City Council   1/17/2017

Good evening, everyone.

Calling this meeting of Charlottesville City Council to order.

We normally begin with a Pledge of Allegiance.

We have a wonderful Girl Scout troop here with us this evening, but we're going to begin even before we get to the pledge with a very important flag ceremony.

And we're delighted to have troop 559 with us.

Girl Scouts is about growing girls with

Courage, Confidence and Character, Brownie, Girl Scout Troop number 559 is made up of third grade girls from Venable, Burnley Moran and Johnson Elementary School and also Mountaintop, Montessori.

The troop is led by Janet Miller and Natalie Mazry.

They love to participate in service projects, earn badges and have fun and very importantly it is Girl Scout cookie time.

So you've got a

Almost literally captive audience here, so expect it.

These girls are selling, so be sure to sneak in your order for Thin Mints or for Tagalongs.

So we're going to have the flag ceremony happen now, and then we'll do the pledge.

Color Guard, post the colors!

Thank you, Troop 549.

Thank you all very, very, very much.

All right.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

Okay, we begin with awards and recognitions and announcements.

Thank you.

As many folks know, Vice Mayor Holly Edwards passed away recently.

Okay.

The Day of Healing?

No.

We have that, I thought the word, okay, that's fine.

Alright, so let's go down, if we could just do announcements then.

Let me say, do we have a group of youngsters outside?

Does anybody have an announcement about that, to watch American democracy in action?

Is there anybody here for that?

Announcement on the upcoming council meetings.

City Council extended budget work session.

Tuesday, January 24th at 3.30 p.m. at City Space.

The Joint City Council School Board meeting Thursday, January 26th at 4 p.m. at CATEC and the City Council meeting Monday, February 6th at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

And I have another Charlottesville resident who has gotten a national award

Her name is Tamara Wilkerson, Executive Director for the African American Teaching Fellows.

She was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Education List.

The 26-year-old is a former educator in Charlottesville and Albemarle County Public Schools.

and is currently working on her doctorate in educational leadership from Morgan State University.

Good evening, everyone.

Now y'all know what I'm going to say if you give me a weak good evening.

We're going to have to do it again.

So good evening, everyone.

Much better, much better.

So, Big Brothers Big Sisters Day.

I saw a huge sign outside of the Paramount specifically for these little ones so let's show them some love.

So today we have officially declared Big Brothers Big Sisters Day.

The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge is to provide children facing adversity with strong and enduring professionally supported one-to-one relationships that change their lives for the better forever.

This agency operates under the belief that inherent in every child is the ability to succeed and thrive in life.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge has been the leading provider of evidence-based mentoring in Central Virginia since 1980 and has served hundreds of youth.

With that being said, Ms. Athena Gould, are you here to accept your award?

Thank you very much everybody.

As the Vice Mayor said, at Big Brothers Big Sisters, our mission is to change lives for the better.

Our mission is to change lives for the better.

And when you think about it, that's a really rough mission.

And how do we do it?

What's the secret to our success?

It's each and every one of you.

It's every person that believes that they have something to feed into a child and chooses to become a mentor.

It's everybody that understands that structured mentoring is not just about time, but also takes money.

It's every community partner that decides to provide free activities for our kids.

It's every parent that says, I trust this program to provide a mentor and welcomes them into their home and into their lives.

And it's every single child that participates in our program.

Thank you.

So we actually have another announcement in regards to a couple more announcements in regards to a collaboration with Big Brothers and Big Sisters as well as the City of Charlottesville Alliance for Black Male Achievement

This upcoming Saturday from 9 to 12, we are going to have our set Saturday enrichment training for young men grades 7 through 12.

This is going to be at the University of Virginia in Ruffner Hall in room 243.

And this entire set day, quote unquote, from 9 AM to 12 noon will be predicated around helping young men learn how to be young men.

So there will be a lot of cultural training.

There also will be an opportunity to connect

Littles with Biggs, as they call them in Big Brothers Big Sisters, as well as breakfast will be provided.

Please feel free to contact Athena Gold at Big Brothers Big Sisters or myself for more information for this Saturday, or you can just bring your young man.

Again, that's this Saturday.

at the Curry School, University of Virginia in Ruffner Hall, Room 243, 9 a.m. Another announcement, please, all African-American males from between the ages of 17 to 29, do not forget, we will have our Circle of Brotherhood meeting tomorrow, 6.30 p.m. at the Carver Rec Center.

This initiative tomorrow is a day in which we will talk about exactly what skilled trade track or technology track you will choose.

We have members from PVCC attending as well as individuals from the Job Workforce Center there tomorrow.

And lastly but not least, we want everyone to mark your calendars for March 25th.

We have another event entitled The Race to 1K.

There will be an initiative through several different community partners including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club,

Alliance for Black Male Achievement, 100 Black Men of Central Virginia, in which we have a goal of raising 1,000 ties to give to every young man regardless of their race, ethnicity, or creed before March 25th.

So if you have a tie, feel free to drop it off at the Big Brothers Big Sisters location.

You can drop it off at the Boys and Girls Club on Cherry Avenue, or you can take it to Virginia organizing at 703 Concord Avenue.

Look in your closet, find all the ties that you have that you're not wearing,

Not the bow ties, because we don't have time to teach the little ones how to tie those.

But I know some of you have some ties that you're not wearing.

Feel free to bring them to those three drop-off locations.

And we want to put a tie in the hand of every young man here, not only in the city, but in the area.

Thank you.

All right.

I have another proclamation.

Excuse me for having been frantically texting.

I didn't have a copy of it, so I just got it.

This is a proclamation, today is a national day of racial healing, and this is a proclamation that city councils around the country are all doing today, or as close to today as they can get, and we have our meeting today, so it's appropriate.

Whereas we have all witnessed racial divisiveness rising in America's urban, rural, and suburban communities today that threatens the very core of this great nation's unified front.

And whereas just like those who came before us, it is our duty to protect the children of this nation and maintain communities in which they may all be given the opportunities to succeed.

and whereas we understand and recognize that there is a racial divide in our country and we must all work earnestly to heal the wounds created by racial, ethnic and religious bias and build an equitable and just society so that all children can thrive and whereas children have the right to be provided every opportunity to learn, grow and thrive in nurturing environments that don't violate their safety, dignity or humanity and whereas every single person has the capability to make simple change within him or herself that can have a profound effect on an entire society

and whereas if we dedicate ourselves to the principles of truth, racial healing and transformation, we can all bring around the necessary changes in thinking and behavior that will propel this great nation forward as a unified force where racial biases will become a thing of the past and whereas racial healing is a vital and crucial commitment to the education, social, mental and overall well-being of our children and whereas the city of Charlottesville

in conjunction with others throughout the United States of America acknowledges January 17, 2017 as the National Day of Racial Healing and to urge all citizens to promote racial healing and transformation in the ways that are best suited for them individually as a means to working together to ensure the best quality of life for every child.

So there is a public meeting at the University of Virginia on the memorial to enslaved laborers that I am announcing.

At the September 2016 meeting of the Board of Visitors, the design team of Howler and Yoon, Mabel Wilson, Greg Bleem and Associates, and UVA's own Frank Dukes was approved to design the memorial to the slave workers at the University of Virginia.

The design of the new memorial marks a critical moment to address the complex history of the university and of the country.

The design process involves extensive meetings with community groups and UVA stakeholders listening and translating their ideals and ideas into a design that resonates with their ideals.

Final design approval rests with UVA's Board of Visitors.

The meeting will be held on January 23rd at 6 p.m. at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to learn more about the design planning process and schedule and to submit your ideas.

Thank you.

Yes.

But anyway, it is with great humility that I read City Curbside Christmas Tree Mulch, February 1st.

The Christmas trees collected last week will be taken to Darden Tow Park for chipping.

The City of Charlottesville and Almonte County together will chip approximately 2,500 trees.

And who says county and city do not work together?

The resulting mulch will be offered to the public at no cost beginning on February 1, 2017 at Darden Tow Park.

Thank you.

And one more announcement.

If we could, let's give them a round of applause as they're coming back.

Now, you can come down.

Great job.

So four years ago, adult students at the Adult Learning Center came to City Council.

We had about 50 students, and you graciously welcomed us.

And we also asked you for support for the Festival of Cultures, which you graciously gave us for the last three years.

We actually came tonight to say thank you.

I have stories that our students have written in the student newspaper for each counselor from the last four years of their own experiences at the Festival of Cultures, so I'll trust that someone can give those to the counselors.

Good evening, my name is Santee Tamang.

I am from Bhutan.

I have been here almost seven years ago.

We love this festival of cultures.

We need to shape our culture for the future.

Thank you for all of them for all's help.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Asif.

I'm from Afghanistan.

I have here for six years.

I'm happy here because I'm feeling your freedom.

Thank you, Mr.

Governor, for your help, for the student in the adult center school for our

Thank you.

I hope I went to you help all this adult center school about the culture day, another day, in the future.

Good evening.

My name is Sarai.

I'm from Mexico.

I love America.

I believe that the Festival of Cultures is great because you can have fun, socialize and make people from other countries to feel welcome.

Thank you all very much for taking the time to visit.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Just a couple of items for staff from the last meeting.

There are numerous statements made about the importance of having the public involved with the request for proposal for the consulting services related to the development of a foreign-based code in the strategic investment area.

We will have Charlene Green, the manager of the Office of Human Rights, as part of the review team before the RFP is posted.

Council agreed to that at the end of the meeting.

And we will also have several community members who will be on the review panel of the proposals once they are submitted.

to the city.

And we're also taking steps to help educate the public on what to expect as part of the foreign-based code process.

This is the very beginning of that process to get a consultant on board to help us develop the code for the SIA, the foreign-based code.

There will be plenty of other opportunities for the public to be engaged in this as well.

And we're also providing some information.

We'll be providing information to the public soon, updating our website, that type of thing, so that folks have an understanding of what

Foreign Based Code is and is not, so we'll be doing some of that soon.

Also, there were a couple of comments made about current conditions at the properties owned by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

Councilor Galvin asked if we could set up a meeting between the council and CRHA board to discuss community engagement and redevelopment.

We are in the process of setting a date for that meeting.

Staff from both the city and CRHA

Mayor Signer, I have one more question or comment for Mr. Jones.

And this council in the past has specifically charged the place design task force to be involved with providing technical assistance to staff when they're writing RFPs and I am hoping that that will still be somewhat on the

And it may not be the full task force but just a representative of the task force to look at the RFP.

Okay, we now move on to our first matters by the public.

We welcome public comment.

It's an important part of our meeting.

Time is reserved near the beginning and at the end of each regular City Council meeting for matters by the public.

Please follow these guidelines for public comment.

If you're here to speak for a public hearing, please wait to speak on that matter, but we don't have any public hearings tonight.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

Please give your name and address before beginning your remarks.

and these are in our guidelines.

Improper comments and disorderly conduct are not permitted.

Persons appearing before the council will not be allowed to campaign for public office, promote private business ventures, use profanity or vulgar language or gestures, threaten violence toward council, city staff or members of the public, engage in behaviors that intimidate others, interrupt other speakers or engage in behavior that disrupts the meeting.

Any speaker who violates the rules will be called to order by the mayor.

If the remarks or conduct persists, the mayor shall order the speaker to cease.

speaking and be seated.

If the order is not heeded, the mayor shall direct the sergeant at arms, test court, the individual, the meeting room.

Tonight we have, we, under our procedures, we have nine spaces that are, that you can sign up for in advance and three that you can sign up for first come, first served.

We actually have 13, that equates to 12, but we have 13 speakers tonight because there's a little bit of a screw up with the, with the list being removed from the door, as I understand.

We don't want a whole lot of applause.

It really slows down the process.

But if somebody is saying something that you agree with, feel free to raise your hand so that we know that you agree, and then you can make yourself heard silently and without delaying the meeting.

Does that seem reasonable?

And just for the record, tonight we had about 25 people, I believe, who wanted the pre-signed up spaces.

So under our procedure, we use a random selection, a sample from them to fill in those nines.

So that's how we ended up with these nines tonight.

Well good evening everyone.

I'm Tanisha, y'all know me, y'all hate to see me coming.

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality.

Wrong is wrong no matter who does it.

Malcolm X.

We need leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice, not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity.

Martin Luther King.

I'm tired of the careless conversations where racism makes an appearance and people turn their heads because it doesn't affect them directly.

All of you in this room have the power to invoke change.

If your ancestors were slaves, you would not honor a man that fought on the wrong side, the side that stood for the oppression and harm of someone that didn't look like them.

Robert E. Lee, if alive today, would be depriving people of color of their equal liberties because he would be violating U.S. Code 18, Section 242.

Deprivation of rights under color law.

There is no statue of limitations on this, meaning one could sue 155 years later.

But in turn, a lot of you in this room honor him.

Yes, our painless past has shaped us to all be equal.

But we cannot be equal as long as you continue to display oppression.

He deserves no honor, no college, no highway, and no high school.

In a war that left 620,000 people dead 155 years ago, he fought on the wrong side for the wrong cause.

It's time for Charlottesville and the rest of the South to face the harsh truth.

He was a racist man that did not like blacks, other than the free labor he and his family received from them.

It's time to help build this country.

Oh, sorry.

It's time to honor the ones who were right.

Most importantly, pay respect to the oppressed that helped build this country while working for free under harmful and deadly conditions.

Respect goes a long way.

The African Americans in this community are asking for respect.

Now let's turn the tables a little bit because I like playing devil's advocate.

If I asked for a statue of Nat Turner to be placed right beside me, how would that make you feel?

He died trying to wake people up and protect black slaves, but he gets no honor for protecting his own kind.

He is viewed a murderer of white men that represented slavery.

If you keep that statue, then you allow white supremacy to win and to rule.

There was nothing else in this world that you could pull up on Mr. Bellamy but some tweets that he has a God-given right to say whatever he feels about whatever topic he chooses to speak on.

So is this what happens to someone that really wants equality that get bashed?

Mr. Bellamy went through what most leaders went through.

Dr. Martin Luther King said, it's always the right time to do the right thing.

Don't be afraid to make the right decision when it's not the popular choice.

Okay, thank you.

I should have said it, and if everyone could pay attention, we've got a timer here that has the benefit of making me not look like a jerk.

So there's a yellow when you get 15 seconds out and a red that'll show also when you've hit the time and a chime goes off.

So it helps with 13 folks speaking to move us along.

Good evening.

I'm Nancy Carpenter.

I live in the Rose Hill neighborhood in the city of Charlottesville.

I'm here tonight to comment to you about citizen engagement, something that you and the Planning Commission and other city staff recently had a retreat to come up with certain strategies on how to improve that.

I want to ask you that part of that strategy be to develop with honesty.

I also ask that you develop with integrity.

That should be the new normal.

We always hear that developers have certain by rights with properties.

However, we as neighbors also have certain rights.

Those rights are met with zoning ordinances and also, more importantly, is the use compatible to the neighborhood?

We also expect when there is any type of written documentation submitted either to the NDS department or from them that the neighborhood association be given a copy of that information so that they can be more aware of what is happening in their neighborhood.

Right now there are preliminary plans for development of the old Monticello Dairy building.

This property and this development butts up against three historic neighborhoods, 10th and Page, Venable, and Rose Hill.

To date, the staff has not shared any documents that have been submitted, whether it be sketches, schematics, or any written ideas of what that development looks like.

I would like to ask for a copy of those documents and would like the city manager to instruct the NDS staff to send that information to each of the neighborhood associations.

If the information should be updated in the database,

for whatever admin person would be doing that.

Neighbors need to know what is being proposed from the get-go.

If it wasn't for the perseverance of some of my neighbors in Rose Hill and some of those great people are here tonight listening to what's going on, we would be saddled with a non-conforming use in our neighborhood.

I would also like to ask that any type of development, whether it's by right and requires council approval or whether it doesn't require council approval, that that information be sent to the neighborhood association.

Right now we have on January 18th a site plan conference

for a office building with four apartments that will be talked about tomorrow at 10 o'clock at the normal site plan conference.

Do the neighbors know?

I don't know.

I was contacted by one of the contiguous neighbors and she said she did not receive a letter of information.

So at the very least, I think that the neighborhood association, P.O.

Box, President, whoever is running that should have information about that.

Hi.

Pam Starzia, 118 Blinco Lane in Charlottesville.

I'm here to talk about the Confederate monuments.

They are vile.

Remove them.

Hi, my name is Riley Doherty.

I'm a CHS student and I live in 104 Village Court in Johnson Village, right here in Charlottesville.

Charlottesville.

It's a city thriving with culture and education.

A city that serves as an example to all other cities and counties in the state of Virginia.

It is up to this city to be a role model of what is expected in our new and growing world.

This is why we must remove these statues because they are a cultural embarrassment.

How is a visitor or a new member of our community supposed to react when first entering the downtown area, a hotspot for culture, education, and life?

How is anyone supposed to react when an outdated symbol of separation and hate stands in the center of our city's crown jewel?

Good evening.

My name is Sarah Kelly and I'm the pastor of Faith, Hope and Love Church here in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I also live here in Charlottesville on St. Charles Avenue.

And I'm a member of the Women's Treatment Center Strategy Committee.

In my younger years, I was hospitalized for an emotional breakdown.

And during that particular time, I was prescribed Valium, Libram and Thorazine.

Over time, I became addicted to the prescribed medication, and there was nowhere in Charlottesville for low-income residents to go and get treatment for drug addiction.

That was in the 70s, where I am now.

During those years, there was no notification to my primary physician informing him of the different meds prescribed.

Therefore, because of the addiction, back on the psych ward I went.

and I was given more addictive meds being administered.

They did not have a multidisciplinary team with training and drugs.

So therefore that addiction continued on.

But thank God that through the grace, even His grace, through His grace and even through the improper care, I have been delivered.

Now over 40 years later, there is still no treatment center for women.

And as the pastor for 31 years, I've had to travel out of town to escort, at different times, several members to the Boxwood Treatment Center in Culpeper, Virginia.

And because there's no women's treatment facility in Charlottesville, it's a hardship on women because they're distant from home, they're distant from their children, they have to leave their families and support system.

This is an ongoing treatment problem and we realize it's a drug epidemic right now.

And one, Region 10 is addressing by planning to build a women's treatment center in Charlottesville.

They need the funding for the city and county for the $75,000 that they have requested.

And we look forward to seeing it in the proposal budget, in the proposed budget.

The Moore Moore Center for Men is funded with $80,000.

And we're just asking for $75,000 for the Women's Center.

I'm hoping that you all will consider funding the Women's Treatment Center here in Charlottesville.

Thank you.

Charles McCurdy.

My name is Charles McCurdy.

I live at 216 Camelia Drive in the city.

I attend church at Holy Comforter Catholic Church here downtown, where I am the justice and peace minister of the congregation.

And I'm here speaking tonight on behalf of IMPACT, the interfaith movement for promoting action by congregations together, the interfaith social justice movement in the city that's been going on for about 10 years.

and our Nehemiah Action last May.

Three of you were there.

Three of you said, if it's in the budget, I will support an appropriation of $75,000 for a women's treatment center which is going to be built beginning this month and completed in the fall by Region 10.

We'll be on Old Lynchburg Road.

And I'm here tonight to remind

Ms. Szakos, Mr. Bellamy, and Mr. Fenwick, that they made that pledge to over a thousand people at the Martin Luther King Center last May.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Chloe Hawkins and I live at 817 Rockland Avenue and I'm here tonight to speak in favor of removing the Confederate statues and I'm delighted to share my time with Lisa Wolford.

I'm here to ask the council to heed the recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Commission and a recommendation that passed by the widest margin and that was to move the Robert E. Lee statue from the heart of downtown.

The Lee statue is coercive.

Its size and proportions are designed to force those who stand at its base to look up.

This bodily position, looking up, is a posture of reverence and awe, even if you don't feel it.

But the Lee statue was coercive in other ways.

Its intention is to honor a Confederate general who led an army against the United States in the hopes of establishing a white supremacist republic.

It will never, ever not mean that.

That meaning is cemented in the mammoth stonework.

It is wasteful to attempt to make it be something that it is not.

It is coercive in that a vote against moving it is a vote in favor of a racist relic, a vestige of a falsely mythologized past that has managed to retain its power in the present, the power to control our conversation, to contort people of goodwill into bad choices.

A vote tonight to retain the statue will lead to a headline tomorrow that reads, City votes to keep Confederate statue.

You have an opportunity tonight to resist the coercive power of this monument.

You can resist the seductive power of inaction disguised as recontextualization.

You can resist the allure of the Confederacy and the alt-right.

You can be a model for other municipalities and for our nation by demonstrating that while the Confederacy and its ideals were once central to Charlottesville's past, white supremacy no longer serves our present and it is certainly not needed for our future.

Take a step that will help Charlottesville City be better than our nation.

Resist the coercion of white supremacy.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Jeffrey Fogel.

Good evening.

My name is Jeffrey Fogel.

I live in Belmont.

That was a beautiful address.

Beautiful address.

I'm here tonight because what is scheduled tonight, we are to hear from the mayor of the state of the city.

If personalities in history are any guide, what we're going to hear is a rose-colored report of how wonderful the mayor is, how wonderful his colleagues are, and how we're really on the right path to everything that the city has envisioned in the past.

It's all a lie.

Charlottesville remains a town of two cities, rich and white, poor and primarily black.

As was expressed by the preacher who gave the eulogy for Holly Edwards, it's a beautiful, ugly city.

And you try to make it more beautiful, but you refuse to deal with its ugliness.

We still have 25% of our neighbors mired in poverty, 35% of our neighbors who struggle every day to put food on the table.

We have not done anything to change the poverty level, the amount of disparity in income and wealth in our community.

We have not done anything to change the economics.

The need for decent jobs for people who live and grew up here in this community to help overcome a long history of deprivation.

and discrimination.

Last year, Mayor Hoosier cited how wonderful economics were because we were at 3.8% unemployment.

Well, that was a lie.

If you continue to use those government statistics which ignore the primary group of people who are not working, those who have been frustrated and can no longer work or no longer still believe that they can get a job, and more importantly, those people who are working

in underemployed capacity or working two or three jobs.

These people are hurting as well.

When I've tried to find out what the real unemployment rate here is in Charlottesville, the city's not interested.

But I did get an estimate from Mr. Schuyler, Ridge Schuyler, I think you all know.

It's probably around 15 to 20 percent, and that's unacceptable.

Last year, Charlottesville was identified in a nationwide study to be one of the worst places in the country for upward economic mobility.

The city has hidden its head on this one.

The city refuses to provide low-income housing.

And as we found out, it's not a refusal, Ms. Szakos, and maybe you should raise your hand as you instruct the audience to do when you wish to say something rather than put on an ugly face.

It is not happening.

You are doing things that you claim are going to happen.

You've been on the council for seven years.

And in those seven years, you produce 73 units of housing that's affordable for people who make $53,000 a year.

That's $26 an hour.

What is your minimum wage?

What is your living wage?

$13.75 an hour.

Can any of the people who are on your so-called living wage, who work for this city, live in this city?

The answer is no.

and we're not talking about the poor.

Now, I wish I had the 20 minutes that the mayor's going to take to put forth his rosy analysis of everything, but hopefully there'll be others among us who recognize it.

I encourage everybody that comes to the meeting of the New Organizations.

You're over your time.

Mr. Fogel, please stop.

Mr. Fogel, please stop.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Lindsay Buten.

I live in Monticello Road in Charlottesville.

I'm a white resident of Charlottesville and I want to see the Confederate statues immediately removed from public view and to see the public parks liberated.

I was originally hesitant to move to Charlottesville as a civically engaged queer person.

People reassured me it would be fine, that Charlottesville was a progressive town.

My first time in Lee Park, though, I felt a wave of panic.

The monuments communicate hostility and exclusion.

They instantly made me more vigilant, less relaxed, and more distrustful of the entire city.

The statues have to go for all the reasons the BRC outlines in their report.

So I'm going to use my time to debunk the three remaining excuses for retaining the monuments that keep popping up.

First, that we hear primarily from white people, and white people have no place in this conversation.

Second, that the cost is too high.

And third, racial justice groups must choose between their priorities.

All of these are simply the types of excuses that white people make when they are afraid of disrupting white supremacy but don't want to be called a racist.

First and foremost, racism is white people's problem.

We created it.

We need to change it.

And now more than ever, we need to repudiate the symbolism and ideology of white supremacy in the strongest possible terms.

We have the opportunity to make powerful headlines in advance of Donald Trump's inauguration.

Charlottesville votes unanimously to remove shrines to white supremacy.

Second, on the cost.

Removing the statues is the cheapest and fastest solution to changing the narrative, which you all agree we need to do.

Let me put this in perspective.

All of white Charlottesville's wealth, all of white America's wealth, has been created and accumulated through the institutions of black slavery and white supremacy.

which these monuments were built to preserve and glorify in no uncertain terms.

White Charlotte civilians should jump at such a rare, straightforward opportunity to make a small, concrete gesture of historical accountability that carries such a relatively small price tag.

Third, on the other more pressing issues excuse.

In the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates, quote, there is nothing mere about symbols, end quote.

There is nothing inconsequential about giant monuments to white supremacy.

We resist the presentation of this as zero-sum game that pits marginalized groups against one another.

If Charlottesville wants to be a progressive and innovative town that stands out from all the rest, here's an easy way to do it.

Remove the statues, reinvest in and renovate public housing.

No city in the entire country to date can say that they have accomplished both of these feats without displacing communities.

Remove the statues.

Janet Spittler.

Hello, my name is Janet Spittler.

I live at 904 Anderson Street in Charlottesville.

Thank you.

410 13th Street in Charlottesville.

A citizen, a mother, and a pastor here in town.

I have read the full Commission's report.

I'm very grateful for all that information to know what's happening, especially as someone who is new to this town, has lived here about three and a half years now, but intends to establish deep roots.

I've learned that pastors and leaders of many of the historically white churches played a large part in the construction of white supremacy and in maintaining that lie, that this city belongs to white people,

from holding and hosting KKK rallies at churches to blessing confederate ceremonies and even at the dedication of the Lee statue where there were over 200 people in KKK regalia.

Now I stand here and that's horrifying, it horrifies me still to say that but I am not paralyzed because also in the tradition that I come from we have these tools and these paths with which we can move forward and create wholeness and so I call the council to consider repenting from the horrible and violent decisions of the past to declare and illumine the lies that are still in place

I think that we recognize that in the past there have been very explicit symbols and signs that actually kept this lie in place that this city belongs to white people and I shudder to think that many of these downtown buildings had signs that said colored entrance on them or that I would walk down the hall and said

where they would say colored restrooms or white restrooms and yet we have a park that was still dedicated clearly and explicitly as white space standing as such uncritiqued and unquestioned and though I am new to this city I claim

Thank you.

Ask him what my name is, okay?

I'm asking you.

You don't need to ask me.

Ask him.

He just called me.

You don't do this to anybody else.

It is in the rules, but I overlooked it.

Everyone, I'm going to, okay, sir, sir, I'm going to, it's fine.

Everyone, his name is John Hayden.

He doesn't have to give his address if he doesn't want to.

He speaks frequently.

We're going to reset the clock to three minutes.

Because I'm fine.

He was interrupted.

We cannot.

This is my decision.

We cannot have interruptions over speakers.

We don't allow people to interrupt and speak if they're not recognized by the chair.

That's a rule to get us through a civil meeting.

I time my remarks for three months and I'm done if I'm not interrupting.

As a young parent, I was always confronted with the choice I had to make when it came to spending money.

I applied what I like to call the milk and bread test.

Whenever I had money to spend, I had to think about how many loaves of bread or gallons of milk could I buy for my children with this money before deciding to spend it foolishly, before taking the vote to waste

Hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of dollars in a wasted effort to appease a handful of black anti-white racists or spineless white liberal apologists who want to see everything

From a race perspective, you should think about how to bring people together instead of dividing us along racial lines.

One has to ask, before Wes Bellamy and Kristina Szakos came along to tell black people how they should be offended by these symbols, how did they ever get by?

Or did they just not care?

It is one thing to advocate for something

but you also demonize the very people you are asking.

No, forcing to pay for your liberal agenda.

It reminds me of the old saying, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

For decades, Democrats have ruled this city, taxed and spent our taxes on social agendas.

For the most part, the faithful little minion Democrats have willingly offered up their wallets in thanks.

We hear the grievance, but where's the gratitude?

Taxpayers have footed the bill for free housing and all the associated freebies, homeless shelters, and the list goes on and on.

We don't necessarily expect a thank you, but we're tired of being disrespected by carpet-bagging liberals who want to foist their racial hatred on those of us who were born here.

With a ten-to-one vote on petition to keep the statues,

and a majority vote from the BRC to keep the statues and an overwhelming majority of citizens in favor of keeping the statues, your vote for removal can only be seen as a partisan political move driven by a personal agenda and not what is the best interest of the taxpayers and citizens.

As I've told you on numerous occasions,

You people are stewards of our tax money.

It is not a personal piggy bank for you to use to appease those who are offended by concrete and steel and a phony narrative made up by those who would profit by a further racial divide in this town.

I would say to all those precious cupcakes who are offended

Good evening, Council.

I'm Jelaine Schmidt, 11 Altamont Circle, citizen and resident.

Two recent holidays offered us occasions to reflect upon who we are as a community.

The Commonwealth of Virginia commemorated Lee Jackson Day last Friday.

But two years ago, Charlottesville decided that our city would no longer officially honor two treasonous generals who fought to defend a breakaway slaveholding republic.

As a community, we did not wish to dedicate our time to venerating these men because their lost cause does not match who we imagine ourselves to be and who we might become, a forward-looking, inclusive city.

Well, we should not dedicate our space to venerating these men either.

It is time for this elected body to follow their prior action to its logical and moral conclusion, remove the statues of Lee and Jackson,

Yesterday was the national holiday honoring our great civil rights leader, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

His words and words speak to our situation today.

In his famous letter from a Birmingham jail, Dr. King criticized moderates who were, quote, more devoted to order than to justice, who prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to the positive peace which is the presence of justice, unquote.

Those who make the case against removing the Confederate statues fear the tension of lawsuits and rancorous publicity, and so they prefer the path of least resistance, the easier way out.

The proposed confront-in-place option of making clever design revisions to the statues is just such a moderate solution.

It would tell us that in its central places and largest landmarks, the city is still symbolized by statues dedicated to the lost cause.

Some folks say, well, why exert so much effort?

Statues, they're just symbols.

But as a previous speaker said, symbols are important.

Just this weekend, the preacher at the funeral of Miss Holly Edwards described Charlottesville as this beautiful, ugly city.

These monuments to white supremacy are part and parcel of the ugly city.

It masks our priorities when we give big incentives to developers and comparatively small amounts to non-profit organizations and anti-poverty initiatives.

And then say to the community, well we don't have money, you see, the budget won't allow it.

We can't remove the statues.

Who has a stake in this community?

Who gets a voice in articulating its priorities, in determining its symbols and inhabiting its public places?

There is no more convenient season than now.

As Dr. King observed, time is neutral.

We can exist in inertia, but to persist in the status quo or to adopt moderate concessions is to side with injustice.

Ninety years of lost cause statues is enough.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

We can struggle for change.

Good evening.

So for those of us, just some information.

So on the city website, it says Paul McIntyre instructed the local chapters of the Confederate Veterans, Sons of the Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to have the entire charge of planning the exercise for the unveiling of sculptures in the city of Charlottesville.

And then we have, in response to the incident in South Carolina, Bernie saying, the flag is a relic of our nation, stained racial history.

It should come down, the statue should come down.

Also,

It is, if any good can come of this tragedy in Charleston, it is that the people of South Carolina now have the opportunity to finally turn the page on our past.

And that's the same for Charlottesville.

So my question, and I have one more thing to read, the creator of the Confederacy flag

As a people, we are fighting to maintain the heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior colored race.

So you all can Google all of this.

And then, and we give a lot of credit to Lincoln, but in the fourth debate, this was part

Lincoln started with.

While I was at the hotel today, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the Negroes and white people.

Great laughter.

While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on the subject, yet as a question was asked of me, I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something.

I would say then that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way social and political equality a white and black racist applause.

That I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes.

nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.

And I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

So when you talk these statues mean nothing, Wes wouldn't have been dragged the way he was by Jason.

Jason, other white people hide behind the ignorance that Jason expressed best.

And so what do you really believe about us?

OK, so what is the foundation of your upbringing?

What do you really believe about black people?

And will you finally really get our vote?

OK. And one more thing.

Thank you.

Bob brought up Wilkerson at AATF.

I want you all to not have them beg for funding during the ABRT process this year.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I serve an amazing congregation at 632 West Main Street.

Hodari Hamilton, 632 West Main Street.

That's where I serve.

I was preaching, I guess, the first year I was there.

And so I preached this powerful message.

Great three points introduction and a close.

Somewhere in it, I said some remarks

that were mean-spirited and singled out a group of individuals that I thought I could single out in an unkind way.

So at the end of the service I was happy because the sermon went over well and people stood and clapped and things.

One of my members came to me and shook my hand with tears in her eyes and she said with her eyes, you're a contradiction.

What you're saying is a contradiction.

Charlottesville in so many ways is an amazing place.

I'm not so concerned about those who built it as to those who are allowing it to stand.

If you don't remove that statue, you, not them, are a contradiction.

They're done, but now it's in your hands.

You have all the power.

You either contradict everything you say about diversity,

about this being a welcoming place and a warm place for all people, or you will stand up and say, while it may not be popular to many, we will not be a contradiction.

We will do what is right.

I wasn't a big fan of the statues, of course, but it really didn't bother me a whole lot.

I was reminded why it's so important when I read the hate mail that Wes Bellamy received.

I won't go into detail because his family is here, and out of respect for his family, I won't do that.

But if you support that statue, you are supporting the most vile, hateful people.

And if given the opportunity, if given the opportunity, the things that they would do to me and my children and those who look like me, I assure you, you should be ashamed of yourself.

You have been given all the power.

And you will have to answer, not to me, but you will have to answer to God.

So my sermons now are different.

I dare not vilify or demonize any of God's children.

I challenge you to do something different.

Do not be a contradiction.

Thank you.

OK.

Thank you, everyone.

Everyone can validate their parking up here, too.

Everyone knows.

I really value public comment.

It takes guts to come up here.

We've all been on the other side of this and we're sitting up here and we really appreciate it.

We take very seriously the comments that we hear live here.

We read the emails that we get from you all individually, collectively.

So we thank you and we take public comment extremely seriously.

I will just say that I hope that people will stay for our discussion of the issue that you've come to speak about.

Actually, I would say that our agenda, we made the decision to move.

There's so many people, I mean I'm sure that everybody here wants to hear the state of the city.

All right, any others?

So I have one question for our city manager, or not sure if it's for our city manager or our mayor.

In regards to Ms. Carpenter's comments in regards to public engagement, I know that we've discussed it up here at the end of December.

Do we have a time frame as to when that may possibly be back on the agenda for us to discuss?

And if not, is it possible for us to put on the agenda in February at one of the meetings in February?

Is it possible for us to put the public comment topic on the agenda?

I'm not sure, I know there were comments about public comment.

Not just that portion.

I need some clarification.

Yes, the one year anniversary.

I think we talked about it maybe early March because then we'll have the results from the year.

I just want to make sure I'm capturing the request of the Vice Mayor accurately.

You would also like to include public engagement as part of that?

It doesn't have to be a part of that same discussion.

That can be a separate discussion.

It's two different things.

Yes, sir.

Because we haven't specifically.

But we can talk about that.

We can talk about that.

Yes.

I do have one minor little request, then,

with regards to community engagement, if that could also be the time that we get a better, more full understanding of how the public will be engaged for the strategic investment area as well as the form-based code.

So the topic would be community engagement in all of its facets.

So if you need some time on that, sure.

I think that's more than enough time.

Mr. Jones and I can also talk about the forum that this will take and go to everybody.

Yes.

Okay.

All good?

All right.

So we are going to go to the State of the City address right now.

We're going to make sure that... Oh, no, I'm sorry.

We're doing consent agenda first.

Sorry.

Consent agenda.

All right.

Item A, minutes for January 3rd.

Item B, appropriation HB2 slash smart scale grant funding for High Street, Fontaine Avenue, and Emmett Street.

$29,452,721, second of two readings.

Item C, appropriation Hillsdale Drive extension.

Appropriation of $322,943.79 and transfer of $117,641.50, second of two readings.

Item D, appropriation, fiscal year 2017 transit grants.

$576,676, second of two readings.

Item E, appropriation, National Endowment for the Arts of Our Town grant match appropriation, $25,000, second of two readings.

Item F, appropriation, funds from Charlottesville City Schools to the CCS enhanced entrance security project, $7,582.49, first of two readings.

Item G, Resolution, Charlottesville Albemarle Health Department Restroom and Service Area Renovations Request from Returned City Funds, $49,034.80, first of one reading.

Any questions?

Second.

Second.

Any questions for discussion?

There is five to zero.

All right.

Mayor Signer, before you start the state of the city, could you just maybe inform the ground?

Oh, sorry.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

If you haven't seen a State of the City address before, this is my first one too, so hopefully we can help each other get through it together.

The goal of the State of the City address is once a year to take you through the accomplishments of the past year and to give you a sense of where we hoped to head as a body and as a city.

So let me begin by declaring that the state of the city is strong.

We have maintained our AAA bond rating by two separate bond rating agencies.

At 3.9%, our unemployment rate is the lowest in Virginia of localities.

And we have 39,155 jobs in the city, which is the most ever recorded.

We have a $162 million budget with over 40% spent on our public schools over our benchmark amount of 40%.

And due to our sound fiscal practices, we ended last year with a $6 million surplus, most of which we directed toward our long-term capital projects, which are usually underfunded.

We have received many accolades in the past year as well.

We were ranked number three among Virginia cities in Human Rights First's Equality Index for LGBT folks.

Entrepreneur Magazine named us the number four city in the country for entrepreneurs.

Expedia Magazine named us the number one place to visit in the United States and the New York Post declared us number three of the nation's 15 best places to live.

We received the Go Green Award from the Commonwealth of Virginia and Travelocity put us number one in nine top cities for small cities for foodies.

and Healthline named us as one of the healthiest small cities in the US.

Okay, if everyone could move away from that, from the wall, that would be great.

Okay.

I ran for city council on a theme of one, Charlottesville, which to me meant building bridges, focusing on what unites us rather than what divides us.

During my first council meeting as mayor one year ago, I announced the following goals.

We have an opportunity before us to rebut today's cynicism with governance itself.

As mayor, I want school children to watch us on TV and think that they might want to be on city council someday.

I want to lead the city council to become an exemplar for our citizens of collegiality, of deliberation, of transparency, and of good government.

I promised that my main value as mayor would be to strive for the common good.

I said I would pursue two overarching goals with this council, respect and results.

And I believe that together in this council we have achieved that, and then some.

Vice Mayor Bellamy, Councillor Szakos, Councillor Galvin, and Councillor Fenwick, it has been an honor and a privilege to work with you this last year.

I especially want to thank our city manager, Maurice Jones, for the hard work that he and his staff do every day implementing our vision for Charlottesville.

Mr. Jones recently became the president-elect of the Virginia Local Government Management Association, an honor he richly deserves and that will put our city in very good light statewide.

Reflecting on the last year personally, it's the images that stick with me the most.

It was riding on a snow plow through a blizzard a few days after becoming mayor with one of our hardworking public work staff to get snow out of the way and get people moving.

I wasn't doing that, he was.

It was sitting and learning during my first open office hour to the leader of Seville Women in Tech who passionately argued that we should implement an open data policy in the city.

It was listening to the hundreds of supporters, pro and con, who showed up to the Blue Ribbon Commission meetings to reflect on our city's troubled history and our public spaces.

It was standing with a group of citizens protesting yet another police shooting in another city and walking folks over to meet our new Chief of Police, Al Thomas, who made sure to be there in person.

It was visiting the new headquarters of another remarkable startup whose founder hopes to devise a non-surgical vasectomy and who decided to locate his headquarters on Harris Street right in the heart of the city.

I was talking with residents at Crescent Halls about their fears and hopes about where they live.

I was visiting the Boys and Girls Club last week where I played a game of Mario Brothers, which was called Donkey Kong when I was little.

This will date me on my Atari 5200.

With three kids on a system they had designed where an electric current flows through your body so that you can play the game together.

That's our amazing city.

Our diversity and our ingenuity, our friendliness and our beauty and our people above all else are what make us a world-class city.

but when I watched city council previously I didn't see that reflected on the dais.

Too often I saw acrimony, too often I saw a body that got stuck whether in arguments with staff or with citizens.

We need political will to solve our problems even the most difficult ones.

We need deliberation to work our way through the issues and we need collaboration and compromise to get things done.

That's been the approach this year and it's worked.

Coming into office I saw four major areas where we needed to move forward.

Innovation, Infrastructure, Governance and Reconciliation Innovation because for our economy to thrive for all, we cannot just depend on a few major monolithic employers.

We instead need creativity and innovation to build a resilient, flexible economy.

An economy that's more like a thriving summer garden than a sparse forest with a few tall trees.

Infrastructure because we live in a city that depends on built things, concrete, steel, wool, wood and metal.

Those things are expensive and they are difficult to handle politically but they are crucially important and if we fail to deal with them then they will fail us.

Governance because we must provide a government that mirrors the best aspects of the human beings who pay for it.

that's transparent and responsive, outgoing and reflective, learning and resilient.

And reconciliation because the past, as Faulkner said, is never past.

Surveys show that our deepest value in the Charlottesville area is history.

We have injuries in our past on race and class that haunt us today and we must continue to strive to recognize, address and overcome them.

We made progress this last year on all four fronts.

Let me be clear, in an age of cynicism not only about government but about politics,

All of these accomplishments that happened last year depended on political will.

So here's what I saw as a top ten of what we got done into the last year.

Number one is we increased the funding of our public schools by over two million dollars.

Our public schools represent our most profound commitment, both in terms of dollars and human capital, to our most vulnerable.

They are the engine of progress in our city and we delivered for them.

Number two, we expanded the technology tax credit.

Fifteen years ago, we were the first city in Virginia to create a citywide 50% rebate on professional license taxes for technology companies.

That was expiring last year.

We not only renewed the tax credit, we expanded it from five to seven years, which will allow more young companies more help during those crucial early years of growth.

Number three, we lowered building heights on West Main Street.

because of our concern to protect historic neighborhoods surrounding West Main Street and because of our interest in historic preservation.

While this reduced the value of the real estate on this corridor by tens of millions of dollars, we thought the future of the city was more important than just money.

Number four, we moved to vote, we voted to move the West Main Streetscape project ahead.

This project had been stalled for decades.

The new street will at long last make biking safe on a crucial corridor between the university and the downtown mall.

It will modernize utilities which need to be modernized.

It will quadruple tree canopy coverage.

It will beautify the corridor and it will widen sidewalks making West Main Street in the long term a destination like the downtown mall.

Number five, we made serious progress on parking.

We presented a unified front against a threat to privatize our Water Street garage.

We invested almost $3 million in a parcel that will allow us to expand parking downtown.

And we provided the public with a comprehensive parking plan, including the creation of a new parking division inside the staff.

Number six, we prevented the proposed rezoning of the Booker Hill neighborhood, protecting a historic African-American neighborhood from increased gentrification.

We allocated $80,000 to the rehabilitation of the historic Daughters of Zion Cemetery, which tells an important chapter of Charlottesville's history, that of our robust African-American middle class.

and we created the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race in Public Spaces which produced a very thoughtful and thorough report that we'll be discussing tonight.

Number seven, we became the first Virginia city to require that city agencies register voters online in a time when the right to vote is under systemic assault.

Measures like this will expand the franchise while bringing innovation to the basic functions of a democracy.

Number eight, we voted to create a new open data policy.

This was an important step for both transparency and innovation that will make all city data machine readable and that will allow folks to access and mine our data coming to new discoveries about what we're doing well and where we can improve.

Number nine, we passed a series of memorandums of understanding with our friends in Albemarle County.

These covered the environment, transit and transportation, redevelopment and education, and committed our governments and our staffs to working together in a new era of regionalism and

a time when we're all seeking efficiency and collaboration.

Number 10, we passed new governing procedures for our meetings among other benefits.

We brought work sessions that were previously held off-camera into the public eye during our regular meetings and we focused our agenda, our agendas and deliberations on action rather than just talk among the counselors.

Together these steps have meant a more engaging, efficient, and effective meetings.

So it's been a good year but not for everyone.

Those were some slides from before.

All right.

They were really cute slides.

Apologies.

There is more work to do.

When I was a former vice mayor, Holly Edwards's memorial service last week, I was painfully reminded of the fact that for Holly and for many others, Charlottesville can feel like a city that is leaving our most needy neighbors behind.

Or to put a finer point on it as it were tonight, that it can be a beautiful but ugly city.

During all these accolades and accomplishments, some folks might still be thinking, that's all great, but I feel like folks are getting squeezed out, that they're not comfortable in a changing city.

The plain fact is that Charlottesville is in demand right now.

That means a lot of our assets are also in demand, from housing to parking to infrastructure.

And as any college student in any Econ 101 class will tell you, when there isn't enough supply, the cost increases.

Well, this is a problem that many cities that are in decline would love to have.

It has real human costs and it will present us with many challenges.

I can't tell you there will be easy solutions.

What I can tell you is that over the next year we will try our best.

We will listen and we will learn and we will ask our staff and our stakeholders alike to come to us with the best ideas for increasing opportunity and equity and in a way that's responsible to our taxpayers and our budget.

I want to begin by putting this year by putting one big idea on the table.

to double investment in affordable housing.

I believe we should explore the benefits of doubling our contribution to the Affordable Housing Fund.

We currently spend about 1.6 million dollars a year on the fund and we have invested in the resources we need to take the program to the next level.

We have a new staff director, we have a new housing study, and a new strategic plan on the way.

We are in a great place to redouble our commitment in this area.

One of my proudest moments this year was recognizing and thanking Khizr and Ghazala Khan for their service and patriotism.

During that really wonderful experience, I thought a lot about why they resonated so powerfully with this nation, and I believe it had to do with their authenticity.

As our city grows and changes, it will become even more urgent that we understand and love one another, despite our differences, that we rejoice in our community.

As bad as our politics is today, my experience as mayor this one year has given me faith that there's no problem we can't solve without working together.

I'm painfully aware that we'll be inaugurating not only a new president, but a style of politics that traffics in stereotypes and in course, even vulgar language that demeans the nation envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.

Some say fight fire with fire.

I say, and this is definitely not original, when they go low, we go high.

When I think of one word that captures where we are and where we should go, it's pluralism.

The fact is that nobody has a monopoly on the truth.

Cities like people must keep learning, and we must recognize the difference of opinion, of ideas, of people is the key to our common strength.

In today's politics, it's not just citizens who are under siege.

Elected officials can also become a target.

I'll confess that as a first-time office holder, it's been a somewhat surreal experience to hear some of the stereotypes that people have hurled at me and my colleagues.

I don't tend to talk much about myself in public, so many of you may not know that I was born in India to a single mother.

My birth father died while she was pregnant.

My birth name is Autry.

It's the name of an ancient Indian prophet and that's the name I was known by until the seventh grade.

We came back to the U.S. when I was two and my dad adopted me along with his whole wonderful boisterous New York, New Jersey family.

I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage but I also heard my first hurtful ethnic slur when I was in elementary school.

I attended majority minority public high schools where my closest friends were black, Pakistani, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Peruvian.

My father was afflicted with a serious lifelong illness when I was in ninth grade that prevented him from working, so my family spent many years in the grips of deep economic stress and anxiety.

I have a first cousin and a sister-in-law who are African American.

My sister and her wonderful wife are social workers who have two amazing daughters.

These things don't make me anything other than completely ordinary in that I don't fit into categories easily and that I have often felt like an outsider.

The reason I love Charlottesville so very much is that I feel completely at home here.

I believe our embrace of authenticity and of uniqueness is what makes our community so uniquely wonderful.

And I believe that this is reflected in your elected officials.

I see it in Vice Mayor Bellamy who grew up in public housing and is now earning a Ph.D.

and who is a uniquely passionate and charismatic fighter for social and economic and racial justice.

I see it in Kristin Szakos, whose father was a professor of African American studies, who trained and practiced as a journalist and who is one of the most skilled community organizers I know.

I see it in Bob Fenwick, a US Army veteran trained by the Jesuits at Georgetown, who's a small businessman and a poet who speaks to the heart and soul of our neighborhoods.

And I see it in Kathy Galvin, an architect originally from the rough and tough town of Brockton, who brings both passion and rigor to every project she touches.

We definitely don't get it right all the time, but we are definitely trying our best.

But we don't make Charlottesville a world-class city, you do.

It's you who we wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night thinking about, because it's you who make this such a remarkable, such a challenging, such an inspiring, and such a truly world-class city to serve.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for the honor and the privilege of serving as your mayor.

We will now go to, I think there may be some other slides.

I have to apologize to my wife who really helped me with that slideshow and I completely messed it up.

So I will redo it again at home with some humble pie.

So Vice Mayor Bellamy, would you?

We can take this one.

Are they going to be up here?

In what order?

In what order?

Did you push the off button?

Well, we're stalled for a second.

I will mention that Ms. Rice, as you can see, may be taking maternity leave soon.

And so we have our assistant clerk who is filling in today as a dry run with support still here.

All right.

So I'll do my best to be as brief as possible.

2016 was definitely one of the best years of my life, probably the best year of my life.

And before I go into my notes in regards to the state of the city, I'd just like to thank my lovely wife, Ashley.

for putting up with me because I know it's not easy.

We were married here.

She kind of uprooted her whole entire life to be here with me and fight in some of these battles.

And she's not the loudest person, but she's definitely one of the most loving.

And I really appreciate you, honey.

Thank you for everything.

All right, in all seriousness,

2016 was a very interesting year for us in regards to how I like to look at it, a year of working to provide equity.

Now, Mayor Signer describes several different initiatives that we've been working on, all of which I'm very proud to see, but these are a few, not all, that were very, very important to me.

I was very excited for us to be able to get the Charlottesville Alliance for Black Male Achievement not only off the ground because it had been initiated by counselors Ms. Szakos and some others before me,

but we were really able to be able to take it to the next level.

Through the lines of black male achievement we have seen significant strides being made towards ensuring that black males in the city of Charlottesville are progressing.

We have created the circle of brotherhood for black males between the ages of 17 and 29 that meets every other Tuesday and we have partnered with Willow Tree Apps as well as Cytent to teach these young men the skill of computer programming.

This initiative also includes a skilled trades track in which we have had partners from CATEC,

PVCC, Jones Heating and several others to teach our young men these skills.

The brothers have recently just finished their first four months of the program and in the coming weeks we will begin the second phase which is training at PVCC.

For the young men from grades 7 through 12 we have partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters and the City of Promise to form the Young Lions program.

These teams meet the third Saturday of every month at the University of Virginia to discuss cultural and academic training, how to connect with resource providers in the area,

and, more than anything else, the overall exposure of being around others who care and support them.

We've also had a resource fair for felons.

Ms. Holly, whose picture I'm keeping right in front of me, we miss very much so.

Dr. Holly Edwards.

Thank you, Ms. Joy Johnson.

One of her biggest accomplishments while serving on city council was having the initial resource fair for felons.

We were able to bring that back to the city of Charlottesville last year.

In April, we had several community partners come together to host the second resource fair for felons.

As I alluded to, or excuse me, as I aforementioned,

This initiative was first put together by former Vice Mayor Dr. Holly Edwards several years ago and we were able to bring it back to the city this year.

We had over 40 ex-felons participate and while following up with them several of the men were able to find much needed resources and in some cases employment to keep them in society and out of the criminal justice system.

We look forward to hosting this event once again this spring.

Also, the Female Empowerment Initiative, which has now become the 100 Black Women of Central Virginia.

One of my first initiatives was to look to work with women of all backgrounds to create a program aimed solely at empowering and mentoring young women.

I'm proud to see that the ladies have come together to form this mentoring group focused solely on working with, empowering, mentoring, and caring for young women and girls in the area.

Much kudos and much respect to all the ladies involved in that.

Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority update.

I have been very pleased with the progress of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority after the hire of their new executive director, Grant Duffield.

Mr. Duffield has truly been a champion of the residents and has worked diligently to do everything in his power to move our public housing sites forward.

Unfortunately, we still have a great deal of work to do in order to get where we want to be.

But I'm pleased to recently hear from my colleagues that they are all committed to working with CRHA Board of Commissioners

and the Public Housing Association of Residents, also known as FAR, to help not only improve our public housing sites, but encourage upward mobility.

In my later comments, I will discuss a potential plan in regards to ways to not only prioritize our public housing sites, but to also help fund these initiatives.

It is not enough for us to only say that we want better public housing for all.

We must put substantive action behind our words.

Lastly, real conversations about race, history, and improvement.

The year of 2016 was one that, in my personal opinion, ripped the proverbial band-aid off of the womb.

We have seen just how far we have come in regards to these issues of race in this community and just how far we have to go.

It has been some time since these tough and difficult conversations have been had in our city, and I believe that we were forced to deal with them last year.

The topic of race can be extremely trying, exhausting, and rather frustrating for many, but it is a conversation that we must continue to have if we truly want to make this community a better place for all.

Race, history, and improvement is not something that we can hide or sweep under the rug.

People from several backgrounds found their voices in 2016.

Some were able to express their feelings in an amicable way, others not so much.

And it's my hope, and in 2017, we don't shy away from these conversations.

Yet we will continue to deal with them in order to find symbolic solutions, tangible solutions, substantive solutions, but most of all, a better understanding for each other.

The work continues.

It does not stop.

You look at what I hope to accomplish with my colleagues because none of us can do any of these things alone.

We need to develop a plan to address affordable housing.

I'll be introducing one step of a plan later tonight, but more, excuse me, but now more than ever that is needed.

Addressing the heroin epidemic.

Similar to race, this issue can no longer be ignored.

We have a serious drug and heroin problem in this area, and as one who has had a 20 year old little cousin overdose in front of her son, I know just how serious this issue is.

I look forward to working with whoever, wherever, however, to address this issue and find a solution for our city.

Creating equity through symbols, systems, and action.

We are finally having a conversation and bringing action behind it.

The year of 2017 will bring about new symbols and systems in regards to equity.

Putting action behind the phrase Second Chance City.

We need to encourage collaboration between OAR, the Circle of Brotherhood, and several other community organizations who are working to make sure that this city is one of second chances.

We cannot just talk about it.

We have to be about it.

And I'm sure that in 2017, we will get the ball rolling.

Or, in the eyes of many, continue to push that ball down the road.

Dialogue, action, change, and improvement.

That is our goals for 2017.

and I look forward to working with you all to accomplish them.

Who's next?

Oh, that's me?

OK. OK.

So I think each of us tried to pick things that the others wouldn't pick.

And so I think, first of all, say ditto to both of the counselors who've already gone and probably to the two who will follow me.

This has been a year of recognition and progress on important initiatives for the City of Charlottesville.

The recognitions that mean the most to me have come from our peers, other cities, looking to see who is finding effective ways to govern and lead to ensure that our cities can be the kind of equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities our constituents deserve.

This year, the National Organizations of City Leaders singled out Charlottesville for three honors.

First, we were selected one of 11 cities nationally, seen as leaders in the area of criminal justice reform, re-entry initiatives, and reductions in imprisonment.

A team from Charlottesville was invited to Chicago by the MacArthur Foundation to learn from other city leaders in the field and to share our strengths, especially in the areas of using data to identify and reduce disproportionate racial impact of criminal justice policies, reduce the school to prison effects of school discipline policies, and a workforce training and job placement for previously incarcerated residents, some of the

Second Chance City initiatives that Mr. Bellamy was talking about.

We were also awarded the Platinum Level by the National Healthy Eating Active Living Campaign for making health an integral part of all we do through infrastructure design, programming, and policies, one of only two cities in Virginia to receive such recognition.

Charlottesville's partnership with the TomTom Festival was chosen in the third instance for four big ideas for small cities for a presentation at the National League's Fall Conference in Pittsburgh.

TomTom founder Paul Beyer and I gave a joint TED-style talk to a packed house of council members from small cities across the country.

I'm hopeful that many of them will be coming this spring to the Hometown Summit here in Charlottesville.

We've also made progress in the past year in making this a city of lifelong learning.

We've funded three-year-old preschool education and partnered with the Early Education Task Force to ensure quality childcare and preschool opportunities for all our community's children.

We've partnered with nonprofits, city schools, and adult and youth leaders in the City of Promise to create a model cradle-through-college pathway for our community's children.

And the draft five-year report that City of Promise has just produced is showing dramatic improvements in test scores, college matriculation, parent satisfaction, and even neighborhood crime rates.

Our Parks and Recreation program has provided enrichment programming and after-school meals to more than 350 children.

at Friendship Court, Greenstone on 5th, South First Street, and the West Haven Community Centers.

We've increased funding to our city schools to make up for cuts in state funding to ensure that the progress they've made in educating 21st century learners, increasing graduation rates, and closing achievement gaps continues.

We've also partnered with the schools to provide quality summer learning and fun experiences for children through the parks and recreation summer and school break camps and the youth employment program.

and we supported adult education through the growing opportunities program, the adult learning center as you saw this evening, and the regional jail among others.

And we've recommitted ourselves to pursuing equity and inclusion through our city mission statement, our statement of purpose, and our support for the Human Rights Commission and its work to make sure that we are a city that, despite our history of slavery, prejudice, segregation, and urban renewal, will go forward to, as our mission statement says, promote equity and an excellent quality of life in our community.

The challenges before us are not small.

Probably the most important and perhaps the most difficult is our work to maintain and create more affordable housing in response to pressures of the university and population growth in our neighborhoods.

Ours is a wonderful place to live and more and more people want to live here.

We could respond by limiting development and infrastructure in a way that we've seen will drive housing prices even higher.

But I believe that we should do everything in our power to make sure that development is done in a way that provides a livable community for all, especially for those most vulnerable to gentrification and displacement.

This year we took important steps in that direction by committing to a form-based code in the strategic investment area, increasing allowable density on West Main Street, and forwarding to the Planning Commission a set of strong policy recommendations for increasing affordable housing.

Our support in the coming year for mixed income development and public housing redevelopment with the informed participation of affected communities will help continue that progress.

That's not you.

We're obviously not skilled button pushers.

Oh, okay.

Here we go.

The one to the right.

Okay, it is what I sent.

Okay, good.

So thank you everybody.

This has been really nice to hear everyone's perspective.

And my focus is going to be on three items.

Sustainable infrastructure, effective government, and equitable revitalization.

So,

Under the sustainable infrastructure piece, the mayor's already mentioned West Main Street.

It has taken us 30 years to get to the point where we're actually going to be revising and improving our sidewalks, replacing the gas lines, getting rid of the sick and dying trees and putting new ones in.

And I do want to point out, is there a pointer here?

Is there a pointer?

Oh, there.

and Reverend Hamilton here.

There is going to be on-street parking in front of First Baptist Church.

Very important, very important.

But I also want to point out the very clear crosswalks, the shortened distances between crossings so that the bulb outs that you see are going to make it safer for pedestrians to cross streets.

That's a good segue into the other initiative that we created was the streets that work that is now being turned into our standards and design manual for new street design.

The recent study has come out that says that pedestrians are seven times more likely to be killed by car traffic than natural disasters.

We don't think of cars as being something that lethal.

We don't think of it as something that is a threat because it's something that we use to kind of conduct our business day to day.

But really, the street design matters.

And it's a fundamental function of government to provide safety for you, our people of Charlottesville.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And we have the director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority here.

Another important piece of infrastructure is

Sewer and Water.

And I'm on the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Board, and it's taken about five years, but we did adopt an odor medication plan, and it's in process, about 30% complete.

That is a major, major undertaking, and it also has a major impact on the quality of life of the people that live in Belmont, Carlton, and Willen Mills, and then across the river in the Pantops area.

Just talk to anyone who lives there.

on a warm, still summer day.

So effective government, that starts right off the bat with our ordinances.

And we've talked already tonight, thanks to Ms. Carpenter, about the importance of transparency and predictability in our development process.

That begins with the regulatory environment.

That begins with our zoning.

So we are undertaking overall

Citywide assessment of our zoning.

It's called a code audit, but it's actually a little bit broader than that.

What we've heard over and over again from our community is what they love about Charlottesville and what they don't want to change about it.

This is a street that actually does have really nice wide sidewalks, has good street trees, and it has a scale of buildings around it that makes people feel comfortable and at home.

It's pedestrian in scale.

So one of the things that we are talking about for one of the areas of town, the strategic investment area, which is south of the downtown mall, is a form-based code.

And this is just a diagram of what the difference is, really quick and dirty.

Current zoning would let you build out a block in terms of one big slab of a building.

In some parts of town, it can be as tall as 101 feet tall.

The design guidelines that we have that are controlled by our Board of Architectural Review and many of our corridors is a little bit like lipstick on a pig.

It does allow us to decorate the box, but it doesn't break the mass of the box down.

That's what form-based code does.

It breaks the mass of the box down and it gets it to the point where, you know, we're going to have higher intensity development on the streets that make sense.

We need to have places for businesses.

We need to have storefronts and offices so that residents can have their own industries and businesses.

But we also need to have an idea of how to transition back to those scales of neighborhoods that are smaller and older, like Fifeville, like 10th and Page, like Rose Hill, like parts of Belmont.

So a form-based code gives you much more flexibility and much more kind of technique, if you will, to transition from areas of high intensity development to low intensity development.

And that it has to be done in

in the company of all the stakeholders, the residents, people that own the property, the businesses, people that are developers because it is a value document.

It is something that is informed by people's value of the built environment.

And so that brings up to the whole idea of equitable revitalization.

The Strategic Investment Area Plan has got its implementation plan that was passed in 2016.

And a big part of that is the Friendship Court Master Plan and jobs being tied to redevelopment.

I should say that this council has also made jobs for local hiring and training tied to all

our infrastructure improvements that you've just seen.

The West Main Street improvement is going to have local hiring initiative attached to it.

Our city manager is already working with our partners in the community from PVCC to CATEC and our job center.

to actually set up a program to train folks to actually help build the roads.

Same thing with the Belmont Bridge, actually train our local folks to help build that bridge.

Same idea.

During redevelopment, we're going to get growing opportunity apprenticeship programs in place to get the residents who are going to be affected by the redevelopment to actually build their own homes.

That is the goal.

That is what we're working on.

And we are all committed to it.

So when I talk about the strategic investment area,

I think it's really important that we do bring up that discussion about gentrification.

And many of us have used that word, and it's really important that we all kind of have a shared understanding.

But gentrification is a process of rebuilding that usually comes along at the same time when you get an influx of middle class and affluent people into a disinvested but a desirable location.

And as the mayor said, Charleston will become a really wicked, desirable place to live.

and the strategic investment area is just south of the downtown mall within walking distance.

So it is one such desirable place to live because it's within walking distance of the mall.

So gentrification could, it could displace our lower income, long time residents in this part of the city, if not for the SIA plan and here is why.

The plan includes a resident's bill of rights for redevelopment that ensures the one-for-one replacement of all existing 338 units of supported housing.

That includes friendship court and the public housing within that area.

during redevelopment.

The SIO plan is also part of the city's comprehensive plan, which is a planning document required by Virginia law that provides the basis for all land management decisions, the basis for all zoning in the city.

Such a strong institutionalized demonstration of our local commitment to supported housing units

within the context of a one-for-one replacement within the SIA is especially, especially important now given the uncertain future of federal housing programs under the new administration in Washington, D.C.

I think we all understand what I just said.

Now racially and economically segregated neighborhoods have persisted in Charlottesville since before Jim Crow.

It's been perpetuated since then.

That's been perpetuated by long-standing zoning practices that economically segregate communities by land use, housing type, and parcel size.

So for example, according to the Orange Dot 2.0 report that was also referenced tonight, the citywide median income is $63,937.

However, 246 families in the neighborhood immediately south of downtown, that's the heart of the SIA plan, make less than $35,000 a year.

That's compared to only 79 families north of the downtown mall.

That's why the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, designed the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule to compel communities like Charlottesville that receive federal grants to intervene where there are high concentrations of poverty and racial segregation.

The SIA plan is one such intervention.

because it preserves all 338 units of assisted housing while adding workforce and market rate housing, jobs and job training for residents, a childhood development center, parks, opportunities for healthy food stores, and resident businesses.

The SIA plan serves as this city's inclusive community development policy and affirmative effort to promote integration that's required by HUD under its

It's important to know that these strategies have to go hand in glove

with other strategies that revitalize neighborhoods and reduce family poverty.

So on that note, yes, we have to move forward with our kind of holistic approach to looking at our neighborhoods.

It's not just housing.

It's not just jobs.

It's not just transportation.

It's not just daycare.

It's not just parks.

It's not just trees.

It's not just safe streets.

It's everything.

and that's what a good city, a beautiful city, a sustainable city, an equitable city is all about.

So as a businessman I believe it is important to acknowledge our shortcomings and I want to know where the problems are.

In a way my thoughts could be characterized as a tale of two cities.

Better yet is a tale of five or six or more cities because I don't subscribe to the one Charlottesville slogan.

We are a city of old and young, of black and white, of wealthy and low income, of newcomers, immigrants and old timers.

And that's what makes a vibrant, livable city.

What our city lacks is balance and a commitment to a robust participation of all our citizens in the implementation of city policy.

Five days ago, we had a town hall meeting in Clark School.

Two neighborhood presidents let off and said they wanted to speak first because their neighborhoods think the city is going down the wrong path.

Their words, not mine.

Right now, yet another citizen group is organizing because the neighborhoods in the city are being threatened by development over which the citizens feel they have no power.

The very people who are paying for the running of this city

feel they have no real power in how it is run.

Our volunteer commissions and boards are routinely overruled in their recommendations to city council.

Men and women who are experts in their field are being overruled and the justification is we are the leaders, they are not.

Well, no.

We are the representatives of the people and our work should reflect that.

Our staff is being burdened by specific programs, strategic investment area, streets that work, code audit, form-based code, one major initiative after the other, often going on at the same time, that have not bubbled up from our citizens or the professional staff to the point that the staff can't do the jobs they were hired to do in a timely manner.

And the staff is being augmented in many instances by consultants just to keep up.

If you don't work your job, you lose your skills.

Our city manager who is responsible for running a city of 960 people is sending council emails and reports at midnight on Sunday.

We have piled too much on our staff.

We have strayed from setting policy and are now directing the implementation.

We are not looking for a perfect city.

We just want a responsive city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

We have hit our traditional break point of nine o'clock.

We've got, we're going to get to Blue Ribbon Commission right after we return.

If everyone could take a seat, we can get started.

And again, for anyone who might have been seated in the NDS conference room, we have a fair amount of spare seats here now.

So please feel free to come into the chambers.

OK, so we are

Moving to an item on the agenda, this is a work session, so let me explain a little bit about that for those of you who don't follow the meetings regularly.

There are two different kinds of agenda items when council is talking about something.

One is when we have a specific item that is teed up for a vote.

Those typically come in both meetings, but one of the changes that we made this year in our

Last year in our governing procedures was to move work sessions which previously were held the first Thursday of the month in city space off camera.

Work session is just when council, you're not on Robert's Rules of Order.

You are, you can, each councilor can talk in any which way they want on Robert's Rules of Order.

You have a motion and then the whole train of debate has to follow the motion under very proper parliamentary form.

That doesn't mean you can't have motions and votes in work sessions, but it means

that the work session is set up more freely for the body to just kind of work over a problem.

This is the first time that we'll have had that opportunity on the Blue Ribbon Commission report.

So that was how we set this up in the second meeting of the month, in our working meeting.

So we have 60 minutes allocated for this.

I would just begin with just an overarching note, which is as we've seen, as we've heard the last year, there are very strong opinions on this matter.

I would urge everyone to be civil in their, I mean, the rule here is that you can only speak when the chair has recognized you, so that is the, so please, you know, but just please don't make, I mean I like Ms. Szakos's idea about raising your hand when you agree with the position that's being made.

This is the time for us to deliberate, it means a huge amount that so many folks showed up with opinions and already spoke in the public comment period.

A number of things could happen in this discussion, but it is fairly open-ended.

Again, we've allocated 60 minutes, so we're going to begin with each of us making a statement about where we are.

That's a round-robin opportunity for every counselor to talk.

We can have this go in a number of different ways.

We'll each have a number of things to say about what we would hope to happen even in this discussion, but that will be up to the vote of the body itself.

We can vote on seconding a motion, we can vote on the procedures that we're having, but at the beginning we're just going to start with the statements from each counselor.

So we can start in any which way.

Well I look forward to this discussion tonight not just by my colleagues but from those of you who have taken the time to show up because the path forward is still unclear to me but a few words on how I feel at this moment.

There are a number of good recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission but I will focus on the movement of the statues

If there is any time we need education, it is now.

So let's start with a few facts.

These are not my facts, and these are not your facts.

They are just plain facts able to be proven by historical or contemporary documents.

Carry me back to old Virginia.

There is where this old darky's heart am long to go.

There's where I labored so hard for old Massa day after day in the field of yellow corn.

No place on earth do I love more sincerely.

These are words fondly recalling slavery, a system where families were sold off, where sons and daughters were sold away from their families, where young girls were sold.

This is the state song, Emeritus of Virginia.

If it were not so offensive, it would be laughable.

Months ago, when I attended the first meeting of the Blue Ribbon Commission, I was hoping that among all the uncertain outcomes, a community would at least be presented facts, and that is what has happened.

Some of the facts we knew, some we should have known but didn't, some we just didn't believe.

George Washington had slaves.

Thomas Jefferson had slaves.

Thomas Jefferson took a young black girl, Sally Hemings, as a concubine and had children with her.

This is history.

These will remain facts until the end of time.

And I say this in the spirit of a story many in this room will remember, the story of Saul, a man who tortured and murdered Christians and what happened on his journey on the road to Damascus.

Robert E. Lee had slaves.

Robert E. Lee freed his slaves, but only under a court order.

He fought to keep his slaves.

Robert E. Lee volunteered for the job of commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Nobody forced him to take the job.

Robert E. Lee was no fool, no murderous thug, whose only thought was blood and destruction.

He was a highly educated man, a top graduate and eventual superintendent of West Point.

He could read.

And if I can read the historical documents, he could read those same documents and undoubtedly did.

To say that Robert E. Lee didn't believe his efforts as commanding general of the Army of the Confederate States had as their primary aim the preservation of a way of life in which enslaved humans were the primary economic driver

is in itself delusional.

The Civil War was a war fought to preserve slavery.

That, too, is a fact.

So now it starts to get tangled up, morality with politics, politics with economics, economics with legal precedent, and everything stuck on just plain human nature.

We get to the present, and some of these thoughts I will share represent fact and some judgments.

on the probability of what could happen because they have yet to play out.

For years, I have tried to put myself in a position where I would know the pulse of our community of all of our neighbors.

So most people, black or white, don't want to move the statues or, at this point in time, just don't care because they see a huge sum of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

That is reflected in the votes of the members of the commission.

But because at its core, this discussion concerns racism, this will not be a majority rules decision, at least not for me.

Further, it will be very expensive to move the statues.

And finally, the law in Virginia has not been settled in this matter.

I've heard we would surely win any legal challenge

because of what happened in Danville or Lynchburg or Alexandria.

In my judgment, there will be a lawsuit with a probable but uncertain outcome, which means the community will be stuck on hold until we reach a resolution.

After all, remember that it's the Supreme Court justices appointed by the same men who refuse to retire a song like Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.

who will make the decision about who can or cannot move the statues.

And nobody can foretell what their decision will be with any certainty.

So what do we do now?

My duty as an elected representative is to represent in a manner of speaking to see what will work to move our community forward.

What action can we take that cannot be papered over with a declaration or a proclamation or a parliamentary maneuver

or cannot be changed or ignored by a new council.

I've heard we have to act now.

It's urgent.

So on an issue this important, an issue that no community across our country has mastered for which there is no path to guide our steps, we have to rush.

I've also heard that financially we can both move the statue and invest in our people.

I would respectfully ask, where in this country has that ever worked?

We would have to raise taxes substantially.

And who bears the burden of tax increases?

The 2% or the 98%?

Who in this room is ready to believe the promises?

I've also heard we have to vote in the face of uncertain and time-consuming roadblocks because of its symbolism.

Symbolism.

Enough symbolism.

Enough of the declarations, proclamations, good intentions, written promises.

We have been down that road before, more than once.

It's time to show me the money.

If the words you hear tonight have any real meaning, then they will find their way into the city budget.

It's time to invest in our citizens.

Keep our young people out of prison with diversion programs, mentoring programs, like Wes has started.

offer training not just in computer applications or apps, but in skilled trades so young people don't have to wait for affordable housing.

They can build their own.

Invest in people, not in prison.

Simply put, statues can wait.

People can't.

Is that possible?

I think so.

But we won't know for sure until we try.

Instead of money going to build a skate park over in McIntyre Park, which will be unusable when it rains or snows and hardly usable in the middle of night or late at night, I will advocate for building a field house in Tomster Park, which was in our CIP, the Capital Improvements Program, two years ago.

Let's see if I can get my plate back.

And that got bumped off by the skate park.

The Field House would be a facility which will be packed every single night, hot or cold, rain or shine.

Kids running off the energy that kids have and they will be close to home.

I would open up all the community centers.

every day except Sunday morning, all day, make them true community centers, invest in the building of a community that we all say we want, but as a goal we have yet to reach.

Yes, there will be a cost to this.

Last year at one of the first budget workshops, I was presented with a budget to cut appropriations to the poorest among us by about 13 and a half percent.

That's legal aid, ready kids, departments like that.

while the West Main Street was allocated $10.5 million, of which the consultant has already been paid $1 million, with at least another million dollars to come, probably more than that.

What could we do for the children of the community, pre-K, K through 12, for the elderly on fixed income who never had the opportunity to work for a pension because they worked as domestics or laborers?

or who because of an illness or accident face eviction and don't have the funds to defend themselves in court.

For single mothers who struggle to find the energy to earn enough for food or rent and still nurture and guide young children.

For a robust look at what we can do about disparate minority contact.

Maybe a better question would be what has the city gotten for the million dollars already spent

for a consultant on West Main Street.

So my thoughts at this time are don't rush through this.

Weigh carefully as best we can consequences of our decisions.

Recognize that there will be unintended consequences.

And most importantly, start putting our money where our mouth is.

Many of us are aware that yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, Sunday being his birthday.

I would like to begin my comments with a quote.

Oftentimes we hear words and messages or passages from the I Have a Dream speech or from other words and phrases that seem to make us feel good and coddly on the inside and bubbly sometimes on the outside.

but this too is Dr. King.

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.

I have almost reached a regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the white citizen's counselor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.

who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice.

Who constantly says, I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action.

Who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom.

who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a more convenient season.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

That, my friends,

is Dr. Martin Luther King on April 15, 1963, in his letter from the Birmingham jail cell, essentially talking very much about what we may have just heard.

In the city of Charlottesville, I believe that very few can deny the fact that we are constantly growing and changing.

There have been an array of different initiatives over the years that have led to a city that is different today than it was in years past.

Today, as I sit beyond the disk, I'm standing on the shoulders of Charles Barber, the first African American mayor, Reverend Hall, Reverend Dr. Alvin Edwards, Maurice Cox, Kendra Hamilton, and my personal hero, mentor, and angel, Dr. Holly Marie Edwards.

It is now clearer than ever before that we have work to do in this city in regards to race relations.

I have heard some people say that before you came to this city, you being Wes, and before you were on city council, you being Wes, we didn't have any racial issues in this city.

I have also heard, there's one raising his hand, I have also heard one of the most influential pastors

in this community describe this city as one that is a beautiful but ugly one.

You all have heard the phrase much today.

The irony yet harsh truth in that statement is thought-provoking to say the least.

On one hand, we have a wonderful city with a wonderful university in our backyard, an up-and-coming technology sector, and genuine people who will give you the shirt off their back.

However, we also have an incredibly high poverty rate, a serious issue in regards to modern day gentrification, and several inequities in regards to how everyday people see this city.

What appears to be evident is that the topic of race is still one of the most contentious topics in not only the country, but in our very city.

Yes, this city that has been lauded as a best place to live, a best place to raise children, a best place to start a business, a healthiest small town.

We still have a significant not only racial divide, but equity divide when it comes to how we see the city of Charlottesville.

That racial divide has been exposed by some of the hateful rhetoric and the removal of the Lee and Jackson statues.

excuse me, around the removal of the Lee and Jackson statues.

Before that, many believed that through the dialogue on race, within our silos and our respective circles, in our churches, in our neighborhoods, and in our personal interactions, we had dealt with the issue of race.

Charlottesville was different from other southern cities.

The ills and issues that were going on around the country were not present here because we were better than them.

But we have to be honest with ourselves.

We aren't.

This painful lesson is one that I too had to learn.

I once had a community cookout in 2013 at Lee Park and thought nothing of it.

I was eventually scolded by several elders and community matriarchs for holding the event at the location in the shadow of Robert E. Lee.

So when I often hear by individuals the overwhelming majority of the city does not want the statues removed or they did not care about it, I'm somewhat perplexed.

Because how could those same individuals tell some people some things but tell me very directly something different?

The answer is here.

I thought to myself, even after that initial encounter, those individuals are wrong.

This is a new day.

People here aren't like how they used to be.

We have moved forward as a diverse community.

This city embraces diversity.

This city wants us to empower those who feel as if they aren't included.

And Charlottesville isn't like the other places in the south.

I know what racism looks like.

I grew up in the deep south.

Not like some of the other places I've seen growing up, Charlottesville is different.

I refused to believe otherwise.

However, unfortunately, I have learned that in many ways I was wrong.

Dr. Holly and Ms. Joy warned me, sitting on her couch.

Mr. Barber warned me.

Ms. Carey warned me.

Dr. Harrison warned me.

Reverend Edwards warned me.

Ms. Dee Dee Gilmore, her brother, her father, several others did the same.

But it was not until March 22, 2016, the day that a group of us called for the removal of the Confederate statues that I truly saw for myself just how far we have to go.

In no way do I believe that we are all bad.

But we are fooling ourselves if we don't believe that there are still some, not all, but far too many people who hold the Confederate causes and would rather preserve those symbols of their precious heritage than recognize that honoring them insults and damages a great many of our own residents.

We're fooling ourselves.

I have received death threats.

I'm glad my wife is gone.

Received death threats.

My daughters have been mentioned by name.

I've been called every kind of n-word you can imagine.

Yeah, the one that's running through your mind, that one too.

I've had monkeys with bananas thrown by my property.

And even today, I was bum-brushed while talking with friends by a stalker whose sole purpose was to intimidate not only myself and my loved ones, but send a clear message.

I've lived through people attempting to ruin not only my livelihood, my career, but attack my character, my integrity, and try to break my will as a man.

And if any of you believe that that is not in part because I am an African American in a position of influence who is vocal about racial justice and the Confederate statues, then you are mistaken.

We have seen this method of attack before.

This isn't anything new.

History often repeats itself.

But I will be clear.

I am still here, and I'm not going anywhere.

So let's figure out how we either work together to make a change, or we can decide to push the divide even wider than what it already is.

I'm not interested in doing the latter, so let's work on the former.

The band-aid has been ripped off.

I'm willing to extend an olive branch and compromise of sorts to help us move forward in repairing some of the long-standing inequities in our community.

I believe that we can honor our past and correct its wrongs and still move forward collectively as a unified group.

I see these issues and challenges as an opportunity to work together and make this city better.

Not worse, but one cannot work alone.

And if you feel as if your way is the only way, then we won't get anywhere.

We just saw a strong community leader be laid to rest.

She meant more to me than anyone will ever know.

And for her,

for Mr. Salmons, for Mr. Eugene Williams, for Ziona Bryant, the young men and women at Charlottesville High School, the people who give me their love, support, and words of wisdom, black, white, young, old, and everything else in between, I would like to propose the following package of initiatives.

These initiatives will not only start to right the wrongs of the past, but ensure that we are moving towards being an equitable and fair city for all.

They are in the areas of education, housing, workforce training, employment history, and dialogue.

All areas we need to address head on to create the kind of community we want to be and repair some of the inequities of the past.

Since the public has not had a chance to see these proposals, and council only received them today, I would like to make a motion and entertain a second, but wait to vote on this package until our February 6th city council meeting.

I am also interested in hearing, for those who are willing to do so, a vote on those same statues in addition to this package.

In regards to education, the Charlottesville Scholarship Program,

In honor of our former mayors, Reverend Dr. Alvin Edwards, Charles Barber, Dr. Holly Edwards, and others who have served on this same city council, the city council will establish a $5,000 a year scholarship through the Charlottesville Scholarship Program in the name of Charlottesville, excuse me, in their name, four Charlottesville City Schools, Charlottesville City School graduates to attend an historically black college or university of their choice.

So that means $5,000 a year, it will be a scholarship that comes from council, and it will be for students who graduate from Charlottesville High School, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or creed, to ascend an HBCU of their choice.

Next, a GED training and course assistance.

City Council will allocate up to $20,000 to work with the Charlottesville Housing Authority and Adult Learning Program to provide free GED training and cover the cost of the GED exams for residents of our public housing sites and work to seek assistance for at least 50% of tuition to PVCC for these GED completers.

Course curriculum in local schools.

City Council will offer a grant of $15,000 for the creation of an ethnic studies course to be taught in our local schools focusing on the history of people of color in the city of Charlottesville in conjunction with the Charlottesville City Schools.

This course will comply with all standards of learning, also known as SOL, guidelines and requirements, and will expose local students to the history, the difficulties, accomplishments, and impact of people of color in and around the city of Charlottesville.

a coordinator for Black Youth Achievement.

As initially proposed by the Charlottesville Youth Council, this new position, estimated cost of $100,000 including salary, benefits and program budget, will focus on a community-wide effort to close gaps in opportunity and achievement in education and employment, coordinate and inform the work of non-profit and other community partners,

and work with young African American residents of Charlottesville to develop leadership skills, academic excellence, and workforce readiness.

This position may be housed in the Office of Human Services, Human Rights, or the City Manager's Office.

Housing.

Charlottesville City Council will prioritize the allocation of $2.5 million over the next five years into the city's capital improvement plan for redevelopment of our local public housing sites.

City Council and league staff will also convene a town hall meeting to explain in detail the partnership between the City Council, CRHA, FAR, and the new CACF grant.

The program will include a clear explanation to the public of the process of the Affordable Housing Fund where the city currently stands in regards to affordable housing and the current plan for increasing more affordable housing.

City Council tasked staff with conducting a series of meetings and public education workshops to inform neighbors and concerned organizations in the SIA area and involve them in its implementation, including explanations of form-based code and initiatives in the SIA.

City Council will continue to work with PHA and other partners to provide funding for down payment assistance.

Workforce Training and Employment.

Charlottesville City Council will prioritize workforce training for residents who live in the SIA to assist with upward mobility.

The city will continue to push the GO, Growing Opportunity Initiative, in low wealth communities throughout the city.

The Black Youth Achievement Director will help to staff Circle of Brotherhood and other targeted employment and training initiatives for young people of color.

the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

Charlottesville City Council will provide a one-time grant to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to provide them assistance for the staple of the Charlottesville community and to ensure the successful refinancing of the building that will ensure its long-term viability.

Dialogue on Race.

Charlottesville City Council, in remembrance of several community leaders, including Ms. Holly Edwards and several other community matriarchs, who were the visionaries and driving forces behind the Dialogue on Race in 2010.

For them, Council will allocate $10,000 to the Human Rights Commission and task this group with prioritizing a second round of Dialogue on Race to the Charlottesville community.

Slave Auction Block and agrees with the Blue Ribbon Commission Report, Charlottesville City Council will allocate $50,000 for a design competition and reinterpretation of the current Slave Auction Block.

Tonsler Park.

In an effort to create equity throughout the city, it has been stated that as little as two years ago in the city's capital improvement plan, we the city council then removed the funding for a field house at Tonsler Park.

I would like to request that we task staff to put the necessary monies back into the CIP for the construction of a field house at Tonsler Park to be done so during this budget session.

I want to be very clear.

We have over a $160 million budget.

do not allow anyone to tell you that we cannot do multiple things at once, as that is the responsibility of counselors.

It is our responsibility to decide how to move this city forward with different initiatives, with different programs, but also ensure that we represent the values, integrity, thoughts, and feelings of all.

As so many of the individuals who like to famously oppose me, stalk me, and go through hundreds and thousands of different things to find different issues on me, many of them enjoy using quotes of MLK that are convenient.

Well, how about this one?

That has been stated by many.

An injustice to one is an injustice to all.

And if you are willing to look at an injustice and clearly and plainly be able to deal with it, then that is your decision and you have to live with it.

Excuse me, I'm a little bit confused, if I may.

What is the motion that we're... We're not ready to...

Yeah, we're not doing motions until we... We don't have to have discussion on it yet, but he did say he was making a motion.

Second, we can have the discussion.

And it was for voting on next meeting.

So first of all I really appreciate the Commissioner's hard work and before I start I will say that that was a really hard message to follow and I will first of all say it like he said.

The work of the Commission is going to help the way Charlottesville tells its story and repair the harm done by past injustices.

I know that Councillor Bellamy has made a motion tonight for consideration at our next meeting that will address how we can advance many of their recommendations.

But I would like to make a motion that we take a simple up or down vote tonight on the Lee statue and the Lee Park name as they are clearly outlined in our agenda.

The commission has recommended by a vote of seven to two that we remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from downtown and recommended unanimously that we change the name of the park of where that statue is now.

I believe we need to make a decision quickly on these two matters because until we do, we will continue to attract unwanted interference from the Confederate heritage groups and the white supremacy activists around the country, many of whom have no stake in our local decisions.

Until we make a decision, Counselor Bellamy, who has already paid a terribly high price for his outspoken position on this matter, will continue to be the subject of a concentrated hate campaign to discredit and harm him.

Other community leaders, including high school students, will continue to be harassed and threatened as long as these neo-Confederates feel that silencing them will prevent a decision to move the statue.

and whichever direction we decide, there will likely be a lawsuit and there will be a complicated set of decisions to follow which we need to set in motion now.

If we vote to move the statue, we will then need a plan where it will ultimately go.

Moving it to McIntyre Park would necessitate reworking the park master plan, determining the cost and content of a balanced contextualization there.

We need to know that there is will on council to move the statue before we take the time and expense to undertake that process and to determine if McIntyre Park is the appropriate place to put it.

If we vote to transform it in place, then we need to decide how or indeed if it can be transformed in a way that would exceed the lost cause narrative in power and visual impact, as the Commission has insisted we must do in that case.

Will passers-by on the street be able to understand that the Confederate cause is not being celebrated here?

Will the emotional impact be clear to the casual eye?

This process too would take considerable time and expense, and we need to know if that's what the majority of Council wants to do before we go down that road.

I believe that moving it will be more economical, as transformation in place must by its definition be greater in scope than the original, but that's not the only reason that I support removal.

I've been reading a recent biography of Robert E. Lee, Jonathan Horn's The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, and I've become convinced that if he were alive, Mr. Lee would be among those calling for removal of the statue.

Mr. Horn writes, quote, so sensitive was Lee during his final years with extinguishing the fiery passions of the Civil War that he opposed erecting monuments on the battlefields where southern soldiers under his command had fought against the Union.

He quotes Lee as saying, quote, I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.

There are those who find the post-war figure of Robert E. Lee worthy of veneration and respect, and perhaps there is an argument to be made for a monument to him dressed in his civilian attire and getting on with the work of mending the Union, but that is not what our monument does.

The Robert E. Lee celebrated in Charlottesville is depicted in full battle uniform, leading the Army of the Confederacy in its fight to preserve the institution of slavery.

It is no accident that it and others like it were erected long after Mr. Lee's death, almost 60 years after the war, at a time when Reconstruction backlash was being expressed in lynchings across the South and in laws like the Racial Purity Act passed that same year in Virginia.

It is not surprising that the Ku Klux Klan celebrated its dedication with a cross burning on Brown's Mountain and a march through the city.

Some say that we need to keep the statue in place to remember that there were once people here who believed in the lost cause.

But I would argue that we don't need a statue to remember that.

All of the misspelled, hyperbolic, sometimes threatening messages we have received from Confederate nostalgists and white nationalists across the country in the last five years show that the lost cause is as alive and well to them today as it was to the marchers in the 1924 parade.

In addition, the Blue Ribbon Commission recommends preserving the less overtly aggressive statue of Stonewall Jackson situated in a park where trees shield his dominance over the street, challenging it with other clear messages as a way to acknowledge the reality of that part of our community's past while not surrendering both of our downtown parks to its perpetuation.

Removing the statue of Robert E. Lee, the option that received more votes from the commissioners than the transform in place option, will give us the space, both figuratively and literally, to tell the full scope of our community's history in the public realm while ensuring that we will still have places to gather and celebrate multiculturalism, vegetarianism, LGBT rights, chocolate, and innovation in what is now called Lee Park.

At the same time, we can move forward in renaming the park, perhaps Emancipation Park, a name that would acknowledge the Civil War's lasting legacy for the descendants of enslaved Americans who at the time of that war made up more than half of our city's population.

And therefore, I would like to move that council vote this evening

to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from Lee Park and to rename the park and that we direct staff to bring us a range of options for moving forward with decisions on the destination, design and park name within 60 days for our consideration.

And because we're in a work session, we're just going to wait to get until after all the opening statements are finished to talk about the motion as a motion.

Thank you.

And thank you for everyone's comments so far.

I just want to remind everyone that the Blue Ribbon Commission did give counsel a choice.

Do we relocate the Lee statue or contextualize it in a significant way?

I've looked at that question in an ethical, practical, and immoral

dimensions, and it has to be looked at from my perspective from all three perspectives.

So from the ethical.

Ethics, as I understand them, are external standards provided by institutions, groups, or culture to which an individual belongs regardless of personal preference.

So an important ethical framework that applies to these historic statues is the U.S. Secretary of Interior Standards for Historic Preservation.

Those standards state, quote, the historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved.

The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided, end of quote.

The north downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

The statues, parks, and slave block are within the Charlottesville-Albemarle Courthouse National Register Historic District.

Consequently, the disturbance of any historic artifact from this district poses an ethical dilemma from a historic preservation standpoint.

Another ethical framework comes from Abraham Lincoln and our American veterans.

In one of many acts designed to reconcile the North and South and rebuild the Union, President Lincoln said in his second inaugural address in 1865, quote,

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds."

End of quote.

President Andrew Johnson pardoned all Confederate soldiers in 1868 in an executive order.

In 1958, Confederate soldiers were recognized as US veterans.

In August 2000, the Sons of Union veterans of the Civil War approved a resolution opposed

to the removal of any Confederate monuments or markers and the removal of any reminders of this nation's bloodiest war.

Consequently, quote, to disturb or interfere with any monuments or memorials so erected, which is from the Virginia Code, Chapter 15.2-1812, poses another ethical dilemma with regards to American veterans and the framework for reconciliation put in place by Lincoln himself.

So now there's a practical dimension that I've looked at.

looked at this issue through.

It has been estimated to cost $330,000 to move the Lee statue.

In my view, that is a very low estimate, which fails to take into account the travel distance, topography, and lack of road access to East McIntyre Park.

Besides, it is puzzling to me why would we place a Confederate war memorial in the historically white park and place it on a hill that's higher than the one it's on now.

The Warner Parkway, however, has shown us that putting a road in a park is a divisive, difficult, and expensive issue.

Nonetheless, excepting that $330,000 is the figure that some on council are willing to spend to move the statue, here are some other public investments that would materially benefit many of our citizens, many of them being African-American.

So three three-year-old classrooms at $100,000 each, 13 structured parking spaces for a municipal parking garage on West Main Street that the First Baptist Church needs, the rehabilitation of 10 houses under the Block by Block program, down payment assistance to 15 families that earn between 25% and 60% annual median income, the downtown job center and workforce program operating budget

for two years.

In a world of limited resources, the fact that moving the statue would have no material impact on the well-being of our community and at the expense of needed education, housing, workforce, and transportation investments poses a moral dilemma.

That brings up these other moral implications.

So the moral lens.

So morals are influenced by culture and society, but they are personal principles of right

and Ron created and upheld by individuals.

Symbols reflect the values of a culture and they can shape the morality of individuals.

To me, that is the crux of the moral problem with these statues if they are left as they are.

Without question, the Civil War was about slavery and an insurgency willing to destroy the Union and 700,000 Americans to expand a heinous institution.

To quote Lincoln's second inaugural address,

quote, these slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.

All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.

To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war, end of quote.

As Grant would later say in his memoirs about Lee when he surrendered at Appomattox, quote, I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly

and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought and one for which there was the least excuse, end of quote.

Lincoln and Grant both understood that the South's intent to expand slavery and risk the Union was unjustifiable.

Now, according to Margaret O'Brien, who did some research for the Blue Ribbon Commission,

The monuments to Lee and Jackson and their park areas were created at a time of strict racial segregation and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

According to John Mason on the Blue Ribbon Commission, when Gary Gallagher addressed the commission, he called the statues of Lee and Jackson Jim Crow monuments, since they reflected the views and attitudes of white people in the 1920s, not the views and attitudes of the Civil War era or Charlottesville's black citizens.

The statues, therefore, cannot be seen solely

as monuments to American veterans.

These are also monuments to the myth of the lost cause and white supremacy from the 1920s.

But does the racist intent to subjugate black people that motivated the making of these statues in the 1920s hold sway over us today, even as we condemn white supremacy in 2017?

What I've heard from the people of Charlottesville during these past four months is that these symbols, if left unchecked,

still hold the power to oppress.

Simply removing these statues, however, in an effort to erase the Jim Crow era from our sight, along with the discomfort we feel whenever we look upon them, to my mind is fraught with moral dilemmas of its own.

As two members of the community said at a forum, we can't only preserve what we want, and we must not, quote, paper over white supremacy.

So first, in my view,

In my view, it is morally wrong to scrub our public places of all artifacts that we feel do not comport with our present collective morality.

We have no right to edit the past, a past that belongs to the past and future generations, in an effort to control how future generations will think about that past, be it slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and yes, Jim Crow.

This was once a Confederate city.

Just read the countless names of the identified Confederate dead in the historic Maplewood Cemetery to confirm that fact, along with the first free black man to own property, Fairfax Taylor, and Paul Goodlow McIntyre himself is in that cemetery.

I also believe we have no right to deny future generations the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about their forebears' choices based on the artifacts that they left behind.

Second, to remove all contradiction between the norms and values of today and yesterday denies us the possibility of measuring our own progress, or lack thereof, and learning from our mistakes.

Two weeks ago, my family and I visited the National Mall in Washington, D.C. As we rounded the tidal basin, we found ourselves at the foot of the Jefferson Memorial directly opposite the Martin Luther King Memorial Junior's Memorial.

The former, a classical shrine set on a pedestal,

the Ladder of Force of the Almighty breaking through Iraq.

The tension between those two men could be felt across time and space, yet their destinies were inextricably linked.

It wasn't just another enigmatic white man of privilege who kept people in bondage encased by those columns, but powerful words that enabled the other man across the water to move our country one step closer towards a more perfect union.

I challenge us to create

such a dynamic provocative tension between our memorials old and new in our own historic precinct so that the questions we've raised during these past four months continue to be debated well into the future.

So my conclusion.

We've been given two seemingly morally justifiable options by the Blue Ribbon Commission.

Relocate the statue or contextualize them in a significant way.

Relocating the statue, however, to my mind, even if it is still visible in the city so that it is not erased from our collective memory, is still fraught with ethical, practical, and moral dilemmas.

Contextualizing the statue in a meaningful, significant way, to my mind, is not.

I also believe that contextualizing is the only way that we can move forward together as a unified city of American citizens in a constructive peace.

I therefore propose the following.

First, in keeping with the Blue Ribbon Commission's guiding principles, I believe that the statue should remain within their public places, but that, quote, their history and symbols of white supremacy are revealed, and their respective parks are transformed in ways that promote freedom and equity in our community, end of quote.

Second, we must create a coherent narrative for the entire historic precinct.

That includes Lee Park, the Lee Statute, Court Square, the Jackson and Confederate Soldier Statutes, the Slave Block, and the site of the Reconstruction Era's Freedman's Bureau.

To that end, we need to do the following.

Reserve a half million dollars for the contextualizing of this precinct.

Issue in our request for proposal for professional services for the contextualizing and memorializing of this precinct and all it contains.

Rename both the Lee and Jackson Parks.

and Institute a new holiday to celebrate Charlottesville's return to the Union.

Third, as stated by one member of the public during one of the community forums, measure equality.

Don't give us socks.

In light of the fact that this council would spend $330,000 to move the statue, but that there remain other challenges related to equity, many of which are a direct result of slavery in the Jim Crow era, I propose that this $330,000 be committed

to implementing an effective family self-sufficiency program that's already authorized by HUD, Housing and Urban Development, for the benefit of public housing residents and a similar program for the benefit of Friendship Court residents.

This money will be administered by the city, its job center and workforce programs in collaboration with the Housing Authority, the Public Housing Association of Residents, Piedmont Housing Authority, the Friendship Court Resident Association and other community partners.

Thank you.

Let me begin by saying that I abhor the institution of slavery and its after effects.

Slavery is the great shame of this nation and its legacy will not be undone for generations to come.

It doesn't matter whether we're direct descendants of slaveholders.

We are all part of a system that was built on the backs of slaves.

And we're also all part of the long attempt to unwork a post-slavery system that continued to legally oppress African Americans, whether through Jim Crow laws or redlining or massive resistance or urban renewal.

And I want to say as an aside that

This is a very difficult and painful issue and I hear the pain in this room and the anger and the rage and the moral purpose.

The question we have before us is how to address memorials that were put in place several decades after the abolition of slavery to celebrate the Confederacy, as well as more broadly how to change the narrative of Charlottesville by telling the full story of race through our public spaces.

I also want to thank the Blue Ribbon Commission for their hard work and their diligence.

I see several members here with us.

on these topics over the last six months that they were working last year.

These are issues about which people, or more months, of good faith can disagree passionately.

What I've learned from studying this effort across the country is that each case is unique.

Our statues, their history, their design, their significance, both positively and negatively, are unique and authentic to Charlottesville.

And that also applies to the other components of the Blue Ribbon Commission's charge.

The Slave Auction Block, the Drury Brown Bridge, the Vinegar Hill Park, the Daughters of Zion Cemetery are naming opportunities to take just a few.

My interest in this topic is in moving ahead.

I want to do something rather than kick the can down the road.

To the greatest extent possible, I would also like to choose a path that will unify this community, that will create bridges rather than divisions.

I have not been able to get out of my head something that somebody said to me at an NAACP meeting

right when this started last year, which was that they thought that these should be teachable moments, that they should prod the community, and that it should be part of how constantly we are teaching and learning.

It was an African-American gentleman.

I've said not that that legitimates the opinions of anybody else, but that is the fact of who I spoke to.

I've said before that I will not vote to move either of the statues.

I've come to this position for several reasons.

First, after months of testimony, research and debate, the Blue Ribbon Commission voted to keep the statues in Charlottesville.

I want to be very clear about this because I was in person at that meeting, the last meeting where this was wrestled with very passionately with a lot of hard work.

They voted for moving to McIntyre because it was inside the city of Charlottesville.

They did not vote to move the statues outside of the city of Charlottesville.

And they had two different votes and they gave us two options for how to keep them inside the city of Charlottesville.

Second, sentiment on this issue remains deeply divided in our community, including among both white and African American communities and others.

That was very clear during the Blue Ribbon Commission meetings and public hearings.

It's been very clear in the communications we've received over the whole year.

Some have said, well, why don't you take a poll?

But a poll to me would replicate the very problem we are starting with, which is the underrepresentation of minorities.

On top of the lack of a clear consensus, I believe that such a move will become a symbol and a cause, could become a symbol and a cause that could further divide our community, that would certainly entail expensive and costly litigation, and that because of several logistical and financial issues, would likely lead to a stalemate and to inaction rather than action.

I would apply that analysis to the idea of moving the statues to McIntyre Park, which was the recommendation of the Blue Ring Commission, as well as anywhere else.

McIntyre Park is still in the city and is unpolluted by Confederate statues.

To move statues there with the same objections that are being made about them, especially at the cost of a new expense, only seems to replicate the same problem we are addressing right now.

I've heard the argument that leaving the statues in place would be akin to fascist regimes leaving up statues of their leaders.

Let me address that argument.

What was most unique about this nation's experience after the Civil War was Abraham Lincoln and his pointed attempt to reconcile with the South.

Instead of prosecuting thousands, he chose clemency instead.

Instead of treating the southern states as territories to be further vanquished, he sought to bring them into the fold of the Union.

And I believe we are better for that choice.

To me that indicates a path going forward, which is to add rather than to subtract.

But I believe that there would be community consensus as well as far fewer logistical obstacles around another path, which is to dramatically recontextualize both parks.

More on that in one moment.

We have earmarked by unanimous vote $500,000 in a budget for the BRC recommendations.

Because the cost of moving a statue will be at least several hundred thousand dollars, I would rather spend our dollars on a series of actions to unite and bridge, rather than one action that could divide and stall.

Looking carefully at the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission and attending several of their meetings, holding multiple town halls,

Myself, conferring with my colleagues and with elected officials from around Virginia and talking with hundreds of Charlottesville citizens has led me to think about a compromise that we'll add to rather than subtract from our history.

Such a compromise could include several components, some of which have been mentioned, including number one, renaming both Lee and Jackson Parks to better reflect our values today.

Number two, transforming Lee Park through a new memorial that will

and this language is absolutely crucial, exceed the Lee statue in visual and emotional power and create a new conversation worthy of our present values.

Number three, transforming Jackson Park by including a long delayed memorial to the slave auction block, which is currently just a stone plaque that you walk on in the sidewalk.

Number four, creating a new web-based utility that could be accessed by anyone with a smartphone in the city by citizens and visitors to learn the actual history of all of those landmarks that were in the Blue Ribbon Commission's charge, including oral and visual testimony, so you get to see the descendants of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, and you get to see the Jory Brown Bridge Builders.

This approach would create dynamic, alive public spaces where the fact that we have overcome the past, not that we are silencing or obliterating it, would become our contribution today.

We would also meet the charge we set out to the BRC to change the narrative in Charlottesville by telling the full story of race through our public spaces.

Particularly on the possibility of the new memorial at Lee Park, I am struck by how much prejudgment there has been about whether a new memorial could actually transform the park.

Yes, the Lee statue is tall, but other statues can be tall.

Yes, it is dominant, but other installations can be dominant as well.

The state, the country, and the world in Charlottesville are full of passionate, inventive artists and landscape architects who are just itching to be given an opportunity like we have here today.

I'm eager to set forth some parameters for how we could dramatically transform the park, including a budget, some goals, some restrictions, and to put out an RFP for skilled artists and landscape architects and then see what we get back.

I think this is an exciting opportunity for us all.

History is alive and dynamic.

and this would make us clear not only where we've been, but where we are headed.

For model, I would ask you to consider a couple of examples.

Consider what has happened in Richmond, our capital city, at the Capitol grounds where Harry Flood Byrd's tall statue still stands as a shameful memorial to the leader of massive resistance, which shut down the schools.

But I believe it is emotionally dwarfed by a more powerful memorial that is nearby to Barbara Johns and the brave students who desegregated our schools.

Consider the Arthur Ashe statue in Richmond that was put up after a great civil rights campaign to one of the, you know, with Arthur Ashe's ardent involvement and consent and very particular involvement in what the statue had that utterly transforms Monument Avenue, which just had these Confederate generals all the way up and down.

Consider also the decision in Germany to allow the republishing of Adolf Hitler's hateful book Mein Kampf, which I

have read twice and it's a horrible experience.

It has been reissued in a heavily annotated form so that the lies and the outrages of the original version cannot be read except but through the lens of contemporary values and lessons.

I offer these thoughts as initial suggestions for a path forward.

While on this issue, as much as any other, we know obviously that we will not please everyone and we will certainly anger many.

And I'm sorry for that.

I am hopeful that we can arrive at a solution that will at least gradually, if not immediately, earn the people's confidence and then we'll testify to the best of our city.

So I'm hopeful among the actions that we can take in addition to the motions that have come up that we could

determined support for whether we could radically recontextualize, dramatically recontextualize Lee and Jackson Parks before we would decide whether to move those statues.

Can we sort of find out?

Is that a possibility?

We can just determine whether we have support for moving Lee statue without that determination, support for renaming Lee Park, support for renaming Jackson Park, support for advice on the Jefferson School from our city manager and what are ways that we could support the African American Heritage Center there and the fiscal health of that important institution and support for the utility for our landmarks.

But there's a lot that's been put on the table and we have a motion, I think, the most imminent in this meeting from Ms. Szakos.

Thank you very much.

So is there a second?

Well I guess I would just say that I think when the Lee statue was erected it was certainly done to the displeasure of a lot of residents in Charlottesville but those residents at that point in history didn't matter to the people who were making decisions.

I think that if anything we should lean further to

undo the injustice of the past when we're making this decision rather than try to weigh things equally.

Any comments or questions?

Okay.

Looks like we're ready to vote.

No, don't keep it.

That's the issue.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

Okay, we're gonna suspend the meeting.

I'm well aware.

I think it's great that everyone's watching us.

We're going to have to have you removed.

If you can't let us go ahead, we're either going to have to suspend the meeting.

You're not part of this body.

We're going to have to eject you from the chambers, consistent with our rules.

Ms. Walker and I would hate to do that.

No, we're not.

We're not.

All right, so listen, okay, I'm gonna say right now because it's 1040 and we do have this motion to talk about, there's other business to talk about, we can do another work session on this in the future.

It sounds like that might be on the range of ideas that have been raised by Mr. Bellamy and

We have a lot of work on this to talk about so right now there is one of my colleagues who's talked about another motion I will tell everyone here that if you need to speak from the floor I'm gonna have to stop the meeting and we're gonna have to go to the rules that we have because we have been unable to

work as a body for a while now or we'll just suspend the meeting.

It'll suck for everybody but that's what we're going to have to do because we do need to start getting, this is not pleasant for me.