City Council   3/20/2017

Good evening.

Why do we always go?

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

All those students here, nobody can yell good evening, but that's OK.

There we go.

Somebody is with me.

So I got something really cool that I want to read for you all tonight.

It's a proclamation for one of my favorite animals, people, or whatever you want to call it in the world, Clifford the big red dog.

That was a wolf?

So proclamation for WVPT and PBS Kids Clifford We Love You 2017.

Officially, whereas Clifford the Big Red Dog will visit Charlottesville to celebrate our love

for Clifford with WVPT, his favorite PBS station in the entire country, and all the smart and good-looking children in Charlottesville, whereas Emily, Elizabeth, and Clifford couldn't fit Clifford on a bus, a train, or plane, so they walked down 29, and when they passed the CHO Airport, Clifford sneezed and blew all the planes into the grass.

Clifford was so sorry.

Thank goodness no harm was done and the pilots and flight attendants waved goodbye.

Whereas Emily Elizabeth and Clifford passed JPJ and waved to the UVA students going to read at the library, Clifford wanted to follow them into the library but he was so sad because their books were too small for him to read.

Does the library have big books for big red dogs?

Whereas Emily Elizabeth said to Clifford, let's go to Scott Stadium and you can read there.

Clifford lay down on the soft grass of the football field and was happy because he could read the very big scoreboard sign which said, Go Hoos.

He wondered who the Hoos were and where they were going.

Is there a book called Go Hoos?

Whereas Emily Elizabeth said, Let's go!

And before she could say another word, Clifford raced off to fetch a stick.

He ran back with the goalposts in his mouth, and behind him were lots of men in orange wearing helmets, yelling and chasing him.

Were they the go-hoos?

Oh, that Clifford can get into so much trouble.

and whereas Emily Elizabeth and Clifford ran away to the downtown mall where they bumped into a man on a ladder in front of the Paramount Theater.

The ladder swayed back and forth.

The man flung his arms into the air.

Letters fell everywhere on the ground.

people shouted and ran to catch the man.

They stopped the ladder just in time to keep it from falling and the man with it, he had been putting up letters on the marquee.

Oh, the children on the downtown mall laughed and clapped, and Clifford was so happy.

Whereas WVPT promotes literacy in children and joy in reading, WVPT has been transformative in how children are introduced to letters, words, language, and respectful relationships with their families, friends, and communities.

Now, therefore, our wonderful Mayor Mike Signer,

Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, hereby proclaims Clifford the Big Red Dog Honorary Mayor of Charlottesville for the morning in honor of his visit Saturday, March 25th, 2017, and we encourage all the smart and good-looking children in Charlottesville to participate fully in the celebration of literacy.

There we are.

If you have grandchildren, bring them to this event.

If you just want to have fun and need a hug because Clifford will be there to hug you, you come to this event.

The first 200 families will get a free Clifford book.

and then the mayor's gonna be there and he's gonna read the proclamation and Clifford will be there so you can have photos with Clifford and anyway we just we appreciate the city always helping us with this event and we look forward to seeing you there.

And Mr. Bellamy, if I might take the liberty of just saying a lot.

I know there are several people in this room who are not from the United States and might not be familiar with Clifford the Big Red Dog.

He would barely fit in this room.

He's so big.

He's so big.

And there are about 50 stories about him in children's books.

Mike, if I could.

Of course.

Would you like to introduce the lady down here that's signing?

is going to have the assistance.

Well, we appreciate your efforts.

And actually, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, we want to as well, but we also are obligated to provide services to people with hearing impairment who want to participate in the meeting.

And so that's what we're doing.

So I have a proclamation as well.

Mine is not quite as exciting as Clifford, about Poison Prevention Week.

And I understand Kristin Wenger is here.

You don't have to stand up yet, but great, okay.

So whereas the Blue Ridge Poison Center has been instrumental in saving lives and saving money by providing individuals and health professionals with free and confidential treatment information and advice in a poisoning emergency, and whereas last year the Blue Ridge Poison Center responded to nearly 24,000 calls for assistance in its 54 county service region,

including 1,900 in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, and whereas poisoning is a leading cause of injury, hospitalization, and injury death in Virginia, and according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more people die from poisoning than from motor vehicle accidents, and whereas poison prevention education, including the use of child-resistant packaging, safe storage of poisons in the home, reading and understanding drug fact labels,

and keeping the poison center control number available, it is an important mission of the Blue Ridge Poison Center and whereas it is fitting to recognize the annual observance of National Poison Prevention Week in order to highlight this preventable health hazard and to help educate all Virginians to better understand how to avoid the dangers of accidental poisoning, now therefore Mike Signer hereby recognizes March 19th through 25th, 2017 as Poison Prevention Week in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia

and call this observance to the attention of all our citizens signed and sealed today.

And is Kristin, there you are.

Maybe you hadn't moved.

Sure.

Do you want to say a few words?

Evening.

Good evening.

There you go.

Thank you, Mayor Signer and Council, and once again for this opportunity to talk about poison prevention.

It's not a very sexy topic, but it's very important.

We are, by the way, happy Poison Prevention Week, everybody.

We are celebrating Poison Prevention Week with a very special project this year.

We're asking folks to check their medicine cabinet.

Let me ask everyone, when was the last time you looked in your medicine cabinet to see if there were things in there that you didn't need anymore or that were expired?

Anyone check in the last three months?

Good, a few.

In the last year, anyone?

Well, believe it or not, we all have this habit of hanging on to medicines that are left over from a former prescription because we think, oh, we might need those someday.

And of course, we all have over-the-counter medicines and prescription medicines which may have expired.

And it's pretty dangerous to keep these things around.

So we would like for you to check your cabinet and see if you have anything like that and dispose of it properly.

When you leave expired and unused medicines hanging around your home, you can put lots of people at risk.

Children, of course, are very curious.

They may get into them.

But also it makes your medicines vulnerable to falling into the hands of someone who might want to misuse or abuse them.

So in case you're wondering, well, how do I get rid of medicines I don't need anymore?

We've put together a little information card.

I brought enough to distribute to everyone.

We follow the guidelines of the US FDA.

So we do what they say to do.

And it's very simple.

Anybody can do it.

So I'll pass these around.

And I understand that one thing you don't do is flush them down the toilet because they get into the water system, which is not good for any of us.

All right, I have two other quick announcements.

Shall I go ahead?

All right, we have two book festival, actually, well, two book festival events.

As you all know, this is the book festival, and I think a lot of you know a lot of things about it, and I'm not going to make that announcement because it would take forever.

But there are two things that the city is co-sponsoring to among several that you might be interested in.

One is the Bus Lines Community Poetry Reading.

will be at the Downtown Transit Center on Wednesday, March 22nd, 6pm to 730.

Bus Lines puts poetry on the move by soliciting poems from throughout the Charlottesville community and posting them on city buses.

Our winning poets will share their work with the public in this lively, joyous, family-friendly reading.

Come celebrate with us, and next time you get on a bus, look up at the advertising line around the top and read the poetry.

Also, Voices of Adult Learners, Thursday, March 23, 6 p.m. to 730 at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

This program features stories written by adult community members who have gained literacy, academic skills, GED completion, and or literacy in English as a second language.

Audience members will receive a copy of Voices of Adult Learners collection.

And then there's another event on the 25th of March, which is Saturday, very special arts, which is sponsored by the city.

They're having a special opening at Carver Recreation Center in the Jefferson School City Center.

Reception and opening on Saturday, March 25th at 6.30 p.m.

So everyone is invited.

Okay, I guess it's my turn.

I have a little red dog named Orion.

Can he come and see Clifford?

It might give him a good role model.

In being good?

Yeah, and doing good for others.

So, I have just a couple of announcements.

One is upcoming council meetings.

Council work session is this Thursday.

No, it's Thursday, March 30th, not this week.

So it's next week, March 30th at 5 p.m. at City Space.

And then there is another city council meeting Monday, April 3rd at 7 p.m. City Hall in the council chambers.

Now my longer announcement is about doing good.

And it's

The third area student contests focus on helping others.

Central Virginia students in K-12 are encouraged to participate in the upcoming My Help List contest starting on Monday, March 13, 2017 through Friday, April 21.

The contest is an extension of All People Matter, Help Someone initiative by Charlottesville native author and award winner Mr. Alex Zahn.

To enter the contest, students from a school or home school in the Charlottesville, Albemarle, and surrounding counties are eligible.

They must, one, in 150 words or less share in writing, it's important to help others because, and two, list five things you have done to help someone or can do to help someone.

There will be four winners chosen by selected judges.

The winners will be from K through 2nd, 3 through 5th,

6th through 8th and 9th through 12th grade and they will win a cash prize of $100 followed by a reception for winners, families, and sponsors.

All letters and responses can be mailed or dropped off at the Carver Recreation Center, 233 4th Street NW, Charlottesville, VA 22903.

This contest is centered on students to focus on the importance of character, personal responsibility, and helping others.

Contest sponsors are the Charlottesville Area Transit, Dave Chapman, Charlottesville Commonwealth Attorney, Sheriff James Brown, J.F.

Bell Funeral Services, Lynn Fox, Pace Real Estate Associates LLC, Johnny Bates, and partner WVIR Channel 29.

The Mr. Alexander Virginia A. Gatewood My Helpless Contest is coordinated by Mr. Alexander.

So for more information, call 804-321-3636.

The email is alexan, all one word, all lowercase, at ilowercase-clowercase.net.

Or visit the website www.myhelplist.wordpress.com.

That's it.

Okay, thank you all.

I have one other recognition, which is Ashley Hill, who is a producer

here with C-SPAN who's gonna be here talking about the tour of the city that they'll be doing.

They'll be with us all this week, I believe.

Yeah, hi, thanks for having me.

I don't know if I'm as excited about the event that you were talking about or a dog becoming mayor or C-SPAN being here, but we'll see how this goes.

So as the mayor said, my name's Ashley Hill.

I'm a producer and community relations representative with the C-SPAN TV network based out of Washington, D.C.

And I'm here this week as part of our C-SPAN Cities Tour.

That's our initiative to go in cities across America and produce programming that highlights that city's history and literary scene on a national level.

working with our cable partners at Comcast here in your community as we do so.

So we've enjoyed a long business and educational partnership with Comcast and it's actually because of them that we're in your city to begin with.

A lot of people don't know that the C-SPAN network was actually created by the cable industry as a public service in 1979.

Its mission, to provide viewers with direct access to their lawmakers.

And as we can see on the TV here, I think that's something that we can all get behind, right?

So, you know, we truly are a one-of-its-kind service because we do what we do without taxpayer or government money, we do so without editorializing of any kind, and we do so without commercials.

Now, since C-SPAN was founded in 1979, we've expanded to include C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3, which houses our book TV and American history TV programming for 48 hours every weekend.

And that kind of brings me to why we're here.

So just as C-SPAN strives to shine a light on Washington DC for the rest of the country, our C-SPAN cities tour looks to turn that same spotlight on unique cities around the country.

Now, how do we do that?

Three videographers just descend on a city and we are speaking with everyone here.

I'm going to be interviewing the mayor just about the city.

We're also going to be interviewing him about a book that he wrote for our book TV programming.

We have a history videographer, we have a book videographer,

We are just everywhere.

You can't miss us.

We're driving these big C-SPAN vans around the community.

Now tomorrow we're having a special event here in town to officially announce the stories we'll be covering.

So it's going to be out front here at City Hall at 1130 in the morning.

The mayor's kind enough to speak with us there as well.

And we invite the community to come out, the media to come out, anyone who wants to hear

how you can learn about how C-SPAN is highlighting your community on a national level.

Now, I don't want to give away any of the magic right now and spoil what we're going to talk about, but you know we can't come here without going to Monticello.

You know we can't come here without going to UVA.

And we're going to talk a little Thomas Jefferson while we're here, of course.

So we're looking forward to telling all of those stories, to telling you how we're covering them and how we're highlighting your community and also for you to watch them.

So everything that we shoot is going to air on a special weekend of programming dedicated to Charlottesville on our C-SPAN networks.

Now that is going to be the

Third weekend in April.

Third weekend in April, so if y'all forget to set those DVRs, do not worry.

We're also going to put it on our website, cspan.org slash cities tour.

So this is our first day in town.

We're so excited to see the community.

If you think of anywhere we need to eat or anything we need to see while we're in town, hit us up on Twitter at cspancities.

And otherwise, we just look forward to telling your story.

Thank you.

And I should ask also my colleague, the chair of, Diana McKeel, the chair of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will also be there tomorrow.

So they're highlighting the whole region, which is terrific.

Thank you.

We had a lovely young lady who's maybe 21 years young right there.

She bought us a bunch of ties.

I forgot to announce this Friday is the last day for the Young Men's Tie Drive that we'll be collecting ties at three different locations.

One at Virginia Organizing 703 Concord Avenue, the Boys and Girls Club on Cherry Avenue, and then also the Senior Center at 1180 Pepsi Place.

So our goal is to get 1,000 ties.

I think she put about 100 in here, so she is helping us get there.

If anyone else has any ties, yeah, imagine her.

If anyone else has any ties, please feel free to drop them off.

It's going to be for a great cause.

And let's put a tie in the hand of every young man in our area and also teach them some skills about what it means to be a productive citizen.

Finally, I'd like to recognize a group from the University of Virginia Center for Politics 2017 Leaders for Democracy Fellowship for the Middle East and North Africa.

The delegation includes 24 high-achieving young professionals who work primarily in the fields of human rights and democracy.

They're from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Israel, West Bank, Gaza, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.

They have been participating in intensive training during their five weeks at UVA to enhance their leadership and civic action skills.

And I'd like to invite two of those representatives, Abdulrahman Elgeriani from Libya and Rania Balaj from Tunisia, who will speak about the fellow civic action projects while they're here.

I'm really excited to meet Clifford but I don't know if we're going to make it or not.

Peace be upon you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Abdrahman Ghariani, I'm from Benghazi, Libya.

and I would like to wish you all a very good evening and thank you for being with us tonight.

I would also like to thank the organizing committee, Mr. Damon Irby, Ms. Meg Hubek and Ms. Denia Robinson and the Center for Politics for this opportunity.

It is truly an honor to stand before you on this evening representing and on behalf of the distinguished fellows of the leaders of

Democracy Fellowship Program.

This prestigious fellowship is sponsored by the Department of State to provide an opportunity for aspiring candidates from the Middle East and North Africa to experience at first hand the workings of the principles of civic engagement and leadership within the settings of the University of Virginia.

This has been an exceptional opportunity to bridge gaps,

between people from different backgrounds and to learn about the fundamental workings of the American model of democracy.

This collaboration between World Learning and the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, sponsored by the Department of State, US Department of State, made it possible for us to come to learn that the freedoms, institutions and organizations

that are crucial for today's America came to be through the struggles of many components of the American society over the years.

However, it is key to note that these very freedoms that the Americans enjoy in this day and age were long envisioned by the nation's founders.

Being in the hometown of a founding father, Thomas Jefferson, despite contentious viewpoints

He is credited for the following statement, which still holds true today.

I never considered a difference in opinion in politics and religion and philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Unfortunate as it may be, the turmoil that many of our countries

the turmoil in many of our countries.

These are potentially steps towards democracy, development, and prosperity.

That is why programs such as the Leaders for Democracy Fellowship Program are crucial to countries that are still trying to find their ways.

I'd like to give special thanks to Professor Keira Ongweili and her class of political and civic engagement, UVA faculty and staff,

and various components of the community in the beautiful city of Charlottesville for being very hospitable, generous and courteous.

To end, the highlight of our trip thus far is that despite having very different backgrounds by openly sharing stories, we found that the fundamental challenges of everyday life are largely the same.

and those are the quest of a decent life, liberty and the pursuit for happiness.

Good evening.

So thank you, Abdulrahman, for this speech.

That puts pressure on me.

OK, so first of all, I would like to present myself.

My name is Rania.

I'm from Tunisia.

And I'm really proud to be here today because I'm not only representing myself or my country, I'm presenting 23 other amazing leaders here from different Arab countries.

We came from different backgrounds, different cultural and religious backgrounds and we are learning from each other on a daily basis.

This experience has enabled us not only to acquire skills and knowledge from the American community but also to learn from each other's experiences.

As each one of us has an inspiring story to tell, each one of us faces challenges in their home countries and they're persevering to overcome them for the well-being of their communities.

This experience has enabled us to speak with different amazing students, with different amazing speakers and we have learned a lot from them.

And in addition to that, we had the opportunity to reflect on the challenges of the Charlottesville community.

Actually, my team and I, we worked on different areas in this community.

We worked on different projects, which are transportation, diversity, poverty, and housing.

We wanted to contribute to the amazing community of Charlottesville and we conducted surveys on the street.

We collected data.

We contacted key organizations.

And some of us have come up with great ideas for a project, which I believe, if they will be implemented, they will impact this community in a positive way.

Actually, this reminds me of a quote which I really strongly believe in, which is Gandhi's quote, be the change that you want to see in the world.

So for me, a true leader is not only bound or committed to his or her community.

A true leader has the duty to live

a positive impact wherever he or she goes.

So here we are today delivering a message of peace from different countries in the Arab world.

Here we are today making a positive impact in the Charlottesville community and we are very proud to be here today.

And I'm so thankful for this opportunity, I'm so thankful for the City Council, I'm thankful for the U.S. Department of State for World Learning and the amazing team of UVA.

We have this amazing opportunity to be here and the leaders for Democracy Fellowship and we are making the most of it.

and we hope one day I'll come back here and see the seed that we planted growing up here.

So thank you again for listening to me and I want to thank my teammates, my leaders here because they are making great work in their countries.

As you talk about possibly coming back someday, I'd like you all to know that you are always welcome in Charlottesville.

The world is in great shape.

You all are its leaders.

Thank you very much.

This is inspirational.

All right, thank you all very much.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

At the last meeting on March 3rd, Ms. Karen Stevens came before the city council with concerns about a traffic accident at the intersection of Ridge McIntyre and West Main Street.

Ms. Stevens was struck by a vehicle at a red light as she was crossing the street there.

A sergeant in the police department went back and read the case file on our incident and visited the site.

After reviewing that information, the department found that the officer made the correct decision not to cite anyone in the accident.

However, we have asked our traffic engineer to look at the intersection to determine what may be done.

about the right hand turn from West Main Street onto Ridge.

And as you know, this intersection could see significant change as part of the West Main Street streetscaping project as well.

So hopefully we'll get some response back to that relatively soon.

Dr. Lea Henry spoke about her concerns associated with the strategic investment area.

and the Foreign Based Code.

In response to her comments, Counselor Galvin asked if we could provide an update on our community engagement efforts.

Our Redevelopment Manager, Brenda Kelly, had a meeting last week with stakeholders in the SIA in advance of tomorrow's SIA Community Talks meeting, which is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. at the ICS Art Park.

That will be the first in a series of meetings that we'll be having with the public on the SIA.

On April 18, we'll be hosting a meeting at 6 p.m. to discuss affordable housing.

That site has not been determined just yet, but we'll have more information on that soon.

On May 16, we'll have a meeting at the Friendship Court Community Center to discuss workforce training opportunities.

In addition to that, the RFPs, the request for proposals for both the foreign-based code consulting services and the CACF grant, that's the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation grant on public housing redevelopment.

Both of those RFPs are out right now.

We hope to get those closed within the next couple of weeks and then begin the selection process.

And so these are important steps towards that citizen engagement in the SIA as well.

So we're now going to move to our matters by the public and so everybody knows we changed this procedure during, recently, where we expanded the number of slots that we offer in matters by the public.

So now we have 10 that you register for ahead of time up until nine o'clock morning the day of the meeting.

Then there's five

that you can register for in person.

I think we start signing people up at six thirty before the meeting starts at seven o'clock.

So that's three more spots used to be 12.

Now it's 15 in total.

So this is our first meeting under the new procedure.

And I'm happy to say that almost all the spots were filled up.

Actually, probably all of them will be because we have if the waitlist folks show up, we have three folks around the waitlist.

So I'm going to get started.

I'm going to read the rules that we read every time.

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 until the report for that item has been presented and the public hearing has been opened and we have

two of those

From our rules, 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 behavior.

that intimidates 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 to escort the individual from the meeting room.

We've got three minutes right here and just please pay attention to the clock so I don't have to be the bad guy and cut you off.

You'll get to 15 seconds with yellow and with red.

We have delicious, Ms. Szakos herself makes, so this is a little bit of home right here in front.

And they're delicious, they're too delicious.

Evening.

Tonight I am here presenting a petition which has been proposed to the Charlottesville City Council, which is endorsed by Charlottesville Veterans for Peace, Charlottesville's Amnesty International, World Beyond War, Just World Books, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, the Piedmont Group of Sierra Club, candidate for Commonwealth Attorney Jeff Fogel, Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America,

Indivisible, Charlottesville, Heartful Action, Together Seaville, and Clergy and Laity United for Peace and Justice.

Rather than read the entire resolution, I'm just going to give you the last paragraph, like the Cliffs Notes.

So you've got all these whereases, and then it goes, be it therefore resolved that the City of Council of Charlottesville, Virginia, urges the United States Congress

to move our tax dollars in exactly the opposite direction proposed by the President, from militarism to human and environmental needs.

Now, there's a tradition in this area, a tradition of screaming, of not respecting the proper way to do things.

but doing that which is morally right.

So let's keep that tradition going.

Let's continue what that gentleman started 241 years ago when he sat at his desk four and a half miles from where we are and he wrote, when in the course of human events

and there was that other guy 228 years ago who sat at his desk 28 miles from here and he wrote, we the people of the United States.

So today, so many of us have heard the fascist racists informing us, we're in charge now.

They claim that this is their country and we don't belong here.

and we reply, we scream, this is what democracy looks like.

We stand up to authority to do what is right and we're not going to let that guy who is currently residing at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue tell us what to do.

We will be a kinder, gentler nation.

Why must we act?

This isn't the federal government.

The city of Charlottesville has no defense budget.

The Commonwealth of Virginia has no defense budget.

So what gives us the right to protest?

In democracy, power flows up.

It is based on the people.

We can take pride that we have a city council that recognizes its responsibility to us, the people.

to build a world without war.

where the power of this nation is used to nurture the rights of all people to reach their fullest potential.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Karen, actually I'm gonna, it was requested to me by staff because we have a guest who is speaking who needs some assistance which we have here so it was to move him up in the order which I'm gonna use my discretion to do.

So Paul Nelson, we would invite you to

I have done a lot of analysis, well to start with my name is Paul Nelson and I live at the Salvation Army on Ridge Road and I'm here tonight to talk to you about

about the plans to close the homeless shelters on April 14th.

I think that it is not a good idea to close those doors, and let me tell you why.

If you do a cost of benefit analysis on that, you will see that homeless people very often wind up in jail.

And to put a person in jail is very expensive.

whereas to house them in homeless shelters is much less expensive.

It costs $30 at the homeless shelter, but the jail costs $60 to $80 per day and even more.

If you close the homeless shelters, everyone suffers because the cost to the taxpayer is going to be increased.

It also costs the government more money.

we have to find a way to keep those shelters open.

We need to work with Haven to keep those shelters open.

There is a penal system in America

and I've done my research and I realize that we have the right to sue the federal government as well as the state of Virginia to make sure that public housing is available.

So I'm here to ask that you work it out and understand that there is such an incredible need for the homeless shelters

and hopefully we can reduce homelessness.

It costs the government a great deal of money for people to be homeless.

As I mentioned, I have these pages that I can share with you.

It's an analysis, but it's such an expensive venture for people to be homeless and have no place to stay.

After you read my paper, I will appreciate if you will read my paper.

I did not include my address.

You can contact me by email as well.

And your email address?

I can write it down for you.

Thank you.

Okay, Karen Stevens is next.

Is she here?

Thank you, sir.

Ian McNett We know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

My name is Ian McNutt.

I'm 82 years old.

I live in Midway Manor at 100 Bridge Street.

And everywhere I go I walk and so pedestrian safety is very important to me.

And I see some slippage in the safety of crossing at crosswalks particularly.

And I've had a number of close calls and seen other people had close calls.

and it only takes one little slip somebody looks at their email or whatever when they're driving or lights up a cigarette or whatever it is and somebody could be very seriously injured or killed.

So I'm not going to take a lot of your time.

I have some recommendations here about what can be done.

One thing I've noticed that the crosswalk at the library, cars go through there fairly often, really, really often, but fairly often.

And one thing that occurred to me is a lot of people are new here and they may not know they're supposed to stop at the crosswalks.

And I think more signage at some of the crosswalks, there are places where more blinkers are needed,

On Waters Street there's two places where the blinkers have been out of order for a year that I've been here and I'm not sure who's responsible for that in the city but somebody ought to look at that and go around and see what's going on.

I've seen people go through that crosswalk.

I mentioned followed by a police car, and the police did nothing, nothing at all.

And I think that they should do something and maybe stop them and give them a warning.

And then as they keep doing it, then they take them to the police station and give them good talking to them and whatever else you do at the police station.

So as I say, I have a recommendation that I'll give them to you.

I apologize for the writing.

Regarding this resolution, when watching the news, Ms. Szakos, I thought my head was going to explode listening to the utter hypocrisy displayed by you and this council.

I've lectured you for years about fiscal responsibility using my milk and bread test as an example of spending priorities, and all of you simply ignored me.

I couldn't believe I heard you analogize these cuts to teachers, veterans' cares, health care for low income adults.

I made the same basic comparisons when it came to wasting money on moving the statues and you scoffed at this at the will of the people in favor of your liberal social agenda, wasting our tax dollars to satisfy your egos.

Thank God for President Trump.

He has forced you to prioritize your spending because he's turned off the money flow that you have used on wasteful spending.

The taxpayers should not be in the business of providing down payment assistance to low income people.

Mr. Fenwick

I proposed years ago down payment assistance to first responders and you and no one else up here was interested in that.

So please don't use them now as a reason to oppose these cuts.

Why is a poor person more entitled to this assistance than a first responder?

More hypocrisy.

The taxpayers should not be in the business of renovating low income homeowners properties.

and from the sound of it, they do substandard work and we pay for that.

You need to eliminate all the foolish spending you do in this town.

It is one thing to provide for the infirmed and elderly and I'm okay with some of that, but we don't need an art director position in this town.

There are plenty of other spending we could do without.

Think about all the money we could have saved if you hadn't wasted it on useless studies costing $100,000 each or legal fees for frivolous lawsuits, just to name a few things.

So now, Mr. Jones, please write down these questions so we can get answers to these questions by the next meeting.

And I do expect some answers.

If these cuts are enacted,

Will the council take that million dollars set aside for statue removal and return it to the general fund?

Will the city continue with this illegal equity package proposed by Mr. Bellamy costing the taxpayers millions of dollars?

And will you pledge to cut spending across the board before you come to us with any more tax increases?

Thank you.

Dan Saint.

Good evening.

I'm Dan Saint, I live in Charlottesville and I'm a former Army Captain, served in the 82nd Airborne Division, 3rd Infantry Division, Special Forces and at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

I'm here to speak in favor of this fund human and environmental needs, not militarism proposal.

What I really hope to do as my part of this tonight is just really bring some awareness to this.

You know,

I can say thank you to President Trump for bringing this to our awareness that the fact that he is cutting so many social programs that touch all of us and our families, it's really made us very aware of how much money we're spending on the military.

And I'm also from Veterans for Peace, and so we've been aware of it for a while.

But $600 billion is a lot of money for anybody.

But we actually spent closer to a trillion dollars.

That's $600 billion.

It's just a DoD portion.

There are many other parts of that, and I don't want to get into a budget discussion, but it's close to a billion dollars.

It's about 70% of our discretionary spending, and it's about 25, 26% of our total spending.

So several years ago a man told me a story about a peak moment in his life.

He'd been working as a missionary in college and he went to an African village to help dig a well.

So he helped this community dig a well and now they had fresh water.

So before they had dug this well, the young women of the village had to walk four miles to the river and then four miles back with as much water as they could carry.

Most of the children in the village got sick and many of them died from the parasites and bacteria that were in the water.

After the well, now they had fresh drinking water and the young girls can now go to school.

So when you think about that, this proposed $54 billion increase to an already obscene, insane military budget could fund 4.5 million wells across the world.

So just imagine if children grew up around the world with a vision or a memory of Americans who brought fresh water or economic opportunity or education

or schools to their villages and their homes and their towns, if we were known for bringing that rather than them growing up with bomb fragments stamped with Made in America, it would be a very different world and a very different future.

Would our children and our grandchildren and my grandchild Amelia be safer in the future if

We had more nuclear weapons or we had more fresh water in the world.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Benjamin Randolph.

I live at 423 Meade Avenue and I am a registered voter.

I'm here to speak in opposition to the special use permit for 1011 East Jefferson.

The developers have requested an increase in the allowed density from 21 dwelling units per acre to 87 dwelling units per acre.

Or in other words, they want to build a 126 unit apartment building on the edge of a residential neighborhood that is almost completely made up of single family homes.

The city's comprehensive plan uses such phrases as promote harmonious development and support neighborhoods, preserve and enhance neighborhood character, and increase density in appropriate areas.

I question how a five-story apartment building with 126 units at four times the density allowed by right

is harmonious or how it preserves or enhances the character of our residential neighborhood.

Within two blocks of this proposed development is a private school, multiple daycare and preschool facilities, an orthodontist's office that specializes in children's orthodontics, a pediatrician's office,

and yet the developers proposed a 126 unit apartment building of one and two bedroom apartments.

None of these local businesses that I mentioned will be benefited by bringing in 126 or by building 126 unit apartment building for young professionals.

These are all family oriented businesses that I mentioned.

This is a family oriented neighborhood.

And I don't want anybody to think this is another case of not in my backyard.

I live a half a mile from the proposed development.

It's not exactly in my backyard.

It's a half a mile away.

But I'm against inappropriate development that's next to any residential neighborhood.

I'd be against any 126 unit apartment building next to Fry's Springs or Wolin Mills or Locust Grove or the Little High neighborhood.

The developers, unfortunately, have stated repeatedly that they will not compromise on density.

They have said it is all or nothing.

It is we want this four times the density or it does not work.

But there are other projects in the city, even within eyeshot of this neighborhood, that are being developed that aren't asking for four times the density.

and I believe that if other developers can successfully develop similar properties that these developers also can find an alternate solution.

And I would ask you to please vote against this and I would like to ask the developers to come up with a better proposal.

Nancy Carpenter.

Nancy Carpenter.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is George Worthington and I live in Albemarle County.

ADRC is the Aging and Disability Resource Connector.

I would like to thank the city council for giving me this opportunity to share with you two programs on which Java is thrilled to be collaborating with the University of Virginia's memory and aging care clinic.

This clinic provides assessment and treatment for people suffering

from neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

Our area is fortunate to have great treatment and diagnostic options available, but Java and UVA are dedicated to helping improve dementia care further.

Just over a year ago, Java and UVA were awarded a grant of just under $1 million over three years from the Administration for Community Living, the federal government agency that is spearheading dementia capability in the United States.

The Department of Aging and Rehabilitative Services in Richmond is administering and supporting the grant programs.

You may agree that this is a great way to expand services without utilizing local funding.

The Effective Strategies Program is a group learning experience providing concrete strategies for people concerned about deteriorating memory to help them stay longer in the place of their choosing, typically living independently.

We hope to offer this to city residents at the Jefferson School City Center in the middle of this year.

The Care Coordination Program is enrolling individuals with a recent diagnosis of either mild cognitive impairment, which often progresses to dementia, or any form of dementia.

These individuals and their primary care partner are assigned a care coordinator to work with them in areas such as helping navigate the health system, particularly for memory care, providing education and resources about the diagnosis, and connecting the individuals with community resources.

An example of this would be to provide respite to caregivers and socializing opportunities for participants by enrolling them in one of Java's two adult daycare centers in this area.

The goals of both the effective strategies and the care coordination program are to help maintain individuals' independence, reduce hospitalizations, and help families keep loved ones at home and out of long-term care facilities for longer than might otherwise be the case.

Care coordinators will work with enrolled individuals through the life of the grant

which is for a three year period ending August 31st, 2018.

While our service area is the entire Commonwealth, many of our enrolled participants and caregivers live in this area.

As one of these caregivers said recently, the Care Coordination Program has been incredibly helpful.

I really appreciated having an on-call advocate during a very emotional time helping me to arrange my mother's discharge planning and long-term care needs.

We look forward to assisting more city residents who are struggling with this terrible disease.

Thanks, David Swanson, Gillespie Avenue.

You know, we've heard this evening appreciation for programs from the Department of State, the EPA, PBS, people in need of housing.

But if we only talk about that, then people hear us and misunderstand and they think we're talking about the size of the government and they declare that Trump is turning off the money flow to the wasteful spending.

absolute nonsense.

Let's be crystal clear here.

Donald Trump has proposed the exact same budget, the exact same size government, but he wants to move huge amounts of money out of everything that we care about, that we've heard appreciation for, into the military.

If we don't say that, people misunderstand, and this is the

The point of this council having the courage to say both sides of this argument.

So this is not a big, small government debate.

I want massive increases to all those programs we've heard appreciation for this evening and a drastically smaller government.

How is that possible?

Because Donald Trump is proposing 60 to 65% of discretionary spending go to one thing.

The military, more wars, the thing that he says correctly, blurting out the obvious as he occasionally does over the past 16 years, has created a hornet's nest out of the Middle East, made us less safe, not more safe, draining our money, this fiscal responsibility of dumping all our grandchildren's unearned pay into the one department that's never audited.

into the Department of So-Called Defense that makes us less safe, not more safe.

The United States is putting well over $700 billion into this one little program.

There are only 20 countries in the world that hit $10 billion.

Nine of them are in NATO.

Another eight of them are close U.S. allies.

Three of them are potential U.S. allies if we took a different course.

One of those three, Russia, this great fear, this demon out there to get us, has dropped its spending on the military in the last three years from $70 billion down to under $50 billion.

This is their evil plot to dominate the world.

We look at something like this Gallup poll that shows people around the world seeing the United States as the greatest threat to peace on earth.

And we dare to mention that.

It's not because we're cheering for it.

It's not because we want that to be the case.

It's because we want to start the process of changing that.

of Bringing People Things They Find Helpful Rather Than Occupying Armies.

Here we are today 14 years since shock and awe.

Since this incredible destruction of a city that began an incredible destruction of a country and a region.

And US troops still killing people in Iraq and in Syria and in Afghanistan and in Yemen.

Endless, endless warfare.

It's time we took a stand

Thank you.

Paul Nelson.

Paul Nelson.

Oh, I'm sorry.

This was the gentleman who spoke before.

I'm sorry because we moved him up.

Excuse me.

We have a couple folks on the wait list because a couple folks didn't show up.

So, Meredith Richards.

Is she here?

And Missy Warrenstrom.

Okay, so now we're going to move on to the folks who signed up in person.

Good evening.

I'm Susan Elliott.

I work for the City of Charlottesville in the Environmental Sustainability Office over on 4th Street.

So I sent an email to City Council last week and also to the Planning Commission.

And I wanted to come here tonight to give a couple of highlights from that, a little bit of additional information, and also share it with anyone at home who's listening.

Charlottesville has committed to work to becoming recognized as a solar-friendly community.

We are pursuing designation through a program called Soul Smart.

Still Smart is a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

It aims to increase installation of solar PV projects by helping local governments enact policies and procedures that will lower the soft cost, as in the non-equipment cost, of solar projects.

By doing so, Still Smart provides resources that help us to pursue actions that are within the purview of local government, so things such as permitting, planning and zoning, inspection, community outreach and community partnerships,

The main reasons why Charlottesville is interested in pursuing this program is to number one, receive the national recognition for the good work that Charlottesville already does as a green leader.

Second, to move forward on the solar PV recommendations that came from the Smart Growth America project from a couple years ago and also the code audit portion of the Streets at Work effort.

And we also are aiming to improve our processes and policies where it makes sense.

One great piece of news to share is that through a joint application with the County of Albemarle,

We applied for additional resources through the Soul Smart program and were awarded an on-site consultant to help both localities at no cost to either of us receive designation within the next five months.

And that person's here tonight.

Tisha's back there.

She also already lives here in Charlottesville, so it's a great way to bring in more people from our community to our processes.

One other thing I wanted to clarify for you.

In the email I mentioned, we will most likely be requesting for you all to enact a zoning text amendment

Our zoning code right now does not specifically mention solar.

And so while we have installations happening, we want to clarify for everyone where we stand on that.

We are aiming within the SolSmart program, there's a collection of actions we can choose from.

One of the prerequisites is that we look at what our base zoning is.

And so that's what we're focusing on.

Any additional controls that come through the entrance corridors or architecturally protected properties that are for historic reasons, all of those existing processes we have and policies can continue to apply.

So we're looking at that basic underlying piece that's part of the zoning and what our code says.

Additionally, so we'll be back in a couple of months, probably, with what we're asking all to look at.

And Tisha will be here to answer any other questions you have.

Please feel free to reach out to us at any point during this process with questions, clarifications, or things that you want to know more about.

Thank you very much.

I'm Virginia Rosnak.

I live in Albemarle County, but some of our tax dollars go here, so I feel like I have some standing.

I'm here to support the resolution that City Council urge Congress to move our tax dollars from military expenditures to human and environmental needs.

I'm a member of the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice.

The proposed budget does not promote peace, and it doesn't promote justice.

I'd like to speak briefly on the peace aspect.

President Trump has said he wants the U.S. to have nuclear supremacy.

We've been there before.

In the 80s, Ronald Reagan added hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt by building many, many new nuclear missiles.

In response, the eminent physicist Carl Sagan

estimated that as few as 12 nuclear explosions would trigger a nuclear winter.

Some of you may have heard that term before, a nuclear winter.

It would be the same as what killed all the dinosaurs.

It means it happens when one or more explosions throw up so much dust into the atmosphere, and it stays there for quite a while,

that the sun is blocked, plants do not grow, and people and animals starve.

So if as few as 12 nuclear explosions could wipe out much of humanity, you know, the dust goes all around the world, much of humanity and animals, it is ridiculous to talk about nuclear supremacy.

Therefore, I urge you to adopt this resolution that sends, does not spend more money on nuclear weapons and military, but spends it on human and environmental resources.

My name is Diana Sousa Castro and I am a resident at Midway Manor 100 Ridge Street.

I'm here to express my support relating to the Pepsi Place New Senior Center to the Belvedere area.

People not familiar, excuse me, I have tremor issues.

People who are not familiar with the Senior Center may be unaware of what the Center means to so many and the fact that it also includes special needs people that attend.

It's so touching to see how everyone works together in uniformity and everyone has respect for each other.

My personal comment has to be the dependency on the CAT line on the number seven bus, which would be readjusted to the number 11, which means the schedule will change.

The seven stops right in front of the senior center, I don't know how they'll handle it for the Belvedere, and the days which this bus also runs.

For myself, I attend the senior center.

I'm attending the ceramics class, the Albemarle Carvers, and I also El Gradas teach classes there, art classes in a craft unit, glass on glass, and gel printing card making, additional subjects being added.

The Senior Center offers a safe haven to all.

It's a unique place.

Where people are treated with love, care and concern, the icing on the cake for myself has to be that I am challenged and encouraged.

Creativity, both with hands and a creative mind, it's my home away from home.

This project is very close to my heart.

It's so important.

So many of us are in a position to be affected by its outcome.

I've always been told what you don't use, you lose.

The main theme is a repetitive one.

The Senior Center Office has so many worthwhile programs.

All of these are a contribution to our well-being.

and physical wellness, continuous lifelong learning opportunities as well.

I do so hope that you will be supportive towards this endeavor, speaking from the voice of experience.

And I've been out there working.

I'm 72 now.

I worked almost 50 years of my life.

You will never be sorry in today's society.

You cannot put a price on learning and excellency.

Thank you for your kindness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Adele Ruth.

I've lived in the city for many years at present.

I'm right outside the city, but we share the same congressman, so I feel this is relevant.

In his last State of the Union address on January 12, 2016, President Obama said, quote, let me tell you something.

The United States of America is the most powerful nation on earth.

It's not even close.

We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined, end quote.

Given that at least four of those countries on the top military spenders list are United States allies, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, France and Japan, what we spend is clearly offensive spending in every sense of that word.

Under your leadership, the City Council, you have the opportunity to distinguish yourselves as a model for other cities.

We can protest this budget of death and doom, this $54 billion that will sacrifice clean water and energy, the arts, aid to developing nations, community block grants that support such valuable local services as Meals on Wheels.

Foreign aid makes up 1% of the federal budget and is seen by most military and foreign policy leaders as an excellent investment in U.S. national security interests.

And yet Trump's budget would lop off more than 30% of this measly 1% dedicated to foreign aid.

We must do our part to protest this dangerous trajectory of increased military spending.

If you adopt this resolution, I can take it with pride to our Congressman Garrett.

I can post it on Facebook to show friends all over the nation what our community is doing.

This resolution might inspire and encourage other communities to follow suit.

The German theologian Gustav Niemoller regretted that he had not done more just to speak out against the Nazis.

Here's what he said.

First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

Thank you.

I want to thank everybody for taking the time to come up here.

It's not easy to stand down there and speak, but we love it when people do it.

We've now increased the spots 30%, as I said, the slots.

We take all these comments very seriously.

Our city manager will reply to, there were a number here that touched on city policy and governmental issues, and those will be addressed the next city council meeting.

And we also read all of your emails that you send to us.

I'd just like to make a comment in regards to the young man, Mr. Paul Nelson, who needed the interpreter.

In regards to his comments about Patrick closing, while it is indeed unfortunate, there are some different ideas that we're looking at in regards to addressing the homeless population throughout affordable housing.

I know there'll be a meeting this Thursday in which we'll be talking about some different things.

I know our housing advisory committee, the HAC, is very much so looking into making sure we have affordable housing throughout the city.

And this also goes for

Mr. Randolph, when we look at how we're addressing affordable housing we are working on it and I know that's not an answer that a lot of people want to hear and they say you know or you always say you're working on it but I can promise to you that this is a very much so a very high priority for us and we are not taking this issue lightly.

And I will just thank the last speaker for quoting Niemöller, whose quote that you quoted.

I have a poster on my wall that's been there for, I think, 35 years.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make one comment.

And I'd just like to acknowledge Susan Elliott and our consultant, Tisch.

I can't remember your last name.

But they have been working very hard.

And they are very much, the Office of Sustainability is like the little engine that could.

It is something to behold and it's something to be proud of.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like a point of order.

I believe there was a member of the public who had signed up.

Yeah, I'm happy.

Mr. Fenwick, I just came and raised an issue for me.

So it was not to be for the tax rate?

Which is during the meeting.

We have public hearings during the meeting, which looks like you've signed up for... Is it about the tax rate, the assessment?

That happens during the meeting itself.

It'll come.

Yeah, we're almost there.

We have a public hearing happening during the meeting itself.

So it looks like you signed up.

That'll be during the body of the meeting itself.

When folks speak about agenda items, especially the public hearing, they speak during the meeting.

We do, however, before we, okay, so thank you all.

We did not, we have appointments that we'll talk about.

Questions, discussion?

All in favor?

Okay, that carries five to zero.

All right, we now are going on to our regular agenda.

We're going to begin with consent agenda.

And I would remind everyone, we still have, we have two sign up sheets here for our two public hearings.

One is on the budget and one is on the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

And, excuse me, Mr. Fogle, can you take that back up over here so she can read the thing?

Item A, Minutes for March 6, 2017.

Item B, Appropriation, BamaWorks Fund Grant for Family Advocate Program, $9,000, second of two readings.

Item C, Appropriation, Local Government Arts Challenge Grant to VA Discovery Museum, $5,000, second of two readings.

Item D, Appropriation, Insurance Settlement for Damage,

SS Vehicle, $2,729.53, second of two readings.

Item E, appropriation, proffer payment from the Inn at Vinegar Hill LLC, $100,000, first of two readings.

Item F, appropriation, Marcus Street parking garage revenue.

$146,200, first of two readings.

Item G, appropriations, strategic investment account, contribution, a million dollars, first of two readings.

Item H, resolution, contribution to Tom Tom Festival, $25,000, first of two readings.

Item I, resolution, donation of two surplus fire engines to Jasper Volunteer Fire Department, first of one reading.

Item J, Resolution, Charlottesville High School Critical Slopes Waiver, first of one reading.

Item K, Ordinance, Changes to Business License Fees and Technology Zone Credits, second of two readings.

Okay, is there a second?

Okay, second.

I'm for it, but there were some questions if someone could further clarify for the members of the public who aren't here.

It's the right process in this, because the consent agenda, we're not discussing an item.

There's a clarification.

I'm happy to read it.

I got a search on it.

In 1987, the Economic Development Authority, with the support from the City of Charlottesville, purchased a 17-acre site from CSX Transportation for $1.6 million.

The property has been sold or leased by the Economic Development Authority in smaller pieces for a variety of uses in the intervening years.

The first commercial property on the former railroad land was a $10 million headquarters building for Lexis Law Publishing Company.

The property has been underground leased from the authorities since 1991.

The 25-year lease agreement included an option for the current lessee to purchase the property at the conclusion of the agreement.

701 East Water Street LLC has exercised its right to purchase the land and closing occurred on November 15th.

The ground lease included a provision for a security deposit in the form of a U.S. Treasury bond in the amount of $1 million.

Now that the ground lease is complete, the title of the property is transferred to the new owner

And all of those funds were allocated to the SIA where they're not eligible to go anywhere else?

No, they were not allocated to the SIA.

It's not the SIA.

It's the Strategic Investment Fund.

It's SIF.

SIF, excuse me.

And that what I think the individual was confused about.

So I'm going to clarify it.

OK.

Yes.

Sure.

OK. And I would also like to just offer a language correction to item C without pulling it.

All right, so amended.

So we're gonna vote on the consent agenda itself and then we'll move the item H off.

So let's vote on the whole consent agenda minus item H. Yes.

Second.

Any further discussion, questions?

All in favor?

OK, that carries.

And now we're going to, we should have Paul Beyer, Mr. Paul Beyer here to discuss the TomTom allocation.

It should be somewhere around

Usually, it's moved to the very end.

Oh, at the very end.

Oh, just forgive me.

OK, so we'll do it at the very end.

OK, that will explain that.

OK, my apologies.

So we will address that item at the end of the meeting.

All right, let's move on to item two on the agenda, which is a report and two public hearings.

Should have made clear before we'll have a public hearing on the fiscal year 2018 tax rate and then a public hearing on Mr. Jones' proposed fiscal year 2018 budget.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Just a brief presentation on the budget.

As we know, the city of Charlottesville has been growing and the needs of our community are growing as well.

As you can see here,

In the proposed budget for fiscal year 18, our budget is $171.6 million.

That's a 5.93% increase over last year.

As you can tell, that's the most significant increase that we've had in our budget since before the recession of 2008, the Great Recession.

So I'll go through our revenues for you this evening and then follow that up with our expenditures.

The one thing I will highlight for you is that we are not proposing any changes to our tax rates.

We are not proposing a change to our real estate tax rate, meals tax rate, or our property tax rate, or the lodging tax rate.

All of our major tax rates will stay the same for fiscal year 18.

As you can see our local taxes make up a little over 71% of our revenues followed by intergovernmental revenue and then our city county revenue sharing agreement about the same as our charges for our services and then licenses and permits.

So here are the revenue projections for our major revenue drivers.

The real estate tax revenue we anticipate will be at $64.5 million in fiscal year 18, personal property at 8.5, sales and use at 11.9, meals tax at 12 million, and lodging tax at 4.8 million.

On the expenditure side, once again, our local contribution to our school system is the largest portion of our expenditures at close to 33%, followed by public safety and justice at 25%, healthy families and community at 18%, and then infrastructure and transportation at 9.2%.

I'll go through some of our expenditures in a little more detail.

The total operating contribution to our schools will be $51.3 million in fiscal year 18, or at least that's proposed.

That's an increase of $2 million, a 4.1% increase, which is the largest increase of any one budget item in our general fund budget.

On the compensation side and benefits for our employees, we are proposing a 2% salary increase on July 1st.

That equates about $870,000.

That 2% increase is pretty much on par with the other municipalities around our region.

Our healthcare costs are going up by $457,000.

This fully funds the city's requirement towards our retirement fund at $1.1 million.

There's a proposed change to the living wage for city and contracted employees at $510,000.

That's to raise the living wage for all employees to $1379.

As of July 1st, there's still some work that we're doing on the compression issue.

associated with this and we'll have more information for city council to consider at the March 30th work session on that issue.

Our market study rate adjustments will go up $578,000 to adjust the salaries of folks who were low in the market study.

And then we have close to $400,000 in salary adjustments for our public safety officers.

There's several new positions that are being proposed as part of this budget.

Some of those have come out of the efficiency study recommendations that the council heard about earlier this year.

$92,000 for an IT support technician is part of the city's recommendation from the efficiency study that would support IT and data analysis for the police department, fire department and the sheriff's office.

$68,000 for a new traffic officer in the police department to help address growing concerns by our community about safety in our neighborhoods.

$58,000 for one regular and two seasonal maintenance workers and Parks and Recreation to help with the ongoing maintenance on the landscaping at the Warner Parkway and the US 250 bypass interchange.

$26,000 for a part-time downtown job center assistant to help ensure

that the job center operations are maintained and that services are available on a regular and consistent basis, especially when our employees, our full-time employees who work there are out in the field working on workforce development initiatives of ours.

$40,000 for a part-time customer service representative in the Treasurer's Office, $20,000 for a new part-time school bus aid, the city schools have approved that as part of their budget and they will be funding that.

and a new federally funded safety training coordinator for Charlottesville area transit and that is a $65,000 expenditure.

There are some new and enhanced city services as part of this budget, a transit route to the YMCA, about $153,000 for that, $25,000 for Parks and Rec Master Plan, that was also a recommendation in our efficiency study, and a pilot program to extend the community center hours, that's $37,000 to extend the community center hours at Tonsil Park, West Haven Community Center, and Friendship Court.

For outside and nonprofit agencies, there's an increase in fiscal year 18 to support agencies such as the jail, emergency communication center, the library, jaunt, and juvenile detention center.

That's approximately $145,000.

Through the ABRT program, that's our agency budget review program, there are increases in fiscal year 18.

$19,800 will be provided for new programs.

and an additional $31,149 will be offered for excellent programs that were rated excellent by the ABRT team.

Several initiatives will be funded through the City Council's Strategic Initiatives Fund.

$450,000 for operations of the African American Heritage Center at the Jefferson School.

That's the first year of a two-year commitment by the City Council.

$20,000 to fund the continuation of a GED program that was established several years ago.

And $105,000 for several priorities that have been identified by the City Council but staff is still working on that includes

The details we're still working out including diversion programs, a skilled trades training program, and a position to help with black youth achievement here in the city.

On the capital side, the CIP program that we have, we have a number of major highlights.

Over $29 million in projects for fiscal year 18 are being proposed.

The school's capital improvement program is $4.4 million for next year, and that includes a plan for the next five years to provide $1 million a year for school strategic improvements.

The Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund

is being proposed to increase to $2.49 million in fiscal year 18 and another $900,000 in fiscal year 19 to address some of the affordable housing issues that we've heard about throughout the budget process and again tonight.

And there is a proposal to put $250,000 in the budget for next year in the CIP for public housing redevelopment

and that would go to a half a million dollars beginning in fiscal year 19.

$750,000 is being proposed to fully implement the Tonsler Park master plan process.

That will go towards constructing the field house at Tonsler Park.

$3.25 million for West Main Street, $4.5 million in for the Belmont Bridge, $1.6 million in for bridge inspections and repairs.

and another $250,000 for the SIA, $4.3 million for public safety and justice, and $618,000 for new sidewalks and sidewalk repair.

So we still have a few meetings left, a few public meetings where people can weigh in on the budget.

Our next meeting after tonight is March 30th.

It's our work session from 5 to 7 at City Space and that will focus primarily on outside agencies and nonprofit agencies.

The public is invited and there will be an opportunity for city council to hear from the public.

We usually reserve the time about 15 minutes or so at the end of each one of our work sessions for public comment.

We'll also answer any questions that have come up so far with the council and the public as part of the budget process and have a discussion with the council over those issues.

April 3rd, we'll have our second public hearing on the budget and our first official reading.

That will be in this room at 7 o'clock in a couple of weeks.

On April 6th, we'll have a work session to wrap up the budget from 5 to 7 in city space.

And on April 11th, we'll have our approval by the City Council at 5.30 in the second floor conference room here in City Hall.

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

Are there any questions from council?

Mr. Mayor, just a clarification.

This is the period for questions.

This is the place for clarifying questions from council.

Mr. Jones and then we will have comments after.

Then I have no questions.

You mentioned compression.

Well, what it would mean in this situation is if we raise the living wage for folks who are currently not receiving it, seasonal and temporary folks, raise it from the $11.17 or so they're making right now,

to the 1379, there's a layer of folks above them who will feel that compression of the increase.

So they'll be making the equivalent of other folks within their department who may have been here longer, that type of thing.

We try to take a look at that anytime we have a significant increase across the board in pay raises and so we'll take a look at that.

One of the easy thing to do is to compare the next level within the department and see what the ripple effect will be from there but then we also have to take into consideration I think what other folks are making in other departments and that's what we're looking at right now and that's where

It could cause a significant ripple effect to make that, but that's why it's taking a little bit of time for us to get a solid number for council to consider if we decide to address those compression issues in one fell swoop.

Any other questions?

Okay, Mr. Brasil, somebody mind handing me the

Okay, I'm going to open the public hearing on the, let's see, so how should we do this?

We've got two public hearings.

We've got the tax rate and then the rate first.

Okay, so I'll open, we have one public hearing on the tax rate and then we have another one on the budget itself.

We have three people signed up for each of them.

You're more than welcome to sign up for, you know, if anybody is so moved for the second one as we're going on or for the first one, but I'll start the first one right now.

And again, same rules as before.

Comments are limited to three minutes.

Please begin with your name and your street address.

And then all the same rules that I read in the beginning of play.

Thank y'all.

My name is Bob Archer.

I own Bob's Wheel and Highway at 923 East Market Street.

And I have a question tonight.

I know you didn't raise the tax rates, but you raised the assessments.

I can't understand.

I've been there for 36 years on Market Street.

I have very good business.

I have 19 employees that I've built from 2 to 19 now.

A lot of people come to my business every day and spend money on the mall while the car is being worked on.

I got my assessment the other day, and I might have a copy of it there.

From what I can understand, it went up a million dollars in one year.

They say it was 65.37%, and most of the commercial property I was understanding went up about 29 to 30%.

If you look at mine, my land went from 746,000 to 1,586,600 in one year.

And I can't see the justification of that amount.

in my business.

I mean, I can't charge you so much for my services, and I've ran a business there for 36 years.

I'd just like y'all to take it into consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Jeff Fogel.

I live in Belmont.

I want to argue for an increase in the tax rate because you need the money.

I have to challenge the notion that we are actually in our city paying people $11.17 an hour to work for the city.

And you somehow get away with it by saying, oh they're temporary, they're seasonal, does that mean they don't need the money?

Even your proposal at $13.79 gives you an income of $27,000 a year.

I would like to see some of you on council live on $27,000 a year and then come back

and tell your workers it's okay to live on $27,000 a year.

It's not.

I have to challenge you, Mr. Bellamy, about housing.

You ask us to trust you, meaning the council.

Why?

I've been here a dozen years.

We've been given the same promises for a dozen years that housing is going to be produced.

And what do we know?

73 affordable units in those dozen years that I've been here.

So don't ask us to trust you.

Lay it on the table, tell us what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and how it's going to happen.

Because you all operate now with the notion that you want to have 15% of the housing in our city to be affordable.

But there are 35 to 40% of the people in the city who live here who need affordable housing.

So the notion is you're going to push 20% to 25% of the people out of our community.

And you know who they are.

You know their demographics.

You know their color.

You know their income.

You know what you're doing.

You cannot stay on 15%.

You must put it in a realistic terms so that our community is preserved.

We're not talking about change.

We're talking about preservation of the demographics of this community.

And it won't happen even if you're lucky enough, and it'll take a lot of luck on your part,

because you have no idea how to do it and haven't done any of it and the situation has only gotten worse in the decades since I've been here.

And so you do need an increase in the tax rate.

The problem with your assessment is apparently you had a terrible assessor before or you have a terrible assessor now because these numbers are out of whack.

My property is going up, my commercial property by 65%.

I'm willing to pay it if I knew you were doing the right thing with it.

But I understand why other small businesses are so upset about this because this is happening at one time.

And it shouldn't have happened at one time.

This should have been building up over time.

And it's just bad government to be doing it this way because you're getting this reaction.

and particularly since what we really need is an increase in the tax rate, not a reduction in the tax rate as the mayor has suggested.

I'm not sure why, just to satisfy some homeowners or maybe some property owners that, my, we're giving you back money because we don't need the money.

The fact is we need the money.

You know we need the money.

And we need it desperately.

There are people in this community who don't have jobs.

There are people who are underemployed, people working three jobs.

The notion that we have 3% unemployment here is a joke.

It's a joke that was propagated by the federal government to make them look good.

And it's not the truth.

Thank you.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane in the city.

Good evening, councils.

The city budget is an issue that needs year-round attention.

Every year you vote monies in the consent agenda.

Council is voting significant sums of money.

Look at tonight's consent agenda.

Five or six out of the 11 items are money related and therefore directly budget related.

The city now finds itself with a $6 million surplus thanks to the county adding $15.8 million in revenue sharing.

According to yesterday's daily progress, the county has paid the city almost $300 million.

That's over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue sharing.

Careful consideration needs to be weighed in what to do with this windfall.

One, give it to the taxpayers.

Two, calling bonds.

Maybe.

Three, putting it toward the CIP budget.

Maybe.

Four, hiring employees with tens of thousands in salaries and benefits and made up titles.

For example, things like arts coordinator.

No.

The fact is

Real estate assessments were raised at least 30% for commercial properties and around 4 plus percent for residential property.

My residential assessment increased by 5.46% and my assessment has now changed six times in the past ten years.

In actuality, you have increased taxes without raising the tax rate.

You can boast that you as a council did not increase the tax rate.

But that is not the reality.

Homeowners and commercial real estate owners are paying more in taxes.

More revenue equals more unwise and capricious council spending.

You could not justify an increase in the tax rate when the city runs millions in surpluses.

What would the budget look like without revenue sharing?

Just on the tax rates.

We have two public hearings right now.

Hi, my name's Elizabeth Willock, 1018 Avon.

I have a concern about what is essentially a tax, which you guys refer to as a fee, for stormwater drain-off.

This began, my understanding, if I remember correctly, in 2015, and what it states is that city residents are required to pay a fee based on, I'm sorry, I don't know the exact numbers, how you're doing the math, but any area of the property, sidewalks, roofs, driveways, that is considered impermeable.

I and I suspect every other city member is being feed for gravel.

So we are being taxed based on an incorrect usage and definition of the word impermeable.

And I find that outrageous.

I moved to this town because it was really well educated and smart and I just, it makes me crazy.

So I have spoken to, I'm sorry, the gentleman's name who sort of is the manager, he does the... Dance weed.

Dance weed.

And he did work with me to, you know, I'm still paying for a driveway that's gravel that has weeds growing through it ad nauseam.

So it's clearly permeable, it gets water and light.

The other thing he said, so this was going to be revisited in 2017 and here we are.

The other thing that I, it's storm water runoff from the roofs.

Well I have two rain barrels and I think that those of us who are being water conscious should be rewarded for

Capturing that water, reusing it for plantings, et cetera, whatever gray water we reharvest.

So please put your brilliant heads together and let's work this out, okay?

Thank you.

Okay, is there anyone else for this?

This was put, yeah.

So, OK. All right.

OK, I'm going to close that.

It looks like we're all done.

So I'm going to close the public hearing on the tax rate.

Thank you.

I think you could entertain comments or questions from Council.

Because we have a lot of people here for the public hearing, although not a whole lot signed up, that we usually take a break at 9 and I think it would be probably merciful to have the public hearing for the second item before we do that.

So that people don't have to wait.

Good idea.

So let's, thank you.

Any objections?

Okay.

Let's do that.

So let's move, let's open the next public hearing.

This is on the proposed fiscal year 2018 budget.

We have three folks sign up.

More can sign up if you'd like.

I'll put the sheet back down.

Good evening, my name is John Cruikshank, 324 Parkway Street.

I'm representing the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club, and as to nobody's surprise here, I'm going to be speaking about pesticide-free schools and parks.

In April of 2015, City Council passed a resolution

which said that they would reduce overall use of synthetic chemical pesticides in the city on city properties and that they would hopefully soon

eliminate the use of these pesticides in city parks and on the school grounds.

So it's two years later, almost two years later, and I know some progress has been made in this area, but I would like to see in this next budget cycle in 2017 where there is a commitment to completely end the use of synthetic chemical pesticides in the city parks

and on the school grounds because we need to protect our children.

What could be a better investment?

These pesticides are dangerous.

They build up in the children's bodies over time and we just need to make sure that they have no contact with them at all.

So I please ask that when you are

planning this new budget that you have some part-time positions in the maintenance of the parks and the school grounds.

And I know it costs more money to pull weeds than to spray them, but it's a good investment.

So please do that.

We were told in the past that it would cost $15,000.

Brian Daley said that when

Sorry, Ms. Galvin asked the question of what it would cost just to eliminate them in the school grounds, $15,000.

That's, when you consider the size of your budget, that's almost nothing.

I imagine it would cost more to eliminate the use on the public parks, but it's a good investment.

Please do that.

And I would also ask that City Council take some leadership and encourage residents

to end or at least reduce their use of lawn and garden pesticides, like Roundup is the common one.

Thank you very much.

Thanks very much.

I'm Mo Nadkarni.

I live at 1821 Creekview Lane.

I'm also chief of geriatrics and general internal medicine at UVA and one of the co-founders of the Charlottesville Free Clinic, but I'm speaking only as a personal citizen here tonight.

Basically, I'd like to urge you all to support healthy aging in our community with the budget priorities.

There's been the MAP process, which I'm sure you're aware of, the Mobilization for Action Through Planning and Partnership.

Dr. Denise Bonds will be giving you the full summary I think in a few weeks.

But two of those recommendations from this whole community planning project directly relate to aging.

The first one would be the healthy eating and active living recommendation and the second recommendation would be the focus on healthy connected communities to increase well-being across the lifespan.

As you know, our elderly population is the fastest growing demographic.

You know that there are over 12,000, excuse me, 1200 citizens over 75 in the Thomas Jefferson Health District that are actually living in poverty.

About 8.3% of those folks are living in poverty.

Why is that important?

It's important because it's very easy when you're living in poverty to be isolated, socially alone.

In fact, 43% of our elders actually live alone

in our Thomas Jefferson Health District area.

So what happens when people get isolated is they get sicker faster, they fall at a greater rate and when you fall you get broken hips and you get poor outcomes medically.

So the Senior Center is up for some support by the City Council and I would just urge you to support the Senior Center at Belvedere.

They'll be having recreation classes, a gym, a walking track,

All sorts of advocacy and well-known programs that, as you heard earlier from one of our neighbors, are a very important part of our society.

Thank you.

My name is Jay James.

I live at 169 Brookwood Drive in the city.

And you guys have seen me a little more frequently.

I do enjoy these meetings.

A little bit more.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor to Council.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I'm here, as you know, to advocate for the nonprofit agency that I represent.

which is the Bridge Ministry Substance Abuse Drug and Alcohol Addiction Rehabilitation Program.

I've told you many times about what the program does and I'm sure you all are familiar and not to be a broken record, I want to get a little bit more specific tonight as to the community impact.

As I've told you many times before, we work with indigent and homeless population who are also dealing with incarceration.

So while we're developing programming for maybe homeless individuals who are on the downtown mall, the majority of the people that we work with

are dealing with issues of not only addiction, but that addiction has landed them in incarceration.

And I saw Mr. Jones's budget, which I thought was excellent, and he knows I actually believe that and wouldn't just be saying it.

But I saw it, and there was a portion in the pie chart

for, I guess, for community protection and crimes and things of that nature.

And I don't consider us the typical non-profit agency because individuals are court ordered into our program.

Seven of ten do not go back to recidivism.

After a minimum of two years, we'll evaluate them.

And most of the time, it's after five years.

So, last year, we served 19 individuals.

We said we serve 18.

We served 19.

If we were going to incarcerate those 19 individuals, it would have cost $1.14 million.

It's north of $60,000 to annually incarcerate someone.

The cost that we absorb is $24,000 per individual that we serve.

That doesn't get passed on to indigent and homeless individuals whom we would work with.

We have to absorb those costs, so that's why I'm here and

What we're asking specifically for you to consider is a line item in the budget for public safety, for helping people overcome these issues to live productive lives.

We're asking for $58,000.

So for us, an annual student cost to our program is $24,000.

So that would be 2.5 students we'd be asking you to support.

We can accommodate 45.

So we're asking you to support 2.5 of the 45 that we can accommodate.

As we continue to work very closely with Colonel Coomer and his staff at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, the Commos Attorney's Office in the city, as well as the county probation and parole.

These are all public service agencies that we work directly with because we are an arm that they can utilize to deal with these issues of incarceration, addiction, things of that nature.

So that's why I don't, oops, excuse me, that was close.

That's why I don't consider us the typical non-profit.

And we have 700 excellent ones who deserve recognition and deserve funding in their own way.

But I'd ask you to consider us in a different way, if possible.

Because as I actually told the circuit court judge this an amount of time, I said, we consider ourselves an extension of your authority.

And we would say the same thing to you.

Anyone else wanting to speak on the budget itself?

I live at 423 Meade Avenue and I'm here to speak on behalf of an increase in the budget for sidewalks.

As some of you know, there have been numerous studies out there that show a direct correlation between sidewalks in low income and minority communities and health.

In low income communities without sidewalks, people walk less, people work less, people who are in these low income communities cannot afford vehicles

and so, but they get stuck at home and they get stuck not walking.

And there's also a study that shows an increase in crime rates in low income and minority neighborhoods without sufficient sidewalks.

And I'll be glad to email to everyone a copy of some of these studies, a link to them so you can read them for yourselves.

And I would like to argue for more sidewalks in the Little High neighborhood

But really, I would like to argue first for more sidewalks in the lowest income neighborhoods because I know that I'm going to walk anyway.

I make the choice to walk.

I have a vehicle.

My wife has a vehicle.

But we still make the choice to walk because we moved to Charlottesville so that we could walk.

But if we want to walk from where we are on Meade Avenue,

to the corner of Little High and 10th Street.

And we want to stay on sidewalks.

We cannot.

There is not a complete sidewalk between both sides of the road.

And if we want to try to stay on the sidewalk the most, we have to cross the street three times on a street that has 16 public buses every day, six school buses, and hundreds if not thousands of vehicles a day who use Little High to get from Mead Avenue to 10th Street.

And so children who live on that street and parents who have children who live on that street may be hesitant to send their kids out and to walk to 10th Street or to walk to somewhere else or to walk to downtown at any age.

I mean I won't let my 10 year old daughter walk anywhere without me.

We do have signals at some places on Meade Avenue.

I find that the signals that are embedded in the roads are more effective than the signals that are 12 feet or 10 feet up in the air.

Cars tend to ignore those signals.

I'm not sure they're looking up.

I haven't crossed that street a few hundred times in the last six months.

I just know that even police officers don't see

that signal.

They'll go right through.

It's too high.

But those that are embedded in the road tend to get a better reaction from very distracted drivers.

But I'd just like to argue for more sidewalks.

And they don't have to be in my neighborhood.

They can be in the lowest income neighborhoods first.

I just feel like we need more sidewalks.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

An earlier comment about commercial property assessment reminded me of something I've had in mind since the increases were announced.

Assessments are the value of the property, not the business.

That's important to keep in mind.

But my question is not about the significant increase.

I understand from the newspaper that's in part because maybe

They've been under assessed for quite a few years.

My question is whether the city has the authority to phase in increases over time.

Not increases in value, but increases in the tax that has to be paid.

That would acknowledge property values are higher than they've been assessed recently, while allowing some time for commercial property owners to adjust to the increase.

If not constrained by state law, and I know we're a Dillon rule state,

but if not so constrained I would urge the council consider or examine a phase in as part of this budget.

Next I have outstanding questions about the tax revenue on gas utility customers called payment in lieu of taxes.

Some people have heard it, it's also called pilot.

I obtained some account data from the city and I thank them for that.

but have not yet resolved how to parse it to get to a concern that I have that I've expressed before you before.

I believe because many of our low-income families live in older, energy-inefficient homes that are likely heated by gas, I think this tax is regressive.

Millions are taken from a percentage of city properties, not all of them, just the gas consumers and largely from the consumers who heat with gas and those millions

are deposited into the general fund that is used to serve the entire city.

So I think it is unfair to tax a percent to serve the whole as well.

So I understand it's legal to collect the pilot.

That doesn't make it right.

And one last question.

The item on the return of a million dollars that sat in a treasury bond for what, 30 years?

I know treasury bonds don't pay much, but where did the interest go?

Why didn't the city get at least some interest off of that investment?

Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing.

We're going to take a five minute break.

Five minutes, that means we'll be back here by 9.15.

Okay, everyone, 9.15 sharp, really.

All right, thank you all.

That would actually be sick.

So let's do, yeah, let's do... Just a couple questions that the community might appreciate.

You know, actually, I was thinking, Mr. Fenwick, it might be a good idea to have Jeff Davis, who's our assessor, come up and speak generally about the assessment process.

As we've mentioned several times in the newspaper and on television, there was a significant increase in the commercial side this year.

Mr. Davis has spoken to us at work sessions, but I thought it would be a good idea for him

this evening, especially after Mr. Archer's comments.

Unfortunately, he left, but he won't speak specifically about Mr. Archer's situation.

You are allowed to appeal.

We did a lot of publicity about the appeals process.

The deadline for that was February 28th, and we did receive a significant amount of appeals, and folks are going through that process right now about their individual properties.

But I thought it'd be a good idea to have Mr. Davis come up and talk about assessments, Joan.

Good evening, my name is Jeff Davis, I'm the city assessor.

I'm much better about answering questions than just giving a presentation, but I would like to say as an assessor our job is to analyze data and I feel we did that this reassessment.

We spent a lot of time going through the sales data that we had over the last year and past years as well.

to arrive at the figures that we arrived at for this reassessment.

I know it was a large increase.

We sweated that some.

But as the state code says, we have to appraise what we think the property's market value is.

We can't consider the amount of the increase.

So we obviously didn't do that, which resulted in a large increase in commercial properties.

There were many, many commercial sales that we could not ignore.

And as a result, again, it was a large increase.

The residential market was much more reasonable, I think.

In the process, we have an appeals period that lasted through the month of February.

We received 400 appeals.

Not all of those were commercial.

I think about 350 were commercial appeals.

Of that number we've actually reviewed about 47 to 50 at this time and we'll make some reductions.

We ask for information before the reassessment for property owners to send us income and expense information relating to the property.

And if they would send that information in we could analyze it before the assessment went out.

but in most cases and about all but 20% of the cases we didn't receive that information back so we had to go on our best judgment of what the property would be generating as far as the income and the expenses for the property.

The number of appeals?

Last year I had 88 commercial appeals.

One question that we've heard continuously, and I just was having this discussion a second ago, is individuals say, well, my assessments weren't going up anywhere like this in years past, and they just boomed out of nowhere.

Well, we have this new computer system, the new software system is not the reason why these increases are as large as they are.

But it has enabled us to be able to assess these properties I think on a more individual basis and capture individual property values rather than just automatically broad brush increasing thing a certain percentage.

I do have one question for you, Mr. Davis.

Is it possible to do phasing as was suggested?

And you have to appraise, you have to assess it 100%?

That's correct.

Okay.

No, we can correct errors at any time, any time.

Okay.

Well, I don't know.

Okay, thank you.

Please hang around in case there's any.

I'd like to just, I'm not certainly going to answer all of the

the comments, but there were a couple of things that I just wanted to clarify that people brought up for anybody who's listening or maybe if I have it wrong for clarification for me.

One was when Mr. Fogel was talking about affordable housing.

and I think it is confusing and so it felt like two things were being conflated and I just wanted to clarify that when we talk about having only done a certain number of affordable units in the last five years, while certainly not acceptable and I want a lot more, those are supported affordable housing.

That doesn't just mean that we haven't added affordable units, it means that we haven't added units that are supported every year by taxpayer dollars.

like public housing is a supported affordable, the land trust is supported affordable, things that have, things built in that keep it below market rate.

We've actually had a lot of housing built in the city recently that is otherwise market rate affordable.

It's not affordable for people at the lowest income levels, but it is affordable in areas that we have had a shortage of housing.

It doesn't get us toward our percentage, but we have, when he talked about

that 30% of the people in the community need affordable housing.

We are actually getting at some of that.

And a lot of units are, I think, coming online pretty soon as well that will address that.

So just wanted to clarify that it isn't that we've only done 14 units of housing that is at all affordable.

Actually, that was the main thing I wanted to say.

I don't have any more questions about the tax assessment, but I do have some comments that I'd like to share with my colleagues and for consideration.

I sent you this by email.

This is not a motion.

This is not a resolution.

These are just some remarks about the budget, about consideration of

of a position, a placeholder, if you will, for a position that would address some of the discussions that we've been having as of late for the need for some real serious on the street community engagement that's ongoing.

that it's not, this is not about an arts position, but it is about creative place making, which is all about urban design, making sure that the kind of places that we build are what people fall in love with and want to maintain.

And it also deals with what do we do in the face of big looming responsibilities that are required by Virginia Code, like updating our comprehensive plan,

and then getting our zoning to match the vision that this community articulates.

That's a city-wide effort, not only within the strategic investment area.

That ties directly to the kinds of comments that have been made tonight about whether or not buildings fit within the context within which the developers put them, whether or not there are sidewalks that are interconnected and connect to good destinations.

Last week I met with Mr. Jones and Mr. Acafina to discuss the needs that are looming large before not only the Department of Naval Development Services, but the city as a whole.

And there seem to be four general areas of competencies that we need to supplement with our staff, expand within our staff.

And it's not something that can be handled with ongoing consulting.

It is something we're at a point where we've grown up to the point where we are about 50,000 people in this city and the demands are growing.

They're not getting any less.

So those kind of areas are community engagement.

We're going to talk about that later on tonight because of the good work the Planning Commission has done.

But in a variety of circumstances, not only when we're doing small area planning or comprehensive planning,

All kinds of communications, even when there's an individual development project in a neighborhood.

This placemaking idea is about designing our public spaces and special districts, community-based planning projects as well as private developer submittals.

People over and over again are saying they need three dimensions.

Mr. Bellamy and I were in a meeting with a lot of our residents from the Public Housing Association of Residents.

Three-dimensional representation is key.

and then zoning and code review.

Over and over again we're hearing that the zoning, by right zoning is not creating what we want, what we need, and it pushes developers into doing something that is unusual.

So with that, I was, in my conversations with Mr. Jones and Mr. Ekeven, they agreed with me that we needed more resources and more capacity

and said that they needed more flexibility, though, in the actual articulation of the term and the placement of this position, but that we didn't want to get stuck behind the eight ball, so to speak, that we needed to reserve some money within this fiscal year.

And I would just like to point out that there have been several reports and plans

since 2013, the place report, annual report, the 2013 Brigade Cultural Plan, the 2014 Neighborhood Leader Statement, the 2016 FAR Resident-Directed Positive Vision for Redevelopment, the 2016 Organizational Efficiency Study, and the 2017 letter regarding neighborhood leaders' concern over the development that actually underscores our disconnect between vision, implementation, people, and places.

And that position is someone that needs to be the keeper

I've also talked a little bit with both Mr. Jones and Mr. Kaifina and there's been a position that we discussed at our meeting on Thursday as well about, you know, in NDS somebody who's doing kind of

and it may be part of this neighborhood engagement piece but you know representing neighborhoods and helping kind of as a neighborhood advocate so I support this position as an open-ended NDS position I think our efficiency study showed that our NDS is overtaxed and we've had so much development so much population growth that we need more you know person power there I think once we get you know I think the devil will be in the details getting down to what this position is we may have a fair amount of

I'd just like to add that I also support moving forward with this position.

If we can't get an end to this year's budget, kind of have it as a placeholder of funds, but I do think it is indeed important to make sure that we can assist in any way possible.

So, I'm in agreeance.

Thank you, Ms. Galvin, for your leadership.

All I'm saying, and I meant to say this earlier, but thank you to as well as Ms. Sarah and Lisa and Maryam in the back and all of you others, Ms. Heather, everyone for Women's History Month and it's Women's Month.

We really appreciate the work you all have done and you all show us how much smarter women are than men.

Well, thank you.

So I think it would be appropriate as well but the devil will be in the details and I do anticipate a vigorous debate because the citizens have been promised a lot and

consistently, they're not getting the information they need in a timely manner.

And to me, that's a very simple thing to happen.

I'll speak about, on the position, I actually, having spoken so much about the arts component of this, and I talked to staff today about it, I could see maybe that it complicates it too much, and it might be more narrowly focused on just the huge set of zoning and code and comprehensive plan issues that are coming before us, but I would like to get staff's advice on that.

I want to move to a topic that I've been speaking about quite a lot recently with regard to the

Commercial Rate Assessment Increase.

I was glad that Mr. Archer spoke.

I think that you heard in his voice and in his experience what I have heard from around the community, which is real anguish, and in smaller businesses.

We're not talking about the super well-heeled here who, you know, we're talking about, although I think that there's going to be a cascade effect from the well-heeled folks down to their tenants in a lot of cases, but we're also seeing

with smaller businesses, that's a, you know, when we look at his increase, it's a $9,000 increase, his tax is almost doubling from one year to the next.

Now, the merits of our reasons for doing that I think are justified.

The question as a policy matter is what does a governing body do when you have a bumper crop or a substantial increase if merited, which I think it was in this case for many reasons that we just heard.

So there are two tools that we have as a policy matter.

The one is the appeals of assessments, which,

three times the normal number took advantage of this year.

That's a process on its own merits.

The other thing that we have is to adjust the tax rate.

I have spoken publicly a lot recently about a modest but significant measure to lower the tax rate on these increased assessments, which I think would be as a policy decision an important

signal to the public that we're not just spending every dollar that came in in kind of a bumper crop year.

If you adjusted it down two points, that's $1.4 million, which is 0.8% of the budget, I believe, spread across a whole range of priorities.

I believe that it could be evenly applied so as not to hurt most of our priorities picking up

30, 40, 50, you know $100,000 here or there and that we could still do everything we want to do in a very progressive budget but it would signal to the public that we're not just kind of you know taking it all in spending it all out we have a six percent increase in the budget this year

Basically, every priority for us as a city is meritorious.

There's a lot that we want to do, and I can make a strong argument for every expenditure that we have.

But the question is, on top of that, do we have any belt tightening?

I think it would be an important signal to our public, especially to the businesses and the tenants who are going to experience pain as a result of this, even if the pain is merited and is a policy decision within our discretion.

And I've argued for it.

You know, I would encourage the public, if you support something like that, to let us know, but I see, as in very good faith, my colleagues' differing opinions, and I think, at the very least, this debate will strengthen the arguments to the public about why we would stick with the 95-cent tax rate, if that is what we do, and I think that's been the process so far.

So this is all in very good faith.

It's a good debate.

I'd just like to make one comment to that and that was the three years ago we had a blue ribbon commission on sustainable school funding and we were told at that time by very very knowledgeable people with expertise in finance that we were under assessing our properties and so we are at the point where we finally took care of the problem

I don't see how we could do otherwise, just leave our properties under assessed, which would then have given us this false illusion that we weren't as robust and strong an economy as we actually are, and we would have been raising our tax rates unnecessarily.

So I think it's very important that we look at the accuracy of our process

and the results seem to be showing us that we have not been using the best practices in the past and we're getting behind the eight ball.

And I'll just add, you know, the little factlet which is that

We don't have the option of keeping them low now that we know what they really are because we'd be in violation of state law.

A couple comments.

I would disagree that we could still do everything we wanted to do.

I don't agree with that because we haven't been able to in the past.

The budget prior to this was cut for the ABRT, the Agency Budget Review Team, and I'm glad to see that it was not cut like that this year.

From a management standpoint, it is unfortunate, and I'm saying this from the viewpoint of somebody who has commercial property, the assessment went up 71%, and that's a killer for a small business.

And I figured something was not right.

I didn't know exactly what it was when my assessments didn't really go up except minimally for the last five, six, seven years.

But that meant I didn't pay a big increase in taxes, so I was fine with that.

So there was a problem.

It's unfortunate.

But city management recognized that and fixed it and

We're just going to go on from here and that's one of the reasons I asked the questions about the firewall between your office and general public or politicians or whoever would try to pressure you into changing anything.

It's a straightforward process.

I think you have it under control now and these things, if we are in a bubble, which some people think we are, then the assessments, the reassessments happen every year.

Okay, we should wrap up and move on to the final thing.

We had two specific questions here about gravel with the stormwater fee.

I would like to look into permeable gravel and if somebody could possibly get a credit if they had installed rain barrels.

And then there was a question about sidewalks.

We have a little sidewalk approach, but we could touch on that in one of the next budget sessions.

We can provide that information to you, absolutely.

And it's a very, just to remind the council, it's a very thorough process that we went through for the stormwater, to establish the stormwater utility.

and we did that in response to the federal regulations that were coming down through the state to address storm water issues in the community and everyone has to deal with that now.

And the council at the time decided instead of going through the real estate tax rate and increasing that in order to address this, the council decided to go through the storm water utility process and as I mentioned before we had

Yeah, I think it's also important what you just touched on is that it was not another way of getting money that we were already using to run the city.

It was new expenses that we were obligated by law to pay, and it would have either been everybody being taxed or the property owners that used the water

Okay.

Folks, we are going to have a late meeting tonight because we have a lot ahead of us.

So I'm going to, we had, this is a work session meeting.

This is a working meeting.

Our second items of the, our second meetings of the month are where we talk about things.

We don't just have a motion and vote on it.

So that's, we've got a few more of these.

So I'm, I'll do my best to try and move us along, but we do have,

One, two, three, four, five, six items ahead of us.

And seven.

Right.

Seven, which we pulled off the consent.

So I will, bear with me, I'll try and move us along, but I'll need your help.

Public Hearing Resolution, Rivanna, Water and Seward Authority, Amendment, Articles, and Corporation.

Mr. Craig Bowne will be presenting.

We do have a public hearing on this, which is set up there.

We have one person signed up to speak during it.

Good point.

RWSA board member Mueller for 31 years.

Following her retirement, the City Manager reorganized the Department of Public Works so that it is now three separate departments, Public Works, Utilities and Transit.

Given the parallels between what the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority does and what our Utilities Department does, staff felt that it would be appropriate to substitute the position of Director of Public Works with the Director of Utilities on the Rivanna Board.

That requires a concurrent resolution from both City Council and the County Board of Supervisors which amends the articles of incorporation for RWSA.

The articles of incorporation establish who is on the board.

If you look in your agenda materials on the page that has the heading, fourth restated articles of incorporation of Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, you'll see at the bottom of that page in paragraph C

that the change is made so that it's the city manager or city councilor and the director of utilities representing the city on the board.

There's also an additional phrase put in that gives council the flexibility to appoint in the director of utilities place any other city department head.

There's no plans to do that, but the county currently has that authority with respect to the county service authority executive director.

So we thought it just

to make the two sides parallel that we would suggest that as well.

As I say, this does require a resolution from the county.

There's been a slight change since the agenda memo was prepared.

The agenda memo states that the county board will be taking this up on April 5th.

That actually will not take place until May 3rd.

Okay.

I'm going to open the public hearing we have.

Is Quinn signed up?

That's okay.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street here in the city.

City members on the Rivanna board represent us.

the city citizens and property owners who use water, sewer, and solid waste services.

So I want to remind both our existing representatives and the new director of utilities to keep that in mind.

We need strong representation because there's this thing called a four-party agreement.

The city's only one.

RWSA is a party.

And then the county has two parties.

The county is half of that agreement.

It's the Board of Supervisors and the Albemarle County Service Authority.

So it's pretty easy for the city, as one out of four, to be outvoted.

So you have to stay strong.

And I certainly anticipate and have no reason to believe that the new director of the new Department of Utilities will do so.

And I'll take this opportunity for one more comment on RWSA.

The populations of both the city and the county urban ring appear to be growing faster than the rates that were projected a couple of years ago.

But our water use isn't increasing at the same rate, which is a good thing.

I'm sure part of that is related to growing use of water conservation fixtures and those catchy TV

commercials encouraging people to twist and anyway to look for leaks.

Running after toilets.

I was going to say I unfortunately will not be able to participate in that activity.

But I do think it's important that we take another look or at least at some point get a report on non-revenue water.

Non-revenue water, as I understand it, is the difference between how much we buy from Rivanna and how much we sell to our customers.

There's a certain amount of leakage in all systems.

We know that.

Water used by the fire department when they open a hydrant.

Nobody's paying for that.

We as a city pay for that.

But I think it would be good, you know, how are we doing on our replacing and repairing our distribution lines?

treated water is expensive.

It takes chemicals.

You know, we're losing treated water, so we need to make sure that we have a good plan or we continue on a good plan to conserve water for public water, public use as well.

Thank you.

Anybody else speaking this public hearing?

OK, closing the public hearing.

I'll just make one comment with regards to Ms. Quinn's comments that I know that the city's been actively working to repair the inflow and infiltration of our lines and replacing and lining them, but it has been a while since we've had any kind of update

on the progress from Lauren Hildebrand.

I think a perfect time to do that was when we come to you to talk about the utility rate.

That's perfect.

That's great.

And kind of give us some trending information like what we were maybe five years ago, what we are today in terms of the lines being approved.

I'd like to move that Council adopt the concurrent resolution of the City Council.

All right, great.

Let's move on to the next item.

This is a resolution opposition to increase in federal defense budget funding.

Counselor Szakos will be presenting, and we also have one other motion that seems that counsel has agreed to include in here as well from Ms. Galvin.

budget that President Trump had submitted that would increase defense funding, and I don't know exactly the percentage, but by a whole lot, and reduce domestic funding and State Department funding diplomacy by a whole lot.

And the council members felt that that was something that we wanted to explore, so I rewrote a kind of council form of a proposal.

It's gone through a couple little tweaks since it was on the website and so I just want to read the entire thing.

So whereas President Donald J. Trump has proposed to divert $54 billion from human and environmental spending at home and abroad in order to increase the military budget, bringing military spending to well over 60% of federal discretionary spending, and whereas the citizens of Charlottesville already pay $112.62 million in federal taxes for military expenditures, an amount that each year could fund locally, and this is inclusively,

210 elementary school teacher salaries, 127 new clean energy jobs, 169 infrastructure jobs, 94 supported employment opportunities for returning citizens, 1073 preschool seats for children in Head Start, medical care for 953 military veterans, 231 college

scholarships for CHS graduates, 409 Pell Grants for Charlottesville students, health care for 3,468 low-income children, enough wind power to power 8,312 households, health care for 1,998 low-income adults, and solar panels to provide electricity for 5,134 households.

Whereas our community's human environmental needs are critical, and our ability to respond to those needs depends on federal funding for education,

welfare, public safety and infrastructure maintenance, transit and environmental protection, and whereas the President's proposal would reduce foreign aid and diplomacy, which helped to prevent wars and the victimization of people who become refugees in our community, and 121 U.S. generals have written a letter opposing those cuts,

and whereas countless American men and women who have served and continue to serve in the United States Armed Forces do so in order to protect the United States and the rights we all share as Americans at the risk of life and limb, be it therefore resolved that the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia urges the United States Congress and our representatives in particular to reject the proposal to cut funding for human and environmental needs in favor of military budget increases

Okay.

That's a motion.

And actually, because I have I think a minute left of motion time, I would say that I also believe that this complies with our policies for motions on

Is there any discussion?

I just want to say I appreciate Councilor Szakos' willingness to add the one addition that I requested, which was to acknowledge

that we respect and support the men and women that served in uniform for this country's defense, that this is not in any way to be construed as a critique of them, but it is something that I do feel we have to make a statement because it has direct bearing on the welfare of our community at home for which these men and women are fighting for.

So I do thank you for putting that in addition.

I have something I'd like to say about this.

So the initial draft cited my description of Charlottesville as a capital of resistance as evidence for the need for this resolution.

So I suppose that means that I have a special burden in explaining my position on this resolution, even though it has changed a lot in my colleagues' hands from the original version.

I greatly admire the passion of the activists and the organization who brought this to our attention.

takes work to put together an effort like this and we do appreciate city council being the focus of the attention like this.

I don't want to vote against the resolution, but I also feel hesitation about it in its present form, so I'm planning on abstaining for the following reasons.

I believe we need to be very careful in this chamber about focusing on matters that touch

on our job description as local elected officials.

I have not seen the policy statement that Ms. Szakos just referred to about when we vote on resolutions.

I don't know that that is something that we have as a policy.

The Trump administration is going to propose many policies, dozens, that are going to impact many thousands of members of our community.

But if we pass this resolution, I don't see any logical reason that we shouldn't include those on the agenda as well.

Here we are at 10 o'clock at night.

and we could easily in the months to come talk about the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, prosecution of the fight against ISIS, the cutting of funds to Planned Parenthood, the gutting of clean air regulations, the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, the executive order barring immigration from several majority Muslim countries, voting rights, the Department of Justice, the apparent and perhaps ongoing collusion with Russia and the list will go on and on and on.

and I just don't feel that those are our job and I would like to act in this way with this abstention to signal my hesitation and concern about spending time in a local elected body on these topics.

I do believe that the devil is in the details with these things and there were citations in the original draft that gave me some concern about military spending being an economic drain rather than a jobs program and when I went to the study that was cited by the University of Massachusetts it didn't actually say that, it said that

military spending creates high wage jobs, but not as many middle and low wage jobs if it didn't.

I just think we have to be very careful.

We're not in Congress.

We don't have the staff on federal matters.

So I, I just feel like when we get beyond our brief, we create risks and I just want to be very careful here.

And that's why I support very strongly the one that Ms. Galvin has proposed, which I think touches directly on the consequences of this budget for

local policymaking matters with great specificity and real care and it's also something that the National League of Cities has done and many other cities around the country are working on that specific topic and we have seen the costs of CDBG funds being cut here and I think it really is within our brief to talk about the, and that that has some of the care and specificity that I look for.