

Then they're trained to be militarized and that everyone will hurt them as some officers come out of the military with honorable discharge.

They could have mental health issues as well, undressed, and be a white supremacist.

Then officers also don't even want to develop relationships in the community from the perspective of the community.

There's no trust and that's not good.

Biased training still can be had, but with more mental health evaluations, needing to know the history of one's workplace if you consider to serve the people.

Living in the most vulnerable community of the disadvantages of people of color, we must create a MOU with the housing authority and the residents to be able to not to create more harm to the community of over-policing or under-policing.

We are policed by security and the CPD.

and that's with housing, but also with West Haven, we can also be policed by UPD as well.

That's too much.

As generations have suffered over the years, it's time for change.

And it's time to make the government accountable for their actions of police misconduct.

And that's accepting the PCRB into our city and make the change we want to see.

Transparency, respect and understanding of one human life.

No matter the badge, you are human, I would like to think.

But we as the community take care of us so it would only be right to help us by putting the resources in the communities so that they can govern themselves accordingly by creating our own village.

No more abuse please, by any means.

We set the precedence for the world.

Change must come.

There's no more business as usual.

And life is real.

So that means that it's time for the city to take charge.

and accepting the responsibilities and the wrong that they have created over the years no matter when you have come into position because when you chose those positions you already knew that those things came with whatever history that it came with.

So it's time for change.

It's time for transparency.

It's time for respect.

It's time for people to being in the local government of taking things personal because it don't just consist of the people that you take things personal with because this is a greater community and it's a much bigger community than we expect it to be and we have to be ready for the future.

If we say that we want to be ready for the next generation, we got to prove to the next generation that we're willing to do what it's time to do.

and that's changed and that's now.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sarah Burke.

She'll be followed by Sarah Tamsue.

Sarah, you're on with council and staff.

Great.

Thank you.

I just want to support what a lot of folks have said, which is that the reinvestment of funds that you are allocating to the police department to

community-based care that addresses issues of mental health, of substance use, of interpersonal problems and conflict within neighborhood.

A lot of that can be done without involving the police at all.

And so I encourage you to look at both sort of the co-responding models that are existing, but also looking at models of response

to calls that don't include the police at all.

Because in my work and in my experience, bringing somebody to the situation who is armed and who could be dangerous to an individual who's experiencing a mental health crisis or who's

using a substance or who is simply having a bad day, it can really exacerbate the problem.

And I think we know in Charlottesville that we can take care of each other and we do that really well here.

And so I just want to shout out to the communities that are doing so much of the community care.

work and say talk to those people.

There are people who have been doing this work for a long time and have been fighting for these issues that are going to be wonderful resources for you all.

I also want to just raise the issue of sort of budget and funding.

So we give this year $18 million to the police department.

The state police gave about $2.3

are giving about $2.2 million to our local police department.

And more than $15 million of that $18 million go to police salaries and benefits.

And so when we talk about defunding or reallocating funds, we are going to have to acknowledge that that means likely reducing the staff of the police department pretty significantly.

The other thing I want to bring up is

The same thing that everybody else has said, which is that, you know, we've talked a lot about civilian oversight in this community and fought pretty hard for it.

And I think what you all are hearing now, which I hope is resonating, is that that is not sort of the end all be all to police accountability and to changing the policing systems in our community.

It is sort of a

It is a moment for you to be able to show your support to the community and to sort of give some power back to people.

But it is also, you know, it's a tell to the community to say what you support and what you value.

And beyond that, I think

When we learn more about how the police operate, we have significantly more information to be able to give to you all as city leaders about what is going on from sort of an external unbiased perspective from the outside of the police department.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sarah Tamsou, who will be followed by Tanisha Hudson.

Sarah, you're on with council and staff.

Also, I should clarify, my name is Sarah Tansy.

I must have been typing too quickly when I registered for the listening session.

So I just wanna start off by telling you all a story.

So just yesterday, my partner was out running errands when he encountered a CPD police officer who was trying to deal with a raccoon that appeared to be unwell.

and this police officer asked my partner what my partner thought he should do about the raccoon.

And then later made a comment to my partner where he said, this is one of the things I hate most about what I have to do for my job.

I hate dealing with animals and people with mental health problems.

I just need y'all to let that sink in.

Like other speakers have said,

The culture of policing is a sick and violent one.

And that is where it started.

We know that Charlottesville Police Department officers have cultural sensitivity trainings.

We know that they've been going to these things.

We know that we've invested money in that and it is not shifting who applies for that job.

and how they get to engage with the community at large.

So I am here for defunding the police, like right away defund, moving into abolition.

And I just wanna speak directly to the three city councilors who are new to council, who many of us worked to vote onto city council and say that this is a moment in history.

and other cities are leading the way.

And when we sit through city council meetings and listen to pathetic excuses about we don't have the money, well, we're right here telling you where to get the money from.

We don't need men with guns in our streets who feel comfortable admitting to the citizenry that they don't like dealing with people with mental health problems.

There is a collective desire right now to radically reimagine how we interact with each other.

For too many people, calling the police is a crutch because we can't just have relationships with each other where we lean in and practice support.

So when we say defund and reinvest,

We are talking about giving money to the people who actually can do the work of supporting people.

When police engage with somebody, they're looking for criminality.

We are criminalizing each other.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Tanisha Hudson.

She'll be followed by Ang Khan.

Okay, first and foremost, I think this is exactly what you guys titled it, a conversation.

I think that's all it's gonna be.

Some of these conversations have been happening for a long time.

The people that you need at this conversation are your essential workers.

They're at work.

They're at your grocery stores.

They're at Wendy's.

They're at McDonald's, your restaurants that you're eating at.

The neighborhoods that are more affected by the aggressive policing here, those people aren't on this call.

So let me make that clear.

And I feel like the city really don't want real change.

Because if you did, you would allow officers

and I'm talking to Chief Brackney in particular, you would allow the officers who know the neighborhoods and know the community to speak out.

You will not let them speak out.

You will not let them engage with the community in a way that's beneficial to make Charlottesville a better place.

You just won't do it.

I don't know why.

You just won't do it.

And you know that I know that you won't do it.

So everybody else can trust you, but you know where we stand.

And outside that uniform, you cool, but

In the uniform, if you really want to be about change, then you have to let the people that know the community do the work because you're new to this community and you don't know all that's happened over a span of 30, 40, 50 plus years.

Also, a situation just happened in Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority, a couple of properties over there, Hardy Drive, First Street, they were barring people off the property.

This is the type of stuff that people are dealing with in these particular neighborhoods.

You all know about several situations that I've talked about over in the 12th Street Grady area.

Listen, I have filed numerous complaints.

Nothing's been done.

So we can continue to have the conversation.

But when you have community members like myself that's going to run down on your police every time they doing something I know they don't got no business doing because I grew up in these neighborhoods.

Don't pose a threat and say you're going to charge me with obstruction of justice.

I don't want to hear those messages through your other police officers sending threats to me.

I don't take threats lightly, and I'm sure you don't either.

However, if we're going to make this thing work, you're going to have to find a way to put your differences to the side.

I'll put my differences to the side.

We can all put our differences to the side, and we can make this whole thing work in a way that is beneficial for the community.

We're not getting anywhere.

We're just having conversations because I don't know what more proof you guys need.

You can defund the police, but if you don't fix the real problem, if you keep putting a band-aid over cancer, we're always going to have this problem.

So if you guys are willing to really work,

and have the community involvement, then I'm willing to work with you if you're willing to work with me.

But if you're not willing to work with me to find a solution for these neighborhoods, because most of the people on this call definitely don't represent the neighborhoods that I'm representing.

So let's find a way to put our differences to the side so we can really put together a better way of policing here in Charlottesville.

Our next speaker will be Anj Khan.

She'll be followed by somebody who's gonna have to share their name with us.

Anj, you're on the city council and staff, can you hear us?

You'll need to unmute your microphone.

Yes, thank you.

I'm calling to discuss the defunds campaign, which is taking place in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I've heard several speakers.

I've listened to their comments.

I don't think that there's a full understanding exactly of what the proposal that we sent to you of amending the budget 60% to $10,800,000

and redistributing those funds to the community.

As we know, the police department is not here to keep us safe.

They only arrive after the fact, and they are based in the idea of protecting property, which is capital, and then generating the PIC, which is the Prison Industrial Complex, and then also the School to Prison Pipeline.

We recognize that also in doing this, there are several conversations that need to take place within the community on how to build a different structure that doesn't replicate the current structure that is in place.

And those are conversations that need to take place.

Also, in listening to a lot of community members, when we're talking about developing a first responding system, which we proposed by halting the hiring and the training and

The posting of jobs for first response, like what we want to do is create this first responding system, right?

And that would be funded by those halts of

those tyrants.

I think we need to have a further discussion with community members who are not on this call.

And this was the problem that I had yesterday when I discussed, when I was talking about this conversation isn't reaching folks who need to be involved in the conversation.

and the way we do that is going out into the community which is not, we're not able to do because of the pandemic.

So yes, I would advocate for, I'm actually advocating for the 60% of police funding be redistributed.

I think it's important.

Folks should, and that allocation should be given to

housing, education, and mental health and substance use disease support systems outside of Region 10.

As we know, Region 10 does not fully advocate for you.

Fully advocate.

I was just asking if you could

It's over the three minute mark.

Okay, so then what I will say to you,

is I will send an email directly to counsel after this call talking about exactly what we need.

Since counsel obviously does not understand what defunding and divesting and investment means.

That's what you're there for.

If you don't understand those concepts, they're not anything new, right?

I'm sorry, but I have to allow everyone to have the same amount of time.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

The next speaker is on a Moto telephone and did not give their name.

So we're gonna turn on your mic in just a second.

That person will be followed by Stuart Evans.

All right, Moto E5 Play, can you hear us?

And you'll need to unmute your microphone.

All right, we'll come back to that person a little bit later.

Next up will be Stuart Evans.

I just want to start out by saying that I'm speaking in my personal capacity, not as a member of any board or any organization.

And I'd like to say that I know you all work very hard.

I think that what's often lost

on the public is just how hard you guys work for not a lot of reward and I appreciate your efforts.

I guess I have some questions, more rhetorical questions than anything.

I guess the first one is what's the point of this listening session?

I'm wondering what do the city council feel like they need to know that they don't already know?

These are not new problems.

The problems didn't start with George Floyd,

It didn't start with Tamir Rice or Sandra Bland.

They are older than our country is.

They've been around ever since, at least since police departments have been formalized and localized for at least 120 years.

So I don't know what more people in power need to hear before they make decisive changes.

I guess I'm wondering why the city council isn't asking CPD tough questions.

For example, I feel like they could start with, what are they doing with $18 million?

In other words, what's the return on investment?

What are we getting for that?

Are we safer?

Are citizens treated politely and fairly?

That's a good place to start, I think.

Another question is, where specifically does that money go?

CPD has released budgets, at least one in Excel and another two-page one, if you could call them budgets.

I mean, I think I'd get laughed out of a room if I called it a budget when I was applying for a loan.

And we don't really know where all that money's going.

I'm very curious at what the city council itself relies on when they allocate that money.

I'd love to see the documents.

But it's a lot of money, and I think it could be used for other things like funding schools and all the other things that people point out.

I think that transparency is absolutely necessary.

And I guess I'm also wondering, does the City Council have any idea how police officers spend their time on shift?

You know, there's been articles in the New York Times and other places about how on average nationally police officers spend about four to 6% of their time responding to violent calls and serious crime.

And a lot of other times they just drive around and run license plates and look for people to stop for minor infractions.

Is that really how we want to spend our money?

I think these are really important questions to ask and really they should be directed to CPD.

They're the ones getting the money.

You know, anytime a small nonprofit needs a little bit of money from the city, they have to jump through hoops to get it.

They don't just get $18 million and say, see you next year.

Thank you.

All right, we're gonna check back with two telephone users here.

We can.

Okay, thank you.

My name is Lisa Costello.

I'm a resident of the city, born and raised here.

I would like to just express some disappointment with the decision that I understand was made by the City of Charlottesville leadership, Charlottesville Police Department, and

Whomever else may have been involved to remove the school resource officers from the schools here.

I have one son who is autistic.

He has an IEP and he received special services at school and before last we had a lot of issues with

him being bullied.

One day someone was doing something wrong to him.

The next day he's doing something wrong to someone else.

You know how kids will do.

But my son's coping mechanisms due to his autism and other disabilities he has wasn't good.

And so the way he would handle things is to run away from the school.

and there was more than one occasion, Officer McCleary, I think his name was from Beaufort Middle, it was the school resource officer who left the school and followed my son all the way to our house to make sure my son was safe.

And I really appreciated him and this wasn't just on one occasion, this happened repeatedly to the point where I was trying to get Lonnie maybe in a more restrictive environment.

But anyway, because of my son's inability really to relate as well to other kids and his coping mechanisms, but it was a school resource officer there that ensured my son's safety.

Sometimes I was at work, I may have been, and I was in a position where I could not leave, but I got the phone call from the school resource officer was following my son off the school property.

And a couple of times I got here and the school resource officer and my son was here on the front porch when I got home.

So I really appreciated that.

I was very disappointed in the decision.

I was also disappointed in the fact that the city, the school board, and the Charlottesville Police Department

did not allow any public comment into that.

They didn't allow parents to express their views of what we thought having the school resource officers in the schools, nor did they open it up for any students.

I'm a single mom.

My son's father is not involved.

And not only did he do a lot, the officer do a lot for my son, but he was also a positive male role model for my son that he did.

And my son converted a lot of things and then they had a lot of talks together.

So it was a positive male role model that my son does not have at home.

So I just wanted to express how much I appreciated it.

And my son has had to call.

We've called the police a couple of times and for the most part, I think the police put their lives on the line every day and appreciate the work that they do.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is on via telephone.

The last two digits are 55.

That person will be followed by Blakely Calhoun and then Nancy Carpenter.

Yes, hello.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking my call.

I hadn't planned to speak on this topic, but listening to the previous caller, I'm also the mother of a now adult son with special needs.

and while his special needs are profound and we haven't had the need for any police intervention, I certainly do empathize with her situation.

I do have several friends, mothers also of parents who have special needs who in the past have mentioned similar benefits of having the SRO officers help in situations with their children in the schools and so I do have some empathy and I do understand also that public comment

and input was not taken in that decision.

So I would just like to support her in what she just made in her comments.

As far as the police department is concerned, I've been in this area for nearly 25 years.

I've had very little contact personally with the police department, but I've had several friends who have.

And I can say that in my personal experience, the people that I've spoken to, that it's all been positive.

I certainly am empathetic.

with those who have had unpleasant experiences.

I am the former chair of the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

My experiences with them have been mostly in organizational things for past events.

I will say, however, that I know one of the problems that I think the police department does have is at times, and there's no polite way of putting this, they're used something as a political tool in this town.

They're asked to enforce the laws and the codes that are on the books.

And with one group of people, those laws and codes may be interpreted one way and then for another class of people they're interpreted another.

And that's very unfortunate because if people in this town have a problem with the way that the police are interpreting those laws and codes, sometimes the problems are with the laws and the codes.

You have to go to those who are making those rules.

The problem is not with the police who are enforcing them.

The problem is with the people who are making those laws that you don't like.

So the fault is not with the police officer.

In particular, I go back to the Occupy Charlottesville encampment of 2011.

Some of the callers on this very listening session had some none too good situations with the police there.

And they were not very, let's say, polite with the police.

We're trying to be very good to them, I think, in that situation.

And they're harboring some resentment.

So I think some of their attitudes of the police are going back to some of what happened back then.

As far as defunding the police, words mean things and that word defund I think certainly has touched a nerve with people.

I certainly would be in favor of looking at reorganizing the police department and certainly reallocating funding proportionally based on the job that they're doing.

Let's say, for example, if 25% of their workload is reduced by what the mental health facilities are doing, then you could certainly reallocate their funding

Our next speaker is Blakely Calhoun, who will be followed by Nancy Carpenter.

I can, and I'm grabbing my dog who immediately decided to get riled up.

Yeah, and so I appreciate y'all organizing us today.

I will say that I'm 26, I live downtown, I graduated from the university, I'm black, I'm gay, I present great masculine, and I am aware that none of my degrees will really protect me in case I come into contact with the police.

I think someone said earlier about the different experiences folks have with the police and that's a theme I'm hearing this.

Not everyone is having the same experience with police.

And I really think that should be respected and particularly the folks that are having desperately bad experiences that for some folks can result in death or can result in traumatization.

I would like to prioritize those experiences.

No one doubts that good people can be police.

No one asked that.

I also think that we talked about that something about being a police officer in the forest attracts folks that like to exert violence.

There's something about that profession that is in there.

And it's not everybody.

But some folks get to be under the cover of other people, I think.

And I think that's what matters.

And so I will also say that the folks that are probably disproportionately affected aren't on here.

And so if you're saying, oh, yeah, I think all my friends had great experiences with police, this isn't for you right now.

I think, like, that's kind of not the point.

Maybe you did, and maybe you should think about why you did.

Like, what about you?

If someone had never met you before, they would treat you with respect, right?

I think the same things we're hearing about, like, oh, I would call the police on someone in my business that looked like they were mentally ill.

Like, if you were having a bad day, would you expect someone to call the police on you?

You wouldn't, right?

You have the type of social capital that no one would call the police on you.

And so you never have to wonder about that.

Like, as a Black person who lives downtown, as a Black person just traversing the world,

I'm afraid.

I shouldn't be scared to be taking my dog out, to be like, oh, maybe someone won't think I live here and they'll call the police on me.

That's happened.

People have died from that, right?

I shouldn't be afraid to like speed a little bit and think if I get pulled over, then like that could be the end of my life.

I shouldn't be afraid that someone could knock on my door at any time and shoot me as it happened with Breonna Taylor.

I think any system that the common denominator is, you have the police force.

And I'll say I used to work with police quite often.

I used to work in a residence hall.

We had to call the police all the time for really stupid things, to be honest.

It was part of our protocol.

And the look on their faces when we had the call, some of them were like, gosh, I wish I didn't have to be here.

which I didn't have to call you for something petty right but I've been working with the police I know like they have some skills to talk to people and talk them down but the ultimate tool they have is I'm going to arrest you whether you want to be arrested or not I think and we're thinking about what tools they have ultimately to lean on it's not the same tools of like resolution and something like that like when you approach someone once they're done

you get a different response from people.

If I would walk up to you and I had a gun on my hip, you probably wouldn't say, oh yeah, nice day, right?

That interaction looks a little different.

And so just thinking of the ways police interact with folks in the disproportionately bad experience some people are having, I would like folks to consider that when they say like, ah, my experience was fine.

Thank you.

We've now heard from the first 20 speakers.

We have 137 people in the audience as attendees.

Ten of those people have their hands raised, and just for everyone's expectations, we're scheduled to take a break at 5.30.

The next speakers are Nancy Carpenter, followed by Harold Foley.

Very good.

Thank you for the opportunity for this listening session.

There's a lot that I support from previous speakers.

I will say that I will echo what's been said to you from the Black and Brown speakers that have come forward.

The rest of us are speaking from a lens of privilege and white supremacy, even though some of us would probably not agree with that.

and looking at some information about policing, I looked at FBI crime solving rates and you know they're really pretty ineffective in solving some of the crime that data is kept.

Especially a lot of robberies and things like that, you know, they don't have a very good solve rate.

So that's kind of problematic and, you know, spending 18 million dollars or 10 million of it is going towards salaries.

When you look at those salaries, how much of it is overtime and special events?

How much of it is padding that base salary by doing all these kinds of extra things?

In looking at the culture, people were talking about the culture of the police department going back decades, 120 years.

And you're right, it has to start somewhere.

And if you're going to an academy that is making you feel like a warrior instead of a guardian, then how are you ever going to come back

to your home community and try to engage as a guardian when you've been told 24-7 that you're a warrior at the academy that's supposed to train you for various aspects of violent policing.

You know, we talk about mutual aid.

And in one of the ways I think that we could redirect police resources is they don't need to do well checks.

Too many times throughout the years, I've seen reports where well checks have gone bad, where somebody ends up dead for no reason.

So I think that when you're talking about redirecting what the police can do, if we have to keep them for a while, let them deal with the violent crime.

the murders, the rapes, the more serious aspects of crime.

Because really when you look at the Department of Labor, policing doesn't even make the top 10 as one of the most dangerous occupations in this nation.

Usually it's somewhere in the top 20, sometimes in the top 15, but never, I have not seen it over the last five years of data that I looked at that they were in the top five.

So I think that there's also a lot of indignity.

There's a lot, like I say, a lot of warrior attitudes, which I think is exemplified by the takedown of a homeless man recently on the downtown mall that was captured by various videos and have been put on social media that totally did not need to happen.

I don't know if that police officer had any CIT training or not, but he certainly looked like he was

coming for an MMA match instead of dealing with someone who had significant challenges.

And one of the biggest challenges here, going back to what somebody earlier said, is that there's a housing crisis.

If there are too many people, day residents on the downtown mall, they need housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Harold Foley, who will be followed by Karen Waters-Wicks.

Harold, you're on with council and staff.

Yes, thank you.

And first of all, let me say to the folks who haven't had bad experience with police officer.

First, I am a man, but secondly, I am a black man.

I have had some I've seen having subject to a

a paddy wagon told me it's going to blow my head off.

And I've seen officers do stuff to juveniles when I lived in West Haven was not right.

My whole thing though is what I want to talk about is how we can redirect the money.

And so right now, public housing is in the midst of some violent transits, right?

And you know, a lot of residents it's like, you know, so many people are depending on history of the police to come solve their problems.

But I'm thinking about how there could have been a team of mental health folks going into the community and helping people think about how to take back their community.

How we can use that money to really engage community members and show them that we really care.

So I'm about redirecting money, but I'm about redirecting money in the right places.

I'm about redirecting money to the folks who are doing the work on the ground.

Particularly, like I said before, what happened in South First Street.

It would have been amazing to have this crew of folks going into South First Street to talk to folks about the gun violence and talk to folks to help them through this trauma that they're having within public housing.

But no, the first thing that folks think about is what we've been thinking about, what people have been thinking about for history is like police can solve everything.

and you know one thing I understand too is you know in the schools if we take that police money and we allocate it to folks to come in and have people who work with you know individuals you know my son actually was working with some folks at the at Walker and I think one of the things that the teacher said to him is

Like, we wish we had more of you here.

And so how do we get more people who's going to be strong male figures and female figures for the young people?

Reallocate the money, put the money where it's going to

be helpful and going to be able to help people, young people and particularly older people to understand their value.

So thank you.

And I hope I don't offend anyone by what I said.

Have a great day.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Karen Waters-Wicks.

Hi, Brian.

Yes, I can.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak.

And thank you for hosting this opportunity for us to think about what policing might look like in our community.

My name is Karen Waterswicks.

I'm a member of the Charlottesville Police Foundation Board of Directors.

We are an organization that works with the police to help provide

additional support for things that the department cannot afford, such as diversity training and also engaging with the community.

What I'd like to say is that this is not a zero sum game.

I want a police department that is engaged in community policing.

I want a police department that is not biased, but I also want affordable housing for this community.

I also want support for mental health services.

One does not have to be done at the expense of the other.

And I think that needs to be clarified.

When we look at the police department's budget, a large portion of that is for salaries.

Those are people.

That's their health insurance.

That's their retirement.

Those are families and those are jobs.

And I would hate to see us have one go without the other.

If we defund the police and bring in health care services instead, that's not going to make people drive more safely.

We need to have a certain core size of our police department in order for any community to be able to function.

We want accountability.

That's going to take some money.

And we need to have a functioning civilian

Review Board, that's gonna take some money.

So my point is we don't need to defund the police.

We get the police department that we pay for.

So I would encourage the city to think about reallocating all of its resources, but to certainly make sure that there is a baseline for making sure that our police officers are adequately compensated

I'm an educator by trade.

We have an achievement gap.

That doesn't mean we should take money away from the school system.

It means we need to add more resources.

If we want a police department that is well-educated and well-trained, and we want true community policing, the bad news is, folks, we're gonna pay for it.

Great.

Council will take a 15 minute break.

Please keep your hand raised and if you'd like to get in line to speak, you can click the raise hand icon or you can press star nine if you're on via telephone.

If you're watching via Facebook, you can join the webinar

at Charlottesville.gov slash Zoom, and you can register and get in line to speak.

We'll be getting restarted in just a few minutes.

If you're on the webinar and you wanna get in line to speak to council about policing, you can click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

You can also press star nine if you're listening via telephone.

Right now we have 105 people in the audience and nine people have raised their hands.

We've heard from 23 people so far.

and if we don't call on you today and you still want to give feedback to city council, you can email council at Charlottesville.gov and they will receive your feedback.

We have four members of city council participating.

Mayor Walker could not be here today for this webinar.

and Heather Hill is on via telephone.

So that's why you're not seeing her video.

I'll go ahead and read some of the names that are in line right now.

Sarah Hoeing, Robin Hoffman, Patricia Eldridge, Lillian McVeigh, Devon Coles, Myra Anderson, Bashir, and Marion Votaw.

Ms.

Thomas, do we have to take a roll coming back from break?

Okay, thank you.

My brain keeps kind of forgetting some of these things, so thank you.

Yeah, if I could just say, somebody asked on Facebook why I was not, why my video wasn't on.

I can hear better when there's no video coming from me.

Yes, Vice Mayor Magill, I was here and Brian had me muted.

I had myself unmuted, but I didn't realize there was another.

And I'm also not able to be on video because I'm at a location right now is without power as well as data service.

I couldn't even video in with my phone.

Thank you, but I am here.

I just wanted to make sure I was just checking in because we are now at 5 45 and I call us back to order and from our break.

Great.

This will be speaker 24.

Sarah Hoeing.

Sarah, you're on the city council and staff.

Can you hear us?

Yep.

All right, thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk.

I live outside the city, but I work within it.

And I just had a little bit of a perspective that I wanted to share.

And I just ask that the council consider that the concept of the emergency paramedic has only existed since 1972.

So only almost 50 years.

And that's when the first residency program to train physicians for emergency care was established at the University of Cincinnati.

This can be a moment for us to consider the vision of 50 years from now where we might have played a part in focusing a qualified force towards social crisis aid to be a team of emergency response.

focused on healing the mental health, homelessness, and domestic violence crises in this city.

So I just wanted to share the concept of the future considering the small perspective of time that we have gotten used to having emergency paramedics.

In 50 years, we could have citizens that are used to having people who have social crisis aid as opposed to medical crisis aid.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Robin Hoffman.

Yeah, so thank you for having this.

I have been thinking a lot about my experience in Charlottesville regarding the police.

And then I was looking back a little bit about a lot actually for my life in New York.

in 9-11, etc.

And also I noticed that there was a time in my life, like after Kennedy was shot, then after Martin Luther King was shot, and then the Vietnam War.

These are all in my lifetime.

Yes, I'm very old.

And where we really depended on the participation of police to

enable us to feel security, but at the same time to not be there when we were peacefully protesting, et cetera.

I think what my question is really about is, first of all, I think with all that experience that I've had in a big city, when I came here, I noticed that everybody has a gun.

and then the Martin Luther King birthday event or in Richmond where everybody was carrying, you know, these military grade rifles, I asked Chief Brackney, how's this possible?

Okay, so I just want you to know, I've been very surprised by this sort of culture here.

and I know we've been in wars and we actually haven't stopped being in wars and especially since 2003 and so I think what's happened is that, and this is my question, how does a city and a state change its policy and go around like they did in New York after 9-11 and then before that

to actually confiscate guns that are military grade.

How did they do that without a, I guess, federal mandate?

You know, sort of like the tobacco companies, just free for all, just putting nicotine in kids' cigarettes and all this kind of stuff.

How is it that, you know, we could stop the sale of certain types of tobacco products and age and things like that.

Why can't we stop

selling or allowing and confiscate too.

Tell people they must bring in their military grade weapons.

And if they want to have a gun to protect themselves, that's not what that is.

And is that possible?

And will you do that?

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Patricia Eldridge.

She'll be followed by Lillian McVey.

Patricia, you're on the city council and staff.

I can.

We can.

Great.

I hear anecdote after anecdote about illegal police operations, where in addition, the police commit perjury, manufacture crime, and have no accountability.

No one, and I emphasize no one, I've spoken with has any faith or trust in the police department.

I spoke about this in February at the Democratic meeting about the criminal so-called justice system to cheers.

And more than half a dozen people came up to me afterwards and thanked me for having spoken about these issues.

We don't have a criminal justice system.

We have a criminal court system.

At that meeting, I said, no one in this community is safe.

and I still feel that way.

We need, we absolutely need a civilian review board.

I strongly support repurposing funds from the police department to social services.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lillian McVey, who will be followed by Devin Coles.

I can.

We can.

Great.

Thank you.

So my name is Lily.

I'm a lifelong community member.

I'm also somebody who has worked for the city of Charlottesville in the capacity as a counselor as well as a social worker.

And I currently work as a community mental health counselor.

So I'm speaking from that perspective.

I've heard a lot of people talk about how this money should be used to train the police more

and about how we have to have like a reformed police, which just doesn't make any sense to me because as somebody who's worked in mental health and who's worked with adolescents and adults with mental illness,

behavioral conditions, I've seen the city police implement reforms such as like programs that are supposed to make them less bias or help them interact with teens better.

And those programs have one, never worked, and two, nobody ever follows up with them.

So as far as like having officers that are CIT trained, which is Crisis Intervention Team, for those of you who don't know,

Often when I've had to call in wellness checks, the response is that there's no police officer with that training that's available.

So I just really don't see that any of these programs have even worked in the past.

So why would we continue to dump money?

Why would we reallocate any of the police budget into more programs that haven't been working whatsoever?

and the city.

Along with the fact that I feel like a lot of these comments have been coming aimed about like interactions on the downtown mall from this perspective of like property owners and shop owners is using like the police as like a way that like keeps them and their property safe.

I just urge people to remember that the downtown mall and keeping property

is already safe on the mall is not the responsibility and should not be the main responsibility and focus of what the police are doing.

As other people have mentioned, there are so many parts of this community that are under and over policed and the downtown mall is not completely representative of the population of Charlottesville.

The downtown mall is representative of wealthy people in Charlottesville who go to drink and sit in peace and look at people with

Mental health issues, who look at people who are homeless, who look at people who are not part of their class is a nuisance and someone who's obstructing their view and giving them a bad time while they're experiencing the downtown mall and expect police to clear them out.

I know that I'm running out of time, but I would also like to say that as far as defunding the police, like moving forward, we really need to think about the role that social services and the role that Region 10 play as also being part of the racist system in Charlottesville.

Region 10 and DSS have a very long history of implementing racist policies, not treating people equally and just flat out not delivering services to people when they need them.

So I think that those need to be evaluated as well.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Devin Coles, who will be followed by Myra Anderson.

Devin, you're on the city council and staff.

Yes, I can.

We can.

Go ahead.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Devin Coles.

I'm pastor of Union Baptist in Fluvanna County.

However, I live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

And I'm not necessarily in favor of the defunded demand of the police force.

However,

I do believe that there needs to be a reformation.

We do need police officers.

We need them to help bring about a sense of law and order.

They're needed to enforce laws through not the abusing of their power, but with a sense of moral judgment based on the oath that they swore.

And that oath is to protect and to serve.

So I don't agree necessarily or support the thought to dismantle on however

What I do believe is needed is a reformation.

I believe that records and data, when it comes to officer complaints, write-ups, disciplinary acts, things of that sort, should be made available to the public.

I think that there should be a civilian review board for them.

The militarization of law enforcement over the decades has become quite disturbing.

I think that the sight of law enforcement ought not bring about feelings of fear and anxiety, but much so should rather bring about calmness and relief.

I, in a sense, am kind of in favor of a lot of the thoughts and suggestions that many people have put forth.

When it comes to things that could be done, we need to recognize the need for mental health professionals, addiction professionals, youth workers,

maybe even clergy, et cetera, to possibly to help them responding to some of these calls that may be given at any time.

I do know and I understand that the mood of a call or a situation can change at any moment, but that does not exclude the fact that our law enforcement ought to have enough training to properly make the right decision to eliminate the frustrating want to use excessive force due to poor judgment.

I believe that during their training and throughout their tenure on the police force that they need to be required to have thorough psychological screenings and that maybe a counselor should be available to them.

I believe that police need to have a clear understanding that they are community partners and not plantation patrols.

and largely I believe that there should be a higher level of accountability within the department and in the judicial system as well.

Let me get off here.

There's a story about the Good Samaritan.

We know about the man that was beaten to things.

One man walked by and I think he said to himself, if I do something for this man, what would they think of me?

Another man came by and said, if I do something for him, what would they think of me?

and then the Good Samaritan came by and I think the Good Samaritan said, if I don't do something for this man, what will happen to him?

And so I think the community is asking, are you in favor for yourself or are you in favor for the people that you serve?

Thank you.

Next up is Myra Anderson and then Bashir Kalafa.

Yes, thank you for providing me this opportunity to just share my perspective.

And I want to say we've heard from many people, mental health professionals, but I'm speaking as someone who has experienced mental health problems most of my life.

I'm speaking as someone who has been in crisis before and who's been handcuffed and put in the back of a police car because of

mental health crisis and taken to the emergency room.

And I'm speaking as someone who has engaged with the community mental health region 10 while in crisis and have experienced repeatedly when they've actually made the crisis worse and not better.

So I want to say a couple of things.

But the most important thing is that I feel like we have an opportunity to reallocate money from

that the police use in mental health.

That amount of money is still unclear to me, and to put in mental health.

But it does not make sense to move money from one system that is having problems as it relates to bias, racism, and how they treat people, and move it into another system, this would be Regents Inn, that equally has those same problems.

So I want you to think about

and I sent an email to you guys which only one council bothered to acknowledge and respond to and that was Lloyd but I want to say that we have an opportunity to create something here that doesn't have to be a model from Eugene, Oregon or anywhere else but can be unique to our community but it is imperative

that any discussion about how to reallocate mental health funds, you make sure that you have people, more people at the table who have been disproportionately affected than you have these emergency counselors or whatever, because we're the people who know firsthand what the experience has been like.

In Richmond, they're promoting the Marcus Alert.

That's something you should look into.

And just basically,

listening to the voice of people who have engaged in the mental health system.

And I'm noticing over this conversation that every time region 10's name came up with the exception of one time, it has not been in a favorable manner.

I share that same sentiment.

So again, I wanna say, as you're thinking about reallocating funds, make sure that there's a working group, I'm proposing a working group and that it include a lot of people

who've actually used the service.

And finally, in my last 10 seconds, I wanna address that disproportionate minority report that's out that was prior to Chief Brackney.

There were some recommendations in that report.

The recommendations should also, you should look at re-reallocating some money to those recommendations, but you really need to look at the recommendations again.

Thank you.

Next up will be Bashir, followed by Marion Votaw,

Sue Lewis, Sherry Henley, and then Joan Fenton.

Those are the five people with their hands raised right now.

We have about 100 people in the audience.

And if you wanna raise your hand, just click that icon in the webinar.

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

Bashir, you're on with city council and staff.

Can you hear us?

Go ahead, Bashir.

Bashir, we're not hearing you.

It looks like you're unmuted, but I don't hear anything.

I'm gonna put you on pause just for a second.

We'll come back to you.

Next up will be Marion Votaw.

Okay, go ahead.

I am a longtime city resident.

I moved here in 1985 to go to grad school and never left.

I would like to say first that it's been my experience, my personal experience, Chief Brackney, that most of our police officers most of the time do a really good job.

However, the main issue that I have is twofold.

One is police officers in schools criminalizing children's misbehavior.

My children have aged out of the school system by now, but that is still an issue for me.

But the mental health problem, I am the parent of an adult child with severe mental health issues.

And every time I would really like to be able to call the men in the white coats in an ambulance instead of the men in blue with handcuffs and a police car.

So I would really like to see some of the funds go to the crisis intervention possibilities involving medical people with medical problems rather than disciplinary people for the medical problems.

Thank you.

I'm gonna try one more time with Bashir.

Bashir, can you hear us?

And go ahead and talk.

So see if we can hear you.

Still not hearing anything best here.

In the email to register for the webinar, there's a phone number and you might try that phone number, put in the webinar ID, and then you can press star nine and get in line that way.

But thank you for trying.

All right, our next speaker will be Sue Lewis, followed by Sherry Henley.

Sue, you're on with council and staff.

I can hear you.

I hope you can hear me.

We can hear you.

Yes, I fixed it.

OK, first of all, I hadn't planned on listening in, but this is a subject that, while I'm not personally connected to it, it's just fascinating.

And I think the city needs to come to grips with it.

I'd like to say that I agree with a lot of what some of the early people said, John Fouts and Jeff Vogel and Anne.

But I have a couple of ideas that I just wanted to throw out that I think maybe the 911 number, which is what many people I guess call when they want to get the police,

could have more training for referrals to other than police.

I'm not familiar with how that, since I'd never called 911, so I don't know exactly what happens, but if there could be some questions asked, is this a mental health crisis?

Is it a medical crisis?

Do we really need police?

I think something like that could happen.

And then the area of community policing has always interested me.

And I'd like to have people think about training officers for specific areas of the city, which different areas of the city have their own unique issues that come up.

The downtown mall has different issues than the corner has, than Barracks Road has, than public housing areas have.

And if we could

Make sure that officers are trained for specific areas and then keep them there for a reasonable length of time so that the communities that they're visiting, working in, get a chance to know them.

and the better, the longer they're there, the more likely the communities are going to get to know them, the better the relationships are going to be.

And I think you can come up with some really good relationships within the communities.

That's just where I am.

I've agreed with lots of things that other people have said, particularly about this isn't a zero-sum game.

I love what Karen Waterslick said.

and also I want you to be concerned about defunding to me says get rid of the money.

Well, that's just silliness.

and I also want everybody to be aware of the law of unintended consequences.

If you don't think down the road as what the consequences of the actions that you are taking, if you don't follow them step by step, you're going to run into some problems down the road and maybe not too far down the road.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Sherry Henley.

followed by Joan Fenton.

Sherry, you're on the city council and staff.

Can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you.

Good evening.

I just got a few things that I want to talk about, but I think a lot of people have already said a lot of the gist of the things.

But one of my mottos is, if you're not gonna be honest, you can never solve a problem.

And Dr. Richardson started off by saying that this came about because of the situation with George Floyd and others who have been shot around the nation.

So this is a black problem.

And we, and I, and many of us,

can give you information on what happens in this area.

This problem happens to Black all around the nation.

And to think that it's not happening in Charlottesville is just ludicrous.

and I can remember whenever you filed complaints in the city of Charlottesville, and I can go back, I can give you a 15 year history of Charlottesville policing, 15 years.

I remember when you filed complaints, we all get the same complaints, no matter what it was, you all get this one generated letter and pretty much today is not that much different.

So that's why we fought for the civilian review board so hard.

Because, and I don't understand why people are fighting for people to be accountable.

You have to be accountable.

I don't care who you are.

You cannot break the law or you cannot display all kind of behavior and not be accountable.

You expect the people who you consider criminals to be accountable.

So why do other people not have to be accountable?

I can give you a history and examples of what happened in Black neighborhoods or in Charlottesville.

And if you don't want a CRIB or if you don't want your police to be accountable, then you want police officers who take drugs from people and put them in their pocket or stick guns in Black youth's face

or practicing the same criminal behavior that's going on.

And I hate to tell you, but I can give you full details.

But anyway, so when we bring these issues to the police or you guys, and there are bad police officers, and I wanna ask, are you gonna, and we've been bringing them for years, are you gonna address this issue or you're just gonna, oh, I gotta go.

I guess.

But anyway, those are just some of the issues.

And I do support allocating monies in other ways.

And not, as the mayor said, definitely not to region 10, as others have said, and also not to social services.

Our next speaker will be Joan Fenton.

Joan, you're on the city council and staff.

Can you hear us?

Joan, we're not hearing you.

It does look like you're unmuted.

All right, we're going to check back.

And you could try the telephone option if your microphone's not working on the computer.

All right, next we have a first name, Nick, no last name.

Nick, you're on the city council.

Hi, good evening.

I can.

Yes.

Sure thing.

My name is Nicholas McCarthy Rivera, and I live on 1000 Linden Avenue.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I'm just going to echo what many other people have already said, which is to defund the police, I believe,

Activists and organizers in the community have reached somewhat of a consensus on 60% of the current budget and if that can be put towards community directed services not like Region 10 that already have a history of racism and being quick to

called the cops on people quick to escalate.

I have family members who have had to use Region 10 and in their own personal experiences, they have found that while Region 10 in many cases is the only resource in Charlottesville,

They can be very quick.

And you know what?

I mean, if you're being understanding, you could say that, you know, they have to deal with a lot of tough things and maybe their patience is short.

But that does mean that, you know, in a lot of cases, they end up calling the cops when really they probably shouldn't, in an ideal situation, need to do that.

So if we can find alternatives,

which has already been discussed, then I think funding should go towards that.

I mean, I think about the situation on the downtown mall several weeks back where that fellow was passed out drunk, who didn't have a house to live in.

And I saw both video streams of that and that's something that didn't need to escalate to that level.

I mean, we can have the,

We can have patch them.

We can maybe create more funding for that so that we can have first responders that are trained and maybe even familiar with a lot of these people that are already houseless in Charlottesville.

I think that the cops, even when they think they mean well, by their very presence,

because of history, they can be an escalating presence to people.

And so, yeah, defund the police by at least 60% and put it towards community services that we can talk more about in the future.

Thank you.

All right, I'm gonna try again with Bashir and then Joan Fenton.

Bashir, can you hear us now?

More importantly, can we hear you?

You will have to unmute yourself.

And I'm gonna try to unmute you because I see you rejoin the call.

Not having success with that Bashir.

And we'll go back to Joan Fenton.

We can.

OK.

Thank you.

So I'd like to say that I agree with a lot of what's being said.

The police, from what I understand, are already down 30 officers, so it seems like it would be easy to reallocate those funds to something else.

As somebody with a business on the downtown mall, when I see somebody in distress, somebody's passed out, you don't know if they're alive or dead, somebody's

Obviously having a bad mental illness moment, the only option I have is to call 911 and I think for the last 10 years we have been advocating for something else to have a different way to address a mental health or an addiction or some sort of behavior that does not warrant the police and you have to sit there and decide

I only have one option.

I call the police or I don't.

And as it's been said, I think Region 10 is not the place people want to go to to get the resources they need.

So I think there really needs to be some sort of

recreation, a new creation of a system that works for all of those instances.

I think other things can be outsourced.

We've advocated for the past year, for instance, that parking enforcement doesn't have to be police activity.

I would much rather have an ambassador go up to somebody anywhere in the city and say, here's your ticket.

And people do that in all sorts of communities.

That doesn't need to be a police officer.

And I agree with the idea of having, once an officer for us downtown knows the community, they get a promotion and they are no longer there.

So then you get somebody who doesn't know the community, doesn't know the people that have issues.

And when we've had good officers downtown, it's because they're caring and know each individual and know what those social issues are that they're experiencing.

and you get in an alternative on a Saturday night and you hear the stories of people having great difficulty.

I think there is a need for policing and there is a need to decide on what is a police issue and what is not and how do we best have the resources needed for each

instance.

And that's not what's happening.

Everything has been thrown on to the police ever since, you know, the Reagan era in my book and obviously before that too.

And I think it's a reassessment of what are the issues that come up and what is it would be the best way to address it.

And that's,

I think to me that's the discussion.

It's not so much, I think the terminology, somebody throws, sometimes throws people off when you say to stop funding.

I think it's what needs to be funded and what's the best way to fund it and how do we all get what we need to provide a better community.

Thank you.

And we have no new hands raised right now.

I'll make one last call.

for people who'd like to speak to council and staff.

You can click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

You can press star nine if you're on via telephone.

And we do have some additional hands coming up now.

We've got about 90 people in the audience.

And first I'll go to Kent Schluetzel and then Rory Stolzenberg.

Yes, I can.

Go ahead.

My name is Kent Sluschel.

I do live in Albemarle County.

I'm also the chairman of the Security Committee at Congregation Beth Israel downtown.

I do not speak for Congregation Beth Israel.

I'm speaking for me from my observations.

First of all, I'd like to compliment the police for the actions they have done around Congregation Beth Israel.

As some of you may not know, but I think people who lived here realize that the August 17th riots we had were directed mostly against Jews, not against people of color.

And our congregation being halfway between what was then Lee Park and what was then Jackson Park had some issues.

I'd like to thank the police for their protection

during some of the trials and things of that sort, and they have always been very, very cooperative with us.

I'd like to comment on the one thing one of the speakers said about unintentional consequences.

I'm not in particular favor of defunding the police.

Maybe what we need is to look at all the jobs that other police officers need to do and perhaps say, okay, we're not going to do this anymore.

and I always believe that every community has a responsibility to enforce their own laws.

There's a fine line, in my opinion, between being guardian and protector.

There's a difference there.

I've spent many, many years in the military, like 29 years, and sometimes there's a very fine line of what you say and what you do.

I think, of course, constant training is extremely important for police.

I think training also should be offered to the civilian community.

I've taken the police academy that Albemarle County used, done.

My wife is active in the Neighborhood Watch program, and we've been very successful at it.

and I think training for the community is just as important as training for the police, all the people.

Because a lot of people just don't understand the responsibilities they have as citizens and they don't understand the responsibilities that the police have to enforce the laws.

I appreciate you listening to me.

Thank you.

Next up will be Rory Stolzenberg.

Thanks, Brian.

And thanks for holding this event, Council.

So I wasn't going to speak tonight.

I was hoping to, you know, leave the space for people to share their experiences because, you know, obviously I have not personally had, you know, significant bad experiences with police or fear of being murdered by the police for no reason.

So I'm just going to come and do what I normally do and say some numbers at you.

But since it just came up, I will say, you know,

With regard to August 12th, as a Jew who doesn't live in Albemarle County and lives downtown and whose house at one point was surrounded by people who loved to kill me,

I think a huge betrayal of trust and really the loss of all of the trust that a lot of people in the community had in the police happened that day when they, for whatever reason, decided not to do anything about all of the Nazi violence.

And it's a little weird that we've never really addressed that or tried to explain it.

and maybe that wouldn't be a valuable exercise and it's better to move on and regain that trust through experience.

But anyway, moving on.

So I know you all have heard about the $20,000 in damage to Market Street from protests a few weeks ago, about $4,500 in costs to power wash it and maybe it'll be 15,000 more down the line that'll be spent to repave it.

I was wondering if you all had heard about the other costs associated with protests lately.

In particular, the amount of money that the police have been spending on themselves.

So I've foiled some documents, a whole bunch of documents lately, as you might have heard.

and it looks like the police was spent between May 29th and July 7th, $82,500 on just overtime alone, $120,000 overall.

That's just CPD and more was spent by public works.

And then I know that for that 6.30 block party alone, and of course you all remember that day,

State Troopers came in, big joint operation.

CPD combined with the other jurisdictions in the area have spent over $78,000 just on that operation alone and that's before any costs from the state police come in and of course three busloads of troopers and a plane probably not cheap.

So I guess my question to you all is do you have these numbers?

Are these things that you're looking at?

Are you getting this information from the police?

And of course I'm sure you saw my email a couple weeks ago about the silencers and red dot sites and M4s and the armored personnel carrier that they have and carry around to people's houses sometimes when they think it's prudent.

Do you talk about what those costs are?

I'm sorry, I have to give everyone the same amount of time.

Vice Mayor Magill, there are no new hands raised.

One person has raised their hand a second time and then Beshir, we were unable to connect with.

We do have one new person.

Let me just make sure.

Yep, we have one newcomer.

Jared Kale.

Jared, you're on the city council and staff.

Tom's check, Brian.

Got me?

You're good to go.

Good, good, good.

I just want to say, you know, just generally, like, appreciate you guys all taking the time to let the community speak their mind and

It's kind of just sitting back in the background listening to what everybody has to say.

And for someone who's lived here for over 15 years, I've seen all the different evolutions of what's gone on.

but I want to give one good shout out to the police department and that was I live over in the Brookwood neighborhood and I was up on Ridge Street and I walked these streets kind of a lot in the evenings just get exercise when it's not 110 degrees out and there's some kids that always like to play basketball in the street up there towards the intersection of Brookwood and Ridge Street and I was walking along Ridge Street one of the officers came driving down and I just watched the interaction I'm like let's see what happens here

And when he rolled up to the kids, I saw him roll his window down and I saw them having an exchange.

And I was just curious to see how it was going to play out.

And what ended up happening is the officers came up and was messing with a little bit like, hey, what are you guys doing playing in the street?

And they kind of looked at him like, oh crap.

And then he got out and started playing basketball with him for a couple seconds.

I hate to get him in trouble because I know maybe he should or shouldn't be doing that, but it was a really good thing.

And the kids immediately responded to him in a very positive manner.

They first were like, oh, you know, this officer's rolling up on me.

And, you know, we're playing basketball on the street, which we know we're probably not supposed to do.

And rather than it turn into a negative thing, it turned into a very positive thing.

And as I was walking, I just thought to myself, see that right there?

That's more of what we need to see.

And I really and I don't know who the officer's name was.

So, you know, one way or the other, I just remember looking at him and thinking, that's good, man.

That's that's it right there.

And that's the stuff I'd like to see all over social media as we continue to start kind of work on this positive campaign that we need between the police and community.

On a budgetary side of things, I will tell you that the way the military trains and all that kind of stuff obviously is different than the way that the average police officer is trained.

But I'm sitting here looking through the budget as you guys are talking and Chief Brackney can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm seeing a line item in here for like $172,000 for like a training budget.

And I'm looking at the size of the police department.

I'm looking at training budget.

Is that the incorrect number?

Okay, well, it's just has it in here is line item.

Let's see here.

Yeah, it's 5000 something so 172,000 are going if that's actually accurate.

People, I don't think people completely understand what it takes to appropriately train a police force to be able to actually do their jobs.

By most people's estimate, you should be spending 20% or so of your time training, all types of training.

But one of the things I've seen you start rolling out is sort of de-escalation training.

You guys have done a good job of getting out there to the community, hey, we're putting these things in place to try to get our officers familiarized with de-escalation techniques,

But like I said, if that budget is accurate, I look at that and I'm like, I think we don't have a problem with needing to defund the police.

I think we have a problem with a woefully unfunded police department in my personal opinion.

Thank you.

I hesitate to say if somebody can speak again just because I want to make sure that then we would need, we've only got 15 more minutes and I don't want anyone, one person to be allowed to speak again while other people are not being allowed to speak again.

I truly encourage everyone to reach out and email any ideas, any information, any

Anything they want to to us.

We actually do read all the emails, though I don't read all the form emails that come in.

I will be honest there.

But when people write emails, even if we don't always get a chance to respond, we do read them all.

So at this point, I apologize.

Just want to make a call.

Brian, if you want to make a call out to see if there's anybody else.

Celia Mills, you're on the city council and staff.

Yes.

We can.

Hi, I'm Cecilia Mills.

I live and work in Charlottesville.

And I just wanted to say thank you for holding this.

But I think the next time you do it, I think a dialogue is needed, not one sided.

And oftentimes, people have raised a myriad of issues, including the one that Rory brought up.

But when will that ever be addressed?

And how would it be addressed?

Big question mark for us.

Dr. Richardson, I feel like could address people and educate people.

Chief Brackney could educate people, as she's been doing about the de-escalation training.

Once I did call in and ask about de-escalation training, and it wasn't actually

the whole question that was read.

I didn't want to know about de-escalation of situations.

I was actually curious if officers could be trained in de-escalation of their own emotions so that that would be the first stop gap, not just the situation.

The second thing I think that is needed is that

We in this city realize that we all have implicit bias, but we don't want to tolerate those implicit biases anymore in police.

And so that's why I'm calling in.

I don't personally have any anecdotes.

I know everything seems to be anecdotal, but I'm glad there's a citizen review board.

I do think the anonymity of incidents and personnel may need to

be looked at because that's an old policy that goes back to people being able to hide incidents behind anonymity.

Thank you.

We have two additional speakers, Tracy Hopper and then Katrina Turner.

Tracy, you're on the city council and staff.

Yes.

We can.

Hi, this is Tracy Hopper, and I have lived in the city of Charlottesville since 2005.

And I have lived in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, starting with UVA, since 1984.

I was present on August 12, 2017, downtown.

And I was present at the church across from the rotunda on August 11, 2017.

And I want to say that African Americans and people of color were certainly also targeted along with the Jewish community.

And I will say that the public housing friendship court and West Haven were targeted by the white supremacists and KKK that day, as well as the Nazis.

And for Charlottesville,

Not to say these two episodes are parallel between August 2017 and George Floyd, but that was our fulcrum moment.

That was our moment where all the past hurts between the police and our community.

It just was the tipping point where all of a sudden it was enough is enough.

Certainly I have friends who live in public housing.

who have felt targeted and surveilled versus being the recipient of, the police certainly haven't been like guardians for them.

And I do believe that Chief Brackney is working to make that better.

And I'm glad we're having this conversation and I'm gonna be around for further conversations and

I am grateful for the institution of the Civilian Review Board and all the people and organizations that worked really hard to get that going.

I too think that the Civilian Review Board needs to be a robust, strong entity and hopefully some legislation will be passed in the General Assembly.

General Assembly to get that done in the next month.

We need subpoena power and we need the ability to be a part of the disciplinary process and all the disciplinary records need to be open.

I also will say that I support demilitarizing the police and I hope locally, Chief Brackney, with your leadership, you can start

demilitarizing, getting rid of some of that extra army surplus stuff that police departments around the country picked up.

And I believe in disinvesting and reinvesting.

And I do think we need a smaller police force that's trained much better and paid better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have two hands raised.

Katrina Turner followed by Jojo Robertson.

Hi, Katrina Turner, Charlottesville.

I just want to say, one, I've been hearing that there's three council members that didn't agree that ran for the CRB and wanted

I want to correct that because there's one city council that has always fought for the CRB and that's Michael Payne so I thank you Michael Payne because you have always fought to have a strong CRB so I did want to correct that one so and there are officers out here on the street that

does not agree with some of the stops that they have to go on.

They don't agree with them going on mental health stops.

But this is the job that they have to do, they tell us.

I've also spoken to officers that said they are trained to fear the people that they stop.

That should not happen.

They should not fear the citizens that they are sworn to protect and serve.

Because if you come on your job and you're already scared of doing your job, how good are you going to do your job?

If you're already in fear before you are even

Star.

You know, I've been hearing a lot about how nice the police are on the downtown mall, you know, but the downtown mall isn't the problem with the police.

The problem with the police is in the black and brown communities.

So when the people in the downtown mall say how good the police are, maybe they need to come into the black and brown communities to see

how they treat the black and brown communities and then maybe their mindset will change.

One really important thing is that I don't think taxpayers should have to pay for police to assault, to lie on them, to frame them.

to get community members to snitch on them, to falsely arrest them.

I do not feel as taxpayers, we should have to pay these officers to treat us in this manner.

So something needs to be done about what's going on in the Charlottesville Police Department.

Thank you.

Next up is Jojo Robertson, who will be followed by Dawn Gathers.

Jojo, you're on the city council and staff.

Can you hear us?

Hello.

I didn't plan on speaking.

After listening to other people, I wanted to say a few things.

Number one is accountability.

If you're going to put people in place

and you're going to have a CRB, then what is their job going to be?

I think it's clear that they have put in lots and lots of hours and time and that they want

wanting to be more than just an organization or a group that sits back and looks good for the city of Charlottesville.

So I think that decision needs to be made before you have people who are very invested in the community put hours

in it with you all just not taking them seriously or not believing in accountability.

For example, a few, I guess gosh, it was maybe, I don't know, a year and a half ago, two years, there was an incident with Ms.

Turner

at a city council meeting in which she asked for a special investigator to come in and investigate a situation with Chief Brackney.

And that investigator came in and out of like 30 witnesses, he never even spoke with Ms.

Turner.

And that's just, again, you know, that breeds

hostility in the community, you know, it makes us all think, well, this isn't, you all don't even care.

And it wasn't under Dr. Richardson at all.

In fact, it was with Mike Murphy and it was just so messed up.

And those are the things that we as people in the community see.

And we want that

You know, we need for you all to know we don't trust you.

We don't trust the police.

We don't trust the systems in place.

And it goes on and on.

And quickly, since 2017, I picked up online an officer in Arkansas named Officer Tommy Norman.

And I literally watch him every night before I go to bed online.

and his interactions with people and how he helps people that may have mental health issues or other issues in the community.

And it inspires me to do good.

And I just think that's the type of community I want to see Charlottesville as, where officers are not out to do punitive damages, but they want to invest in people.

So that's what I think

If we really care, we really want our community to be positive.

That's what we need to do.

But if you all aren't invested and the police isn't invested, don't don't do it.

Don't make us all think that you care.

Just be there.

Thank you.

And I misspoke earlier because Mr. Gathers has previously spoken in the webinar.

And if you're raising your hand and you previously have spoken, I'm lowering your hand.

So that's why that's happening.

And Bellamy Brown, you have not spoken.

So my intent was to actually listen to to what was going on.

I've, from my own personal experience, have spent a lot of time, I guess, studying this particular space with community policing across the board, both on from the policing side, but also from the community side.

And there are obviously multiple issues that that are

basically being jammed into one here, whether we're talking about budgeting dollars, we're talking about having more mental health, I guess, facilities for citizens, the police culture itself.

I have through John Jay College, I guess, researched some of

some of their how they go about doing things.

And it does attest to the fact that in policing culture, there is this aspect of an us against them mindset.

It's when you have a police officers that are trained to over and over again to look at situations where police officers are killed.

It does, in some respect, create this psychological aspect where

That's what you're going to go out and think about, myself as a military person as well.

I know that we've been trained to have some sense of, I don't know,

some sense of pause when we're dealing with certain situations.

That being said, when we're talking about $18 million for the police CPD budget, when you look across the nation, you can also see that that same type of budget is existent there, where you spend a lot of capital on police officers themselves.

So it's not strange that CPD has $18 million that are spent on the police officers.

In addition,

It seems like things are more adversarial when you're talking about one issue versus another as opposed to really looking at how do we collaborate collectively to solve some of these challenges that are there.

On top of that, you have the judicial and the legislative system that are supporting some of these

I think there's a lot of laws and policies that allow for the treatment of some of these things to take place.

So you can't just put the blame at the feet of the police.

You have to look at the whole gamut of what the system is about.

Police profiling, I have members of my family who have from the mental health space experience negative aspects from region 10 and things like that.

My point overall is that we can't have this adversarial aspect.

We have to really come to the table and try to bring some sound solutions and hear everybody across the board, police and community, if we're really going to get anywhere in this and make some forward progress.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the panelists who might be watching the queue have seen that Bashir's come back a couple of times.

So let me just see if he had a sound.

Can you hear me now, Brian?

Finally.

Oh, God.

This is my first experience with Zoom.

Anyway, yeah, I think what I'm trying to see here about this, everybody repeating about the mall is not the problem.

The police is nice to people on the mall.

I do recall times, and I'm talking about a long time ago, before Chief Brackney, where things were real mess, where the police officer, I was arrested three times, but stopped at late night by a police, without any reason, you know what I mean?

They were doing their job, okay?

I'm not gonna go, I hate extremes.

I believe when people talk about defunding, that's extreme for me.

I do believe in reform.

I do believe in improvement, whatever.

But if you do recall the mall, when we were,

or even surrounding the mall in 1996, for example, it was hell.

Nobody wanted to come down.

Look at it now.

If you recall, Victoria, there was a black officer doing her best, followed by Nancy, and now Duane, who is still with the police force.

We've seen a lot of improvement.

We had problems, you know, vandalism and everything.

It's not as strong as what people of color are facing

in a certain neighborhood.

But I am against defunding the police because of retainment, trying to get good police officers in any city.

You need money to get quality people.

We need training them.

We need them to be more important for the community.

But still, we need them.

That's why my point is very simple.

Oh, I see plenty of time.

Can I sing?

No, I'm just kidding.

You guys need to relax a little bit.

Hi Lloyd.

I was gonna say, in Charlottesville, like I've been here like close to, I've seen worse in New York City, for example, my first year, I saw this police officer kicking a man down because he was just drunk.

Kicking him nonstop, you know?

But in Charlottesville, I haven't seen like that.

I was stopped many times, maybe seven or eight times by police.

most of the time for no reason.

And when I asked the officer why, he said, let it be a warning.

It was not in Charlottesville, Chief, it was mostly in Albemarle County, last year.

But now I think that we have Chief Brackening and we have a new city manager.

It's a much better occasion to improve what we have in terms of race relation.

I've seen a lot of improvement.

from Ms.

Green, and so on.

There's been a lot of improvement.

Maybe we should discuss more what led to the subject of defunding the police, the idea behind it.

That's all, guys.

Oh, good.

Okay.

At this point, we have any closing comments by counselors or Dr. Richardson or Chief Brackney.

All I can say at this point, I have been taking extensive notes.

just so that we can put together questions, put together how to engage further and hear people's ideas.

As I said last night, this is only a beginning.

It's only been a beginning.

I mean, it actually has started in the past and we are working.

It's slow.

Government is slow.

I know it's frustrating and especially for, and I am not somebody who has had

that many bad experiences.

And therefore, I understand with a lot of people, it's beyond time.

All I can say is we are trying to do this as right as we can without unintended consequences.

Yeah, I guess just a few brief thoughts.

I mean, obviously, you know, it's impossible to respond to everything.

And a couple of people asked, you know, what is the point of having this conversation?

I think it's not to have this be a one and done thing, but to have this be part of a continual conversation and dialogue in the community to figure out these issues.

which is made even more challenging, you know, obviously in the area of COVID when we're not able to come together in person and do meetings and meet one-on-one together.

Just broadly some thoughts on some of the things that came up is, you know, I think all of us on council are familiar at least at some level with these conversations around

I've been trying to read as many books and academic research about these different things from different perspectives not because it's going to give me the one answer but to try and learn as much as possible

and I think the importance of this conversation to me is because in reading this literature and reading about the experiences of other cities, I think this is an incredibly complex and nuanced issue and there are not easy solutions.

There's nothing that can be done at a snap of a finger.

There's nothing where there is a clear path forward.

It doesn't mean that things can't happen and don't need to happen, but it's gonna be very complex.

And again, some of the things I'm just thinking about,

which I just I don't mean these as a definitive anything.

I don't know what all these things mean, but the things I'm thinking about is some of the tensions and some of what comes up, for example, you know, there were a number of commenters expressing a desire for police to have more crisis intervention training, de-escalation training to move from a guardian to move from a warrior mindset to a guardian mindset.

You know, when we look at the police budget, the majority of it, especially here, we're not a major metropolitan area, there's not a major police union, there is military, there is equipment, there's perhaps military equipment, other things, but the vast majority of that is personnel.

And so if we're talking about cuts, that means cutting personnel.

So how does that interact with

the desire for training or the kind of officer that is recruited.

Michael, I think you froze.

Can anybody else hear Michael?

I cannot.

I'm going to text him.

Michael's electricity just went out.

And I wonder if that happens.

So I guess since we're in the final commenting... Vice Mayor Magill, what I would suggest at this point is that you gavel and adjourn the meeting formally and then you and Councilor Hill and Drs.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blair.

So on that, I am bearing this meeting done and over for now.

For the moment, only for the moment.

I'm sorry if the humor seems inappropriate.

It's just my way of dealing with heavy situations.

First, I want to thank the public for their engagement.

Really great to hear from so many people in the community on this really important subject that, again, we've all reiterated.

We're just in the midst of our conversations, and there'll be many more to come.

I understand the frustration with not the dialogue, but really wanted to focus this time on hearing from the public, knowing that there'll be future opportunities for more dialogue.

And like you, I took a lot of notes and know that there's a lot of unanswered things that we do need to address as we move forward.

and I know that counselor Payne was going and I certainly was aligned with many of the points that he had started to make and especially around how some of these things are because it's so complex are going to just are going to take some time and for me what does that new system look like for how we're going to intervene in these crisis situations because they're obviously hearing a lot of feedback on the systems that exist that might be alternative not being the answer either and so I'm just really interested in engaging with the public to understand what that

that new future might look like so that we can collectively work towards that.

I also believe that law enforcement feels strongly that there is another way that we could be doing this and that they want to partner in that regard.

And so again, just want to thank everyone for their participation.

Let's see.

Yes.

It's 929-205-6099.

And then he'll need to enter a webinar ID, which is 821

48594893.

I just want to reiterate for the public that the reason I haven't been on my camera is because I have been in a location where power has been out this entire meeting.

I know that Lloyd does not usually have his cell phone, otherwise I would be texting him as well.

Chief Brackney or Dr. Richardson, is there anything that you would like to say at this point?

I mean, don't feel like you have to.

I'll go ahead.

I just want to say, because I know we're getting close to seven, I know everyone's been on line with us for now three hours, but

I'd just like to say I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing, being in the community, communicating with the public, talking about various issues, trying to resolve as many matters as I can.

As an African American male, I've experienced many things that many other folks who have called in have talked about today.

And I want to make sure that that doesn't happen in our community and to make sure that our future is bright.

and that we can continue to build a rapport with one another and build a relationship with the community and to make sure that the community is receiving the necessary public services that they want to have within the community.

I think that if we continue to work together, I think that we will see the changes as was mentioned earlier by other council members

It's going to take some time, but I'm glad that everyone tonight was able to give their input so we can listen more.

I know some people were saying, why don't we have the interaction or answer the questions or have rebuttals back to the comments that were made.

But I think for the first time, we were able to just listen.

and we were able to hear a lot of people's voices tonight.

And I think that was of paramount importance because we're able to listen to a lot of the things that people want to see within the community in terms of the changes and we'll work together to try to see if we can make those various changes that were mentioned.

And I'll close with that because I know we're over time and I'll let Chief Brack,

The meeting is now reconvened.

Sorry about that.

Same with Michael.

Luckily we had a procedure in place in case this happened.

Chief Brackney, did you want to speak since, and then I'll ask- I think it's only right that if you just want to have Counselor Snook with his comments first, and then maybe by then Counselor Payne is back on.

We gotcha.

The only thing that I wanted to say was to sort of refresh a point that we've made kind of at the top is that this particular exercise is to be seen, I think, as a parallel track to whatever the PCRB is doing.

And that what we think, at least what I thought of when we decided to have this session, was to begin the process of engaging with the

the Defund the Police campaign and to begin to see are there things in particular that maybe we could repurpose or ways that we could reimagine how policing occurs, not necessarily because the police are doing a terrible job at it.

In many cases, I will say, in many cases, I've seen officers responding to people in a way that would very much be what I would want a social worker

to be doing at the same time.

They all have had some of that training.

That doesn't mean that presence of the badge and the presence of the uniform doesn't take on an effect on its own.

So we ought to be having that conversation, not from the specific idea of, my goodness, the cops here are incompetent, but rather simply, how can we do this better?

and if we can do this better with some sort of re-imagining of how the authorities, of how the money changes hands and who has authority over what, so much the better.

So I look on this as an opportunity to hear Dr. Brackney's comments in response to all of this.

And by that chief, I don't mean that I'm expecting a response right now,

but that in the month or so following that we might begin to see some very specific answers to some of the very specific questions and perhaps some very specific proposals on how we might address some of these concerns.

But I think it's important that we come at it from the understanding that what this effort

is going at, I believe, is the broader management and budgeting kind of issue, not looking at specific instances where somebody feels aggrieved by police misconduct.

So that was my only comment, and we heard a lot on both fronts tonight, and I understand that people kind of blend them together, and at some point they do blend together,

Yeah.

I said at the beginning, I didn't think my power going out was a risk and then it happened.

But yeah, just again briefly, I don't know when I cut off, but I don't want to take up too much more time.

The final question mark for me, which I think is something we'll have to figure out as a council in the community is in the question of defunding to reallocate towards resources is figuring out when it comes to mental health resources, when it comes to housing,

What is the total level of investment needed in terms of the dollar amount?

For example, we got a letter today from Partners for Mental Health, which I think had a lot of excellent suggestions for ways to try to move towards decriminalizing mental health crises.

What does it specifically take in terms of the investment there, getting staff positions, creating new institutions, especially in the context of people having rightful and justified

misgivings about, you know, some of the way region 10 and social services is operated.

And something I wonder is if we look at that total dollar amount of need, is it able to be met strictly from a police department's budget or even the city budget as a whole?

We've got a budget around 200 million dollars.

A lot of a lot of that nondiscretionary police budget around 18 million dollars, even if we took that entire 18 million dollars and reallocated in these other areas.

What percent of that overall need would we meet?

And to what extent to fully meet these needs do we have to start thinking about things like Medicare for All, expanding Medicaid even further at a state level, massive federal investment in programs.

And again, I just raise these as questions.

I sincerely don't mean them as excuses to not make changes and not do things and not move forward.

But I think it's something that we're going to have to grapple with.

And then finally, I'll just say I think

A question is, you know, we have a lot of comments about very real problems that existed for years, for decades.

And the question is, is taking action on these issues on the part of council and the city, is it just going to be purely because we're corrupt or we don't have the moral backbone or we don't care about the community?

Or is it also that there are deep difficulties in terms of the limits of our budget, state law, the realities of how do you create staff positions, start new institutions,

And obviously, you know, I'm biased, you know, being in the position I am as a counselor, but I think a large part of it is that there is a real difficulty with the constraints of our budgets and laws and the realities of creating new institutions, a new way of doing things.

And it doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't do these things or that we won't, but I do think it means that it's going to require us as a community

to really be collaborative and grapple with the complexity of these issues.

So that's all I've got, thank you.

And thank you everyone for speaking tonight.

Chief?

I'm meeting myself so Brian does not admonish me.

So first, the first thing I want to say is thanks for that I was invited to be part of the formal listening session.

I like how it was phrased.

This was not phrased as a dialogue.

This was not phrased as a conversation.

In fact, just the opposite.

It was phrased as a listening session.

And the reason it's important to have a listening session first is so that you can identify what the real problems are you're attempting to address and get everyone shared understanding and agreed upon understanding of what the problem is.

And I think that's what we're really struggling with.

And to echo what counselor Payne said, that these are broad, complex issues.

that they're not going to continue to and never have occurred in isolation.

Policing does not occur in isolation with any of the communities.

In fact, there's a cross pollination between every aspect of the community and the other departments and the infrastructure, the economies here, the housing.

They're all going to be impacted very genuinely and by what does public safety look like.

So I think one of the bigger questions I keep saying is what we need to think about is what does public safety look like?

What does a safe, healthy community look like?

And then what do we do as a team?

Not just as something that is possibly what counselor Snook was suggesting proposals that come from the police that often results in disaster because you're giving a one-sided proposal as to how you think you should

The proposals, real proposals come from collaborative efforts.

I look forward to the continuing conversations, whether they come as listening sessions, dialogue, interactions, etc.

It may be helpful to even do it by topic so that a listening session is by topic so that as Mr. Bellamy indicated, we're not starting to conflate issues and then it gets confusing.

What does that look like to build up systems if you're going to move

some aspects of a 911 response to another bucket of responsibilities.

And is there also the possibility that this is not a system that the city can reconstruct, but we may have to put out requests for proposals or bids so that there's experts who can do the work that we're attempting to do versus taking on and building institutions.

And as we know, the more government tends to get involved, the less likely it is to have a successful outcome.

So,

I look forward to the continued engagement.

Much like yourself, I have 12 pages of notes with typing and a few other things.

And I do look forward to Council's participation.

I really actually just want to thank, although she's not here, the Mayor, for being the person who said we need to have

the opportunity to listen to our constituents, not to push back, not to argue, not to defend, but just to hear.

So I am grateful for the opportunity that we allowed our community voices to be heard.

Thank you, everybody.