City Council   5/1/2017

Good evening everyone.

We call this meeting of Charlottesville City Council to order.

Mr. Signer?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

Okay, we go to words and recognitions and announcements.

Let's begin with, well let's just go, let's bring them all together going from my right.

A few of them.

Do we have any other CHS students?

1, 2, 3, ok, and we have to sign your thing, is that right?

Ok, thanks.

We'll hold you until you have to stay here though.

Welcome.

And we have a Boy Scout.

Well thanks for showing up.

It's great when the kids and the young people in the community come down and see how we operate down here.

Thank you very much.

The next City Council meeting is Monday, May 15th at 7 p.m. right here, City Hall in the Council Chambers.

Spring bulky waste amnesty dates.

The next special collection will be held at the Ivy Material Utilization Center on the following Saturday dates from 830 a.m. to 4 p.m. Service is available to Albemarle County, town of Scottsville, and Charlottesville residents only.

May 6th, 2017, furniture mattresses May 13th, 2017, appliances May 20th, tires and visit rivanna.org forward slash forward slash hhw forward slash for more information and I'd like to mention the Charlottesville area tree stewards

are having their spring tree sale.

Saturday, May 13, 2017 from 9 a.m. to noon located at the Ix Complex.

And for this announcement they actually let me borrow a white dogwood.

Counselor Galvin and I were at the Arbor Day celebration at the library

Saturday, it was a beautiful celebration.

It was Friday.

Was it Friday?

I'm kidding.

Time flies when you're having fun.

It's been a long weekend.

And they let us borrow for purposes of motivating the sale of these two plants.

This is quadraphonic sound, I guess.

And my little tree is a downy serviceberry.

It's much shorter than Bob's, but I suppose it's probably commensurate with my own physical stature.

But the beauty of that Friday, and Friday was Arbor Day, and it was a group of us that gathered in front of the Main Street Library to celebrate the Schumard Oak, which is about an 80-year-old tree right on Market Street in front of the library.

It's a glorious tree and we all thought and added beautiful language about how trees provide cooling in the summer and they provide a lot of habitat for the birds.

They also make sure that our air stays clean, sequestering a lot of CO2.

and it's not very often that I can in one set of remarks quote the Lorax and Frederick Law Olmsted at the same time.

So anyway, it was one of those moments and I think Councillor Fenwick would agree that people of goodwill came together to celebrate something that was beautiful

and Sustainable at the same time, and it was the Schumard oak in front of the library.

So I have you recommend all of you go and take a look at that gorgeous tree.

We don't often notice them, but they provide the structure and the scenery to the stage set of our lives.

So it's just something to take note once in a while.

And that's it, Mike.

OK, thanks.

I have a couple that I'd like to say tonight.

The first one is, we're having a cookout.

Everybody's supposed to say, like, yay, cookout.

There we go.

There we go.

All right.

We're having a cookout.

So come meet our police chief and hear the city's 2018 comprehensive plan process update, OK?

This is going to be on Thursday, May 18th at 6.30 PM, or excuse me, at 5 PM at Tonsler Park.

so the 2018 comprehensive plan process update kickoff is something that the city is doing being led by our city staff as well as NDS our neighborhood development services and we're gonna have two for one so we'll have cookout everybody get a chance to play some games we'll have music all of that good stuff everybody get a chance to get a hamburger some hot dogs

and then we'll go inside of Tonsler at 6.30 and we'll have the informational meeting.

So Chief Thomas will be presenting as well as our NDS Director, Alice Akifuna and staff.

And we'll be talking about several different things, including community safety and policing, land use, housing, transportation, economic development, you name it.

So everyone is invited.

And again, that's going to be Thursday, May 18, 2017.

The cookout is from 5 to 6.30 and the community meeting part is from 6.30 to 8.

If anyone has any questions, you can contact myself or you can contact Mr. Alice Ikifuna.

Okay?

Hope to see you all there.

Also, on Saturday, May 20th at 10 a.m., we're going to have something called The Talk.

Ms. Charlene Green, who you all can see in the back.

Say hey, Charlene.

It's been a long day from Ms. Green today.

So we want you all to come and hear The Talk.

We have a flyer.

and have you had quote unquote the talk with the young people in your home about what to do if they're ever stopped or questioned by the police.

Do you or they know their rights?

If not, if you have had the talk, even if you haven't had the talk, whomever, we want you to come out

to Carver Rec on Saturday, May 20th for a community discussion with our local police departments about what you should know and do when interacting with the police.

A panel discussion with the Charlottesville Police Department, local parents and youth will also take place.

Refreshments will be provided.

And if you have any questions, you can contact the Office for Human Rights.

Their phone number is 434-970-3023, or you can see Ms. Green.

I'm sorry?

10 AM.

Saturday, May 20th at 10 a.m. Ms. Eath is never shot.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Now, last but not least for me, I have something that very, very important, and we wanna make sure we give this individual our undivided attention if we can.

We wanna honor a very special individual, Carol M. Carter, the first African American firefighter in the Charlottesville City Fire Department.

Let's give a round of applause, please.

We'd like to like to read this proclamation, please.

Whereas Carol M. Carter, born on June 11th, 1945 in Fluvanna County and whereas Mr. Carter received an education from Fluvanna and Washington, D.C. schools and whereas Carol Carter in 1964 entered the United States Army and served during the Vietnam War and whereas in 1967, Fire Chief Jack Marshall hired Carol M. Carter and he became the first black firefighter for the city of Charlottesville

at the Ridge Street Fire Station and whereas despite facing significant racial adversity such as having restrictions placed on his training and not being allowed to eat with the white firefighters and whereas Carroll Carter regained the respect and admiration of the members of his community and his fellow firefighters because of his perseverance and professionalism

and whereas Carroll Carter's service on the Charlottesville City Fire Department during the 1960s helped pave the way for the hiring of other people of color in Charlottesville and now therefore be it resolved that the City of Charlottesville graciously thank Mr. Carroll M. Carter for his service to our country and his service to our community as he worked in difficult times to make all people

Everyone in this city safe and respected signed here today by our illustrious Mayor Mike Signer and the rest of City Council.

Well, first of all, I want to give all grace and honor to God for being here and seeing me through the times that I went through as a firefighter back in those days.

And I want to thank my family and friends for coming.

And most of all, I want to thank my

Cousin and my Aunt for driving me down from Maryland here.

And thank Chief Baxter for his luscious meal.

And I really appreciate it as far as the fire department will go as then.

And I give props to my mother

Of course she was the one that initiated me getting hired for the fire department.

She worked for Jack Marshall's brother, Bill Marshall, who was the mechanic at the time for the fire department.

And she recommended that I take a look into getting hired.

And I did.

I went to Jack Marshall and got hired.

As far as the job description goes, I was treated

as usual as being an Afro-American in the midst of all whites and back in those days.

And I wasn't really treated equally for us learning how to use the equipment.

You know, I had to ride on the back of the truck.

I couldn't drive, ever drive.

And one time they said, well, maybe we'll let you drive back from the fire one time and stuff like that.

So, you know.

But all in all, it, you know, I learned something from it.

and you know, I hope it will help my other brothers that's coming behind me to leave a better time.

And before I part I would like to thank my best friend Phillip Jones for getting a lot of stuff initiated and getting things going.

I'm sorry it took 50 years to recognize, but you know.

That's the way it is.

Yeah, we're changing that though.

You're changing it?

We're changing it.

Yeah, we're going to change it.

We're going to change it.

I called Mr. Carter the other day to kind of make sure we had the logistics straight and I said, Mr. Carter, when did you get hired?

And he said 1967, to which I replied I was two.

So a lot has changed in those 51 years.

One of the things that we do now as a tradition in marking milestones in our fire department is give a challenge coin.

And had you stayed, you would have received some challenge coins as your career went by.

I just want to say that the cameras may not be picking it up, but there's a lot of firefighters here to recognize this tribute as well.

Maybe everybody who's here could just stand for a quick moment so we could see everybody who showed up here today.

Everyone's here for Mr. Caro.

Thank you all so much for coming down.

Mr. Mayor, if I could just say one more thing.

I think Mr. Carroll made very strong points and I want you as well as everyone else who's out here to understand that it may take us 50 years to not only recognize you but also we recognize our first African American police officer, Mr. Jones, last month and we can't go back and change the past or we can't go back and correct everyone's wrongs.

But we can do what we can to get it right right now.

And you have not only my commitment, but I think you have the commitment of all of my colleagues that we are going to work to make sure we get this right.

You have our word.

And we don't just recognize black history during February.

This is a year long thing.

We recognize black history every day.

It's everyone's history.

It's not just black history.

So I have both a proclamation and an announcement, but I will do the announcement first while, oh, did they leave all the firefighters?

Because actually Chief Baxter is still here and former Chief Taliaferro is still here.

So I will tell you, Mr. Carter, I got a new appreciation for the work that you did as a firefighter and for the work that our firefighters do every day on Saturday.

Both Mr. Signer and I participated in sort of a

a Citizens Fire Academy day where we were fitted at 92 degrees outside, fitted in all the heavy coats and the pants and the steel-toed boots and the gloves and the hat and the mask and the air tanks and 70 pounds of gear with which we then went into a building where we couldn't see anything or hear anything, had to climb stairs into a smoky area and try to put out a fire and rescue some dummy who was not

Mannequin.

I was told not to call them dummies.

They get hurt.

They get sad.

We made a convertible out of a Volvo.

It was so fun.

But just the physically demanding work.

Did you know that the Jaws of Life machine is like a wedge thing?

It's a hydraulic

A pointer now that kind of goes like this or like this and you can actually rip a car apart with it.

They're also huge cutters.

Each of them weighs 50 pounds and I must admit that there was a very helpful firefighter who helped me lift mine as I was trying to do my cutting with two fingers.

He held probably 30 pounds of it while I struggled with the other 20.

but it was an amazing opportunity for the two of us and for school board member Amy Laufer, per representative of the Daily Progress and someone from the Health Department to really get a sense of, you know, we all know kind of, we've read descriptions, we can kind of guess what firefighters do, we all grow up kind of as five-year-olds like wanting to be one but just the opportunity to really kind of feel how it feels to be one and that's without all of the life and death decisions and the

the crisis and the panic of people around.

We didn't have to deal with any of that.

So I just wanted to say that my respect for firefighters has always been high.

It's even higher now.

And I really appreciate the opportunity that you all gave us to come and participate in that.

And all of the firefighters and volunteers who were there that day really to support that effort to give us that experience.

So thank you to everybody who was there.

So that's all about that.

And so I'm also here to proclaim the month of May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

Whereas mental health is essential to everyone's overall health and well-being.

And whereas one in four people in our country is living with diagnosable mental health condition.

And whereas acknowledging and addressing the complex mental health needs of fellow citizens is fundamental to a vibrant community.

And whereas feelings of personal shame and fears of social discrimination prevent many individuals living with mental illness from seeking help.

And whereas stigma can lead to a mistrust and misperceptions about people with mental illness who are statistically more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violent crimes.

And whereas greater public awareness about mental health and anti-stigma can transform attitudes about people with mental illness, thus creating an environment more conducive for those seeking and needing help.

and whereas with effective treatment those individuals with mental health conditions can lead full and more productive lives and whereas individuals living with mental health conditions are strong, courageous and deserve to be treated the same as others.

and whereas it is appropriate that a day should be set apart each year for the distinction of our thoughts toward our mental health, well-being and reducing stigma.

Therefore, Michael Signer, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, does hereby proclaim, actually I would say a month should be set apart and we might want to redo this proclamation with a month rather than a day because we need 31 of them, as Mental Health Month in the City of Charlottesville.

Also call upon citizens, government agencies, public and private institutions, businesses and schools in Charlottesville to recommit our community to increasing awareness and understanding of mental health, the steps our citizens can take to protect their mental health.

Signed and sealed this first day of May.

I just want to say thank you for acknowledging Mental Health Awareness Month.

I'm someone who has struggled with mental health problems the majority of my life and I just stand here in the gap for everybody who

is in jail because of their mental health problems, who's in mental health institutions, who's homeless, who's too scared to seek the help that they need.

One in four people struggle with mental health issues and so it's likely everyone knows someone who has struggled and for me

More so than access and services has been the stigma associated with that.

It's been like a double-edged sword and I just pray that this city will continue to not only make awareness of mental health but create open dialogue so that an environment that is conducive to people seeking the help that they need.

and I myself, I have my good days, I have my bad days, but when I do have good days, I am on the battlefield advocating, encouraging, and being very transparent about what my experience has been because I want other people to feel that same way.

I want them to feel open enough to seek the help that they need.

And I also want to acknowledge the family members.

Family members go through it just like

People who have, like myself, you know, I remember times my mom had to visit me in hospitals, she had to see me taken away in handcuffs, she struggled just like I did.

And also acknowledgement to the workers, the people who work in mental health, emergency services, they're lifesavers, they're a different type of lifesavers, but they're saving lives every day.

So I'm just so glad that I live in a city where I have been able to access the services I need,

and I just pray that we would continue to have an open dialogue around stigma so that everyone would feel open about sharing when they are having a hard time.

And along those lines, I'd also just like to let people know that the city of Charlottesville has

received funding, a grant, to begin a mental health docket in our court system.

The certification for the court is, there's an application currently in at the state level, which I was told at a recent meeting was really strong, so I'm really excited that that's going to be a way that we can divert people out of prison when they don't need to be in prison or jail and into more effective treatment and community services.

Thank you.

Yes, I have an unusually long list of things to read tonight, so I'll try to read quickly but clearly, in spite of my New England accent.

So I think one of the first things I'd like to bring up is one of our own planning commissioners, Mr. Corey Claiborne, has received word that he is now the American Institute of Architects, Virginia Executive Vice President, CEO, starting on Thursday, June 1.

I am an architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects.

This is a big honor.

It's something to be very proud of that he lives in Charlottesville.

In addition to being on the Charlottesville Planning Commission, he is a senior architect with Wiley in Richmond.

He has received numerous awards from the AIA, the Young Architects Award and the AIA Virginia 2016 Award for Distinguished Achievement.

His service to the community goes beyond Planning Commission.

He's on the Virginia Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, Certified Interior Designers, and Landscape Architects.

Those are the people that I have to certify my own registration with every two years.

And he's also a member of the 100 Black Men of Central Virginia Mentoring Program.

So it is pretty important.

This is the sixth CEO for the Virginia AIA.

and I know that Mr. Kurt Kiesecker on the Planning Commission is also going to be acknowledging Mr. Claiborne.

So again congratulations to Mr. Claiborne and his wonderful family and they have a little baby girl.

So now the rest have a theme of environmental stewardship and again it's nicely in keeping with the fact that again we are considered to be a tree city USA and we got that award on Arbor Day on Friday.

The first announcement I'm gonna read is the LEAP event.

On May 25, at the Paramount Theater, the local energy alliance program, LEAP, will host a special event about climate change, where guests will have the opportunity to watch a free screening of National Geographic's climate change movie before the flood.

Speak with a panel of climate experts from NASA Langley, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Southern Environmental Law Center.

This gathering of people will meet to offer climate solutions and then you can get information from these individuals as what you can do to fight climate change.

For more information visit LEAP-virginia.org slash before the flood all one word all lowercase.

The other environmental stewardship related

announcement deals with the fact that the city last Monday, a week ago, the city announced its new national designation as Soul Smart Bronze.

The Soul Smart program recognizes localities for adopting programs and practices that make it faster, easier, and cheaper to go solar.

This achievement is a first step toward the ultimate goal, which is to reach silver

this summer.

Charlottesville has joined the ranks of the first 50 localities in the country to receive a Soul Smart designation.

It is the first in the state of Virginia to earn this recognition for solar-friendly communities.

We're also soul-friendly.

Susan Elliott, is she in the room?

Susan, can you please stand up?

You've been a champion of this program, and I think she needs to be recognized.

And so feel free to get in touch with our Office of Sustainability and Crystal Ridewald as well for any more information that you might want to know about.

And I'd like to give a shout out to Tish Tablin.

I'm not sure if I'm saying that right.

Is she here?

Tish, she's our sole smart advisor when we got the grant award.

Thank you.

So the last but not least is I have a proclamation.

It is Drive Your Car to Work Week.

Oh no, excuse me.

No, no, no.

No, incoming c'est moi from me?

No.

It was kind of funny.

They had, they thought they were being funny by trying to figure out who to have read this proclamation since I am the only council that bikes everywhere.

So the proclamation is Bike to Work Week.

Whereas for more than a century, the bicycle has been an important part of the lives of many Americans, and whereas bicycling is a healthy, clean, and affordable mode of transportation and recreation,

used by thousands of citizens and residents of ages throughout the great Commonwealth.

And whereas commuting by bicycle helps us to alleviate traffic congestion and to reduce pollution associated with vehicular travel and offers significant mental and physical health benefits to the bicyclists themselves.

And whereas our Commonwealth is the host to many bicycling events, including competitive races, sightseeing tours, charitable fundraisers, and recreational rides, which in total create a very real economic impact.

Whereas Charlottesville has been named a silver level bicycle friendly community by the League of American Bicyclists and in the effort to improve upon this designation will continue to recognize the importance of bicycling and urban and community planning and development.

And whereas it is important for bicyclists and motorists to take proper safety precautions while sharing our roadways and by being cautious and alert.

And whereas Bike to Work Week allows bicyclists to increase awareness of their mode

and to promote the benefits of bicycling through organized activities such as Bike to Work Day on May 19.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the members of City Council hereby recognize the month of May 2017 as National Bike Month and the week of May 15 through May 19, 2017 as Bike to Work Week.

And be it further resolved that the City Council urges all who support bicycling to participate in the events planned and urges all road users to share the road safely.

signed and sealed this day, first day of May 2017, Mayor Michael Signer, Mayor of Charlottesville.

So may I please have Jake Fox and Carl Schwartz, co-chairs of the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee be packed to the front and accept the proclamation.

Just a quick promo, shameless plug for our Bike Month events.

We have a calendar up here that has almost events every day, pretty much this whole month, a lot of family friendly events.

And there's also a website, SeavilleCommunity.bike slash Bike Month.

But I'll leave these flyers up here if you'd like one.

I just want to, again, acknowledge a very important staff member who's been tireless in her efforts to be supportive of BikePad, and that's Amanda Ponce.

That was the woman that took the picture.

All right.

Got a couple of announcements.

The first is an announcement from the voter registration office here in Charlottesville.

The June 13th dual primary is fast approaching and voters who still need to register or update their address only have until May 22nd to do so.

May 22nd.

A voter registered at his or her current address does not need to re-register.

17 year olds who will turn 18 by November 7th may vote in the primary

if they make the May 22nd registration deadline.

Once registered, they may also sign voter petitions.

Voter registration applications must either be received in the voter registration office by 5 o'clock p.m. on the 22nd or be postmarked on or before the 22nd, or if you have a Virginia driver's license or DMV ID or you are only updating your registration information, the application be completed online at vote.virginia.gov before midnight on the 22nd.

There are Republican and Democratic primaries on June 13th.

Virginia does not have party registration.

Any qualified voter may vote in a primary, but when two primaries are held on the same date, a voter may vote in only one.

Absentee voting is now underway.

In Virginia, voters must have a reason for voting absentee.

Many of us disagree with that, but

Some of the reasons are that the voter expects to be away on election day for business, personal business, vacation or college, or the voter has a disability or illness or is pregnant, or is the principal caregiver for a disabled or ill family member confined at home.

or they are on active duty or a first responder.

In-person absentee voting is available for city registered voters in the city voter registration office during regular office hours which is 8 30 a.m. to 4 30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on two Saturdays June 3rd and June 10th.

The voter registration office is right

Right close to us right here is in the city hall annex next to the pavilion and across from the transit station.

Parking validation is available.

The last day to vote absentee in person is June 10th.

Voters must show a photo ID when voting in person, many of us disagree with that as well, just as they are required to do on election day.

Voters who do not have an acceptable ID may apply for a free photo ID, good for voting purposes only, during office hours in the Voter Registration Office.

The deadline to apply for a mailed absentee ballot is June 6th, but voters are encouraged to apply earlier to allow time to receive, vote, and return the ballot by Election Day.

Voters can apply online at vote.virginia.gov, call the Voter Registration Office at 434-970-3250 if you have any questions or if you need an application.

Okay, and the final announcement of this quite extensive list of announcements and proclamations is Kids to Parks Day.

Whereas, May 20th, 2017 is the seventh Kids to Parks Day organized and launched by the National Parks, National Park Trust.

And whereas, Kids to Parks Day empowers kids and encourages families to get outdoors and visit America's parks,

and whereas it is important to introduce a new generation to our nation's parks and whereas we should encourage children to lead a more active lifestyle to combat the issues of childhood obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia and whereas Kids to Parks Day is open to all children and adults across the country to encourage a large and diverse group of participants and whereas Kids to Parks Day will broaden

Children's Appreciation for Nature and Outdoors, Now Therefore I, Michael Signer, Mayor, City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim May 20, 2017 as Kids Parks Day and urge residents of the City of Charlottesville to take the children and their lives to a neighborhood, state, or national park.

Signed and sealed this first day of May 2017.

And we are ready to move on with our regular meeting.

All right.

City Manager response matters of the public and will I, Ms. Brazelton, would you mind giving me the sign up?

It is for our April 17th meeting.

I just wanted to give Council an update.

This issue will be raised along with the remainder of the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces that have not been acted upon just yet by the City Council.

staff will be presenting on those issues at the council's next meeting on May 15th.

Ms. Rebecca Quinn mentioned that she had trouble finding notices for all the meetings that the city council is involved with.

Any meeting involving more than two city councilors should be posted near the clerk of council's office.

Meeting notices are also sent via email to our media list and others.

And staff is discussing other ways that we may notice those meetings in the future.

Mr. Benjamin Randolph came to speak about the special use permit for 1011 East Jefferson Street.

There was a question concerning when that matter would come back to Council.

At the time, the correct answer was May 15th.

However, the developer is asked to have the issue deferred to June 5th.

So it will come before the city council during your first meeting in June.

And Ms. Jenny Keller raised an issue at the end of the meeting about some confusion over when the city council is supposed to take action on an item and how it's listed on the city council agenda.

The mayor and I have spoken about this and we'll work together to try to make that more apparent on future meeting agendas.

Thank you.

Okay.

We now move to matters by the public.

This is our first matters by public session.

We read this every meeting.

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.

If you're here to speak for a public hearing, we have one tonight.

Please wait to speak on that matter until the report for that item has been presented and the public hearing has been opened.

Each speaker has three minutes to speak.

Please give your name and address before beginning your remarks.

Please pay attention to the timer right here.

It shows where you are as you approach the end of your three minutes.

I'll now read the other sections of our rules.

This is section nine of 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 their marks 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 have 10 in advance slots which are all full and we have five slots which you sign up for at the meeting first come first served and we have 14 folks who are signed up tonight.

So the first speaker is Beth Hunt.

Hello, Council and fellow citizens.

My name's Beth Hunt.

My address is 3276 Harbor Road, River Road, Charlottesville.

I'm a nurse and the stroke program director at UVA Medical Center, and I'm grateful to be allowed to talk on behalf of my colleagues here in Charlottesville and around the country.

Every May is Stroke Awareness Month, and health care providers reach out to their community to share information about stroke prevention, stroke recognition, and stroke treatment.

Many of you know that stroke is all around us.

Every 40 seconds, someone in the US has a stroke.

Stroke causes more than 133,000 deaths annually, and after years of going down, stroke deaths are up by 3% recently.

That being said, 80% of all strokes are preventable, and high blood pressure is the most important controllable risk factor for stroke.

One in three American adults has high blood pressure,

and most people who have a first stroke have high blood pressure.

Other risk factors for stroke include smoking, high cholesterol, not being active, obesity and family history of stroke.

We want all people to talk to their primary care providers today about ways to decrease your risk for stroke.

A stroke can happen anywhere.

Everyone's ability to recognize the warning signs of stroke and call 911 can make the difference between a full recovery

and Long-Term Disability.

That's why it's so important to learn about the warning signs of stroke.

And that's why I'm here.

We use the word FAST to help us remember the signs and symptoms of stroke.

F is for face.

Does one side of the face droop?

Arm.

Is one arm weak or drift downward?

S is for speech.

Is speech slurred or strange?

And T is for time.

That means it's time to call 911.

Time is so important because stroke is largely treatable.

The faster a stroke is treated, the more likely this patient is to recover.

Stroke patients who are treated with a clot-busting drug, TPA, within 90 minutes of their first symptoms are almost three times more likely to recover with little or no disability.

And in some cases, a procedure to remove the clot during the stroke is also recommended.

For those patients, 91 percent

who are treated within two and a half hours of their first symptoms recovered with little or no disability.

So those of us who take care of stroke patients know that we can't do it alone.

Please share this information with your friends and family so that we can help end stroke in our community.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is Michael Porter, 4598 Woods Edge Road, Troy, Virginia, 22974.

The Lee statue was voted to be removed because people see it as a symbol of racism.

However, General Lee was fighting for the South because he was loyal to his home state, Virginia, and not because he promoted slavery.

Being loyal to the state was much more important to people back in the 1800s than what it is now.

If people changed what they think the statue represents to something more historical or even about someone being loyal to their government, it wouldn't be seen as a racist symbol.

Speaking of which, the removal of the controversial statue is estimated to be at least $300,000.

All of that money could be used to teach people the real history behind the statue and not for removing it.

According to a poll on NBC, 88% of the people don't want it to be removed, while 1% think the statue should be removed by the names kept the same.

4% want to keep the statue but rename the park.

5% want to remove the statue and rename the park.

3% don't agree on any of the above options.

This result clearly shows that keeping the statue and keeping the name is in the best interest of the people of Charlottesville City.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jacob Robb.

My name is Spot Ettol.

I live on 1017A Grove Street.

I'm with a core group of citizens against global exploitation.

I'm here to talk about the living wage.

The living wage is important for a lot of different reasons.

First off, would just society tolerate a non-living wage, if you really think of it?

People think that minimum wage only

Only students or other people are the only ones who get it.

First off, that shouldn't matter what a person is for the work they do.

But the fact is it affects a lot of people.

If you're working at a fast food restaurant where people start at a minimum wage, that means that if you're trying to raise a family, on that you become a crew chief or something for like 5 cents more an hour.

to take on more responsibility for what it works out to $2 more a week.

And then maybe take another job as you go up higher as a shift manager with even more responsibility for maybe $0.10 more an hour, which means you're getting up to $6 more a week.

You're taking more responsibility for pretty much nothing.

Now, Charlottesville has been kind of stalled on living wage because of Dylan's rule.

Most of you are informed about Dylan's Rule.

Most people aren't.

Dylan's Rules, a form of legal theory that comes from the mid 1900s.

At that time, railroads were expanding for first transcontinental railroads and railroad companies.

in that expansion were exploiting the situation by setting up basically scam towns.

They would just basically build a town that would be moved in by railroad, basically have facades or shanty towns up, sell a lot of property, then move the whole town away.

So it was basically a scam.

And because of that, they came up with this thing, a legal theory, where states

basically treated townships as juveniles under the law so that those kind of scams could be controlled.

And that's great for the mid 19th century.

That was cutting edge legal theory 150 years ago.

What kind of rationale is that for tolerating an unjust situation?

But yet that's where we are today.

And that's been stomping.

The Living Wage Movement in this city for something like 16 years now since the ordinance was passed.

Thank you.

Sir, what was your name again?

S-P-O-T, Spot, et al.

Hi, my name is Ross Mitiga.

My address is 812 Cabell Ave.

Thank you all for allowing me the chance to speak.

I really appreciate that.

I'm also here to speak about the living wage because today is May Day, International Workers Recognition Day, so I think it's really important.

I know that the council has been proactive in recent years in pushing the living wage and trying to attach it to cost of living increases.

I appreciate that.

Right now, I know it's $13.79 an hour.

But I think that that remaining $1.21 is significant.

I think that that gap, the $1.21 gap, is something that we should work to close for symbolic and economic reasons.

So I'll try to make the case as simple and as clear as possible.

Right now, I looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website this morning for the Charlottesville metropolitan area.

From what I could tell, there's 108,230 employed workers in the Charlottesville metropolitan area.

Of those, 68,930, so well more than half, make less than $15 an hour.

Now, this does not fall out evenly demographically, as we might suspect with almost every other issue in the country.

Women, racial minorities are much more grossly affected.

In the country as a whole, two-thirds of all minimum wage earners are women.

And while 42% of all national workers would benefit from a $15 an hour minimum wage, 54% of African-American workers

and close to 60% of Latino workers would benefit from a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Now in a city where the poverty rate is 27.5%, excluding students close to 15%, a $15 minimum wage could make a big difference.

Now I know that you guys can't do anything beyond public employees, but public employees is an important start.

If we can raise the floor, as I take it you all have been trying to do with the living wage increases in the past,

That matters.

That sets a standard to militate action across the rest of the city.

Now, I looked at an MIT report earlier today and it said that for one adult, one child family in the city of Charlottesville with cost of living taken into account, one adult, one child,

the minimum wage should be, a living wage should be $25.40 and that's for a worker assuming 52 weeks a year, no vacation time, 40 hours a week.

$25.40.

So $15 an hour I think is the least we can do.

Now a lot of people say 15 is too high, but let me say one thing.

If we would have tacked the minimum wage in 1968 to inflation, today it would be $21 an hour.

If we would have tacked it to inflation plus,

Gains in labor productivity, it'd be $26 an hour.

And if we had made the minimum wage go up every time the top 1% of income earners had a little bit of an increase, today it'd be $28 an hour.

So in a very wealthy city in the seventh wealthiest state in the country, we can afford $15.

I hope you'll consider it.

Well, she's next though.

Are you switching order?

We usually don't do that.

So, sure.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Signer and city councilors.

Ashley Davies, 1000 Locust Avenue.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'm here tonight to offer constructive feedback regarding the code audit process that's now underway.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Charlottesville Area Development Roundtable, otherwise known as CADRE.

We are a real estate and economic development advocacy group within the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce.

We were formed to be partners with the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County government leaders to promote innovative and effective growth policies, implementation strategies and processes.

We represent a wide cross-section of professional expertise and property owners in the area.

We are advocates for Charlottesville's next great places.

The Cadre Policy Committee has been tracking the progress of our code audit since our inception of March last year.

You'll be receiving a letter from our group regarding this topic this week, but I just wanted to touch on a few of the highlights now.

As I understand it, the code audit initiative was requested by the planning commission and the place task force in 2013 because the existing codes and standards were not encouraging or even allowing the type of context sensitive and sustainable design that was envisioned by the comprehensive plan adopted that same year.

For example,

Example.

Explore progressive and innovative land use design standards and zoning regulations to accomplish the city's vision.

Chapter one land use.

Encourage the creative uses of innovative housing through available opportunities such as infill special use permit and planned unit design.

Review the zoning ordinance to reduce restrictions on creating appropriate creative and

Green, mixed income and mixed use housing options including accessory dwellings, live-work units and shared housing, Chapter 5 housing.

So since that time it seems like the code audit has become this thing that's like a can that we've kicked down the road.

We've been accomplishing so many things since that time but the code audit

has repeatedly been shoved to the side.

And somehow it's now morphed into what's known as the legal review of the code.

And in many cases, after reviewing that document, it seems like it does just the opposite of what was originally requested by the Planning Commission.

Instead of viewing the PUD and the infill SUP as opportunities for improvement, the legal review suggests removing these tools completely.

Instead of promoting innovative zoning regulations, all opportunities for innovation and creativity seem to be removed.

Instead of removing restrictions for creative green development, restrictions are being increased.

So it seems like it's become something that we're trying to mark off our to-do list.

And we're not trying to sound harsh, but we mainly want to take this opportunity to become collaborators with the city and work with you.

Nicole Scrow, thanks for letting us switch.

Ashley just didn't want to deal with my cold up against the mic, basically.

So I'm sorry for my terrible voice, but I'm Nicole Scrow.

I live at 3000 City Walkway.

I work on the downtown mall.

I'm a new land use attorney.

I participated in some of Cadre's subcommittees focused on addressing the code audit and so just to echo what Ashley had said and to kind of give examples of what we're concerned about and what we consider to be policy changes proposed by the legal audit building height will be changed from being measured in feet to being measured in stories

The B-1 district will no longer be allowed office space current densities allowed by SUP in the B-1 district will now only be allowed if you have a mixed-use building constructed and then the definition of mixed-use is completely rewritten and as Ashley said the PUD and infill SUP or special-use permit are

requested to be eliminated and so we think that these are substantive policy changes that will definitely reshape what the city looks like and I understand that the intentions of the code audit or legal review were to be technical in nature and that there often are legal consequences to the code and being in the city attorney's office is difficult and

kind of getting into all the legal consequences that can come from the code you kind of get swept up and that's completely understandable and they've been very gracious with their time and open but we do kind of acknowledge that regardless of the legal consequences and those difficulties of the code there are also substantive policy changes that will

reshaped the city as I said and because of that you kind of have a duty to have a thoughtful and publicly engaged process to sort of sift through what we want and what we don't want and what the public wants and what you know a committee or a organization like Cadre can offer in our knowledge of

you know development process so basically we think the best solution would be to hold off on all revisions to the zoning ordinance until and after the comprehensive plan updates happening and at minimum any changes that are rushed through the process should only be technical and truly technical in nature and so please do not make any policy or regulatory changes that have not been thoroughly vetted and debated by the public

pursuant to standard city processes.

Hello, as others have mentioned, today is International Workers Day, which is a great opportunity to highlight issues of economic justice that City Council can take action on.

One would be, as others have mentioned, a living wage.

City Council of course has recently taken action on this which is commendable but recent statistics have shown a living wage in the city of Charlottesville for someone to be able to afford a market rent apartment and have less than one third of their income go to rent and still have a decent quality of life would be $17.50.

$15 has always been a compromise and we're still not there and there are still loopholes even though more contractors and part-time employees are included and of course we still don't have a living wage free VA employees and while City Council cannot directly decide on that

City Council does have leverage to influence the university.

It does have a platform to join up with the UVA Living Wage Coalition on this issue.

And we do not need to slow down the process of implementing a higher minimum wage.

We don't need to phase it in.

We don't need to review it to ensure morale.

We just need a $15 minimum wage now for public employees.

The second issue would be I'd highly encourage city council to look into the fact that UVA, like most universities, does not pay any property tax.

I would encourage City Council to look into the model of Harvard and Princeton where they pay a fee to the city each year in lieu of a property tax and use those funds for issues of economic justice in the city.

And third would be, of course, affordable housing.

As others have mentioned, the city still needs to slow down on the strategic investment area, ensure that any changes are verifiable, that it will increase the stock of affordable housing and not just benefit developers.

And it's not all negative, though, of course.

Councilor Bellamy has done great work with the equity package, which has directly addressed these issues of economic injustice.

Of course, City Council has recently raised the minimum wage.

It is noticed when members of City Council are showing up to organizing events at the grassroots level.

But any politicians who think that they can oppose a living wage, oppose racial justice, push through changes in the strategic investment area and form-based code,

without consulting the public and ensuring it increases the stock of affordable housing.

Any politicians who oppose campaign finance reform at the local level here in Charlottesville will never have the support of this community, whether they're running for city council, lieutenant governor, or the House of Representatives.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

All of you are Tyler?

So we're from Monticello High School.

Okay, and so we basically just wanted to talk about the importance of placing these speed detection cameras in Charlottesville.

Oh yes, I'm sorry.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, thank you.

Sophia Sheppard from Albemarle County.

Okay, so we wanted to discuss the importance of these speed detection cameras in Charlottesville because we felt that they would really keep the citizens and pedestrians safe while walking on the streets.

I know particularly when I was overseas we had these traffic cameras on the roads in Germany.

Anyone else?

All right.

Thank you.

If I can repeat what is obviously the most honest thing the mayor has said today, my name is Jeffrey Fogle.

I think the real question about

This being International Workers Day is why hasn't the city recognized that fact?

You've recognized all kinds of things today.

You recognize all kinds of things.

Do you object to workers?

Do you object to workers organizing?

Do you object to the notion that we honor workers in our society?

Because if you don't, it seems to me appropriate, unless you agree with Mr. Trump, who would prefer to call this loyalty day in order to avoid the worldwide movement of workers towards social justice.

And so I think you ought to be a little ashamed of yourself of not having

proclaimed this day, which it is, International Workers Day, and shown respect for that.

Some others have spoken about the living wage and I think what's disturbing to me is the city's reference to the $13.79, $13.79 as a living wage.

It is an increase and it's good for that reason, but as you've heard tonight, it is clearly not a living wage.

We rely on Ridge Schuyler for his analysis that was given last week and there are other analyses as well Which show that the living wage cannot be less than probably $1750 and as I said once before to this council your living wage results in an increment of $27,500 and I would plead with you to take a year out and live on $27,500 in our community

and then come back and tell us what

Uncomfortable with the notion of proceeding to do anything about the proclamations.

According to IMPACT, 3150 people in our jail had serious mental illnesses last year.

Now that's an amazing and an atrocious number.

The answer to that problem is not to have another court

Judges don't know about mental health any more than they know about drug addiction.

What we need to do is shift resources out of our public safety into public health.

And in the public health structure, we should be treating people with mental health problems and with addiction problems.

We're going to do it cheaper, and we're going to do it in a more humane way, and we're going to do it in a way that promotes public safety because the court system won't.

We might as well have a court that says, an obesity court, a cigarette court to force people to stop smoking cigarettes, to force people to lose weight because it's not healthy for them.

You're welcome.

My name is Duncan Waring.

I live at 5886 Alberine Road.

In regards to the Ely and Jackson statues, it is my understanding that the Blue Ribbon Commission, which was created to decide what happens to the Ely and Jackson statues, decided that repurposing the statues rather than removing them would be the best way to deal with the situation.

In my opinion, this is the best option because then we would be able to respect all historical backgrounds equally.

Thank you.

I'm Brandon Morris and I live in Albemarle County and I'd like to also piggyback off what Duncan said.

When the Blue Ribbon Committee or Commission, like he said, determined that the best two options with the Robert Lee statue would either be to refurbish the park and add more history

or to just move the statue all together.

And now the city council is determining whether to sell it in an auction or a contract auction or donate it to another level, state or national.

I just want to say that when you refurbish a park, you put more history into it and you make it more diverse.

attract different people from different communities to the Charlottesville community.

And that would just increase and enhance our own community into a better one.

Thank you.

Clifford Hull, 1990 Avon Street Extended, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902.

The title of this is Read Between the Lines.

The intent of war is to ensue peace.

Supreme excellence is in, consists in breaking the resistance without fighting.

In the Civil War, true or false,

The Civil War was fought over a single issue.

True or false, the Civil War was fought over an agrarian pre-capitalist society versus a strong manufacturing-based society.

True or false, the Civil War was fought over a single issue of sexualism versus regionalism.

True or false?

The single issue behind the Civil War is racism.

All of those answers are false.

And to remove a statue based on a false racist claim, what are you saying to the community?

Yes.

Is it a hallowed ground issue?

Absolutely.

Should the

Should the park be renamed?

Absolutely.

Should the park be given more space for other peoples who have contributed to Virginia history?

Thank you.

Hello, good evening.

My name is Nathan John.

I live on 602 Cabell Avenue.

and I am Maeve Curtin, I live on Alderman Road in the county and I've been the city council liaison from UVA Student Council for the past two years now and it has been a pleasure serving you and it's also my pleasure and serving the students and really working with you guys coming to town halls, coming to these meetings, meeting a number of members in the community and really trying to increase student engagement with the Charlottesville community and be far more intentional about

the UVA community and our relationship with the city.

It is also my pleasure to stand up here before you tonight and introduce Nathan John who will be taking over my position as the UVA Student Council liaison to the Charlottesville City Council for the next year.

Before Nathan speaks, I really quickly want to

invite anyone in the city to come to the UVA student memorial.

It is tomorrow from 5 to 6.30 p.m. in the UVA chapel.

Holly Edwards, former vice mayor of the city of Charlottesville, will be honored and remembered at that ceremony as when she passed she was a PhD nursing student at the university.

Thank you so much Maeve and as she said I'm going to be the incoming city council liaison and I have some really big shoes to fill.

First and foremost I want to say thank you all for giving me this opportunity and in the upcoming year I hope to jumpstart student involvement with the greater Charlottesville community.

by educating students on the key issues facing this community and giving them practical ways to get involved on issues like affordable housing and especially living wage as we've all heard today.

I want to thank everybody who came up and spoke.

We take these comments very seriously.

It takes a lot of courage to come up here and speak right here at us up here in the dais.

We also read all the emails we get, whether you send them to us individually or collectively.

And we take the citizen engagement that comes with these matters by the public both now and there's also another open one at the end of the meeting very seriously.

So thank you all.

We're taking the time.

With that said, does anybody have any individual comments they want to make?

As a counselor who has been working to

encouraged the city to raise its wages for 23 years and for seven on council.

And I really do think that we have, you know, something to be proud of by having raised our minimum wage to almost double the state minimum wage.

But clearly the work is not done.

It's clearly not a really sustainable wage.

I really appreciate the fact that the folks who came and talked, it's important that you talk to the city because

We are spending your dollars and so we need to know what you think about how we spend your dollars.

But it's really important also to go to other venues as well, to talk to private employers, to talk to

especially larger employers like the University of Virginia about their paying a living wage too because we find that not only is it the right thing to do and a justice issue but it helps our local economy and it actually helps the businesses who do it in the long run in terms of lack of turnover and loyalty of workers.

So on this International Workers Day which we don't have to declare because it is something that has been well recognized for generations

I'd like to just say one thing.

It's probably not going to be extremely popular.

Probably will mean I probably can't go get nice tickets to go to the UVA football games and basketball games and stuff.

But I do think, not only us,

we although we're trying to move in the right direction we can do better but also the University of Virginia as the largest employer in our area they have to do a better job and one thing that we oftentimes hear and I mean we hear it all the time they say well we contract with different employers so we can't tell them what to do but I think that's baloney and baloney is saying a nice word because I know my daughters are watching but we

I think that we as a council, we as a city, as we move in the right direction, we need to encourage our, who is supposed to be our partner, to move in the right direction also.

As you all were talking, I was researching and looking up Boston and looking up Harvard in regards to how non-profit, this article, non-profit colleges pay small fraction of city taxes.

And as I was trying to find out,

Where UVA falls in that I couldn't find any articles.

That doesn't mean that they don't donate to the city because I'm honestly not sure, but I don't think that they're paying their fair share by any shape, form or fashion.

And when you look at the people who live in our communities, most of the people who work in the jobs that aren't paying the wages in which they really need to be living here,

the oftentimes the people who always get the short end of the stick and how long are we going to continue to not speak up in regards to that point.

So again, it may not be popular and I'm sure I'll get some phone calls and probably crazy emails, but I don't think it's right.

And if we're gonna be in this position, we need to do what we can to make sure we speak up for those who can't speak for themselves or who don't have the same voice and platform that we have.

I do have one comment, Mayor Signer, and this is related to the question of how does the city relate to the University of Virginia.

Mayor Signer and myself were on the Planning and Coordinating Council and at the last meeting there was quite a pretty intense conversation between us and university leadership about growth issues and about how do we then get ahead of the inflationary pressure that growth brings.

and I very firmly talked about the importance of making sure we are ahead of the ball, ahead of the game with affordable housing, that we do need to be seeing more partnership and infrastructure investment and Mayor Signer has been very also strong about how we do need to seek more partnership with the university, especially when we're doing shared infrastructure improvements and especially when we're looking at housing issues.

I've asked Mayor Signer and Mr. Jones to have a meeting where we can start talking about ways we could increase the involvement of the university in the city's issues and investing in their solutions.

And I think the payment in lieu of taxes, which is what was brought up tonight, is exactly what we need to be talking about.

It is unusual for a public university to have

to pay a large

and I look forward to meeting with the mayor and Mr. Jones to talk about what is the package of ideas that we want to begin to talk to the university about really seriously and then actually bring it to council to see how they all want to weigh in on this debate as well.

I don't want to tell you how your conversation should be going, but one point you made that I thought was really key in regards to how it's rather unusual or oftentimes unusual for universities

or public institutions to contribute large portions to municipalities, but UVA often prides themselves on being exceptional.

OK. OK. All right.

Thank you all very much.

We move on to the consent agenda now.

Item A, minutes for April 11th and April 17, 2017.

Item B, appropriation reimbursement from RWSA for paving costs to Ragged Mountain Roadway, $11,796.48, second of two readings.

Item C, appropriation domestic violence services coordinator grant, $49,336, second of two readings.

Item D, Appropriations, CDBG Home Funding for FY 2017-2018 First of Two Readings.

Item E, Appropriation, Clark Elementary School Safe Routes to School Grant, $13,992 First of Two Readings.

Item F, Resolution, Hydraulic Road Slash 29 North Small Area Planning Agreement and Funding, $30,000 First of One Reading.

Item G, Resolution, Initiate Zoning Text Amendments to Planning Commission for Solar Energy Systems First of One Reading.

Item H, resolution, opt out of Virginia, transit liability, pool membership, first of one reading.

Thank you.

I am a volunteer with City of Promise and my volunteer work involves writing grant proposals, so I did write the grant proposal for the funding here.

We need a motion.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Okay, any further discussion questions?

All in favor?

All right, carries five to zero.

Thank you.

Item number two, public hearing and resolution.

This is approval of CDBG community development block grant and home action plan for fiscal year 2017-2018, first of one reading.

Ms. Tiara Howard will be presenting grants coordinator with Department of Neighborhood Development Services and we will have a public hearing after this.

The sign up sheet is right here.

It doesn't look like anybody signed up, but they

Hi, my name is Tierra Howard.

I'm the grants coordinator in the Department of Neighborhood Development Services.

And today I'm here to present the Community Development Block Grant and Home Action Plan for fiscal year 17-18.

Just to give you some background, the consolidated plan sets forth goals to support the city's community development needs over a five year period.

for low and moderate income residents in the city and counties that make up the planning district for the home consortium.

The action plan serves as the city's annual application for CDBG and home consortium funds, and it outlines how the city will meet the goals of the consolidated plan.

It is due to HUD on May 15th.

However, the due date is subject to change.

I will note that the president's fiscal year 18 budget proposal proposes cuts in the HUD budget, which is proposed to eliminate the CDBG and home programs.

To date, the city has not received its allocation letter from HUD, but for the purpose of carrying out the action plan on time, staff will estimate allocations using previous fiscal year allocations.

We did receive guidance from HUD.

They basically told me that our field office doesn't know anything either.

So whenever we receive our allocation letter, we have 60 days after that date to submit our action plan to HUD.

I will also note that this item is connected to the council item on the consent agenda today, which is the fiscal year 17-18 budget for CDBG and HOME.

It has two readings.

And because actual entitlement amounts are unknown at this time, it is recommended that all projects are increased or reduced at the same prorated percentage of actual entitlement to be estimated, except for HOME funding, in which there is specific language incorporated into the resolution to account for the HOME funding recommendations that were provided by the task force and the Planning Commission.

and I provided copies of the revised resolution that Barbara emailed to you guys.

So if you need a copy, let me know.

No agency's entitlement amount will increase more than their initial funding request.

The project recommendations for fiscal year 17-18 include the 10th and Page priority neighborhood, which includes infrastructure projects that will be selected per recommendations made by residents of the 10th and Page task force.

Community Investment Collaborative Scholarships.

These funds are proposed to be used to provide scholarships for 20 entrepreneurs to receive technical assistance.

City of Promise enrolled to launch program.

Estimated benefits include increased participation in parenting, education, and support, enhanced access to quality childcare and preschool enrollment, and access to quality aftercare for 20 families.

OARE entry services, estimated benefits include supportive services for 100 recently released offenders to assist with recidivism, United Way child care scholarships for two to three families, Habitat and PHA down payment assistance projects, estimated benefits include eight families and eight newly supported affordable units with entitlement funds and a total of five additional families and units with reprogram funds.

admin and planning calls to pay for the calls directly related to carrying out the CDBG program.

As far as community engagement, the participation section of the action plan summarizes all community engagement efforts as well as all comments received and incorporated into the plan.

The action plan has been advertised for a 30 day public comment period running from March 22nd to April 21st, 2017.

There were several public hearings held and then ultimately the task force makes recommendations to

The Planning Commission and Planning Commission makes recommendations to council.

As far as the budgetary impact, the home program requires the city to provide a 20% match.

The sum necessary to meet that match is $14,630, which will need to be appropriated out of the Charlottesville housing fund at a future date.

The action plan will have no additional budgetary impacts.

Okay, thank you.

Actually, I do have a question.

I don't know that you know the answer to it, but a question that I'm sure that you can kind of pass on to those who are in the know.

I know that Congress just approved a kind of, I don't know if it's a continuing resolution or what it was, but some sort of budget agreement that gets us through September.

And from what I understand, nothing changed in regards to HUD for that period.

I would, if I could make a comment, and I really, I do appreciate the thoroughness of this plan, and I know a lot of it's because of your good work, and there's some comments from the public this evening that

speaks to the strategic investment area in a way that I don't think is well understood and if I might, I would just like to read the core goals of the strategic investment area as they are listed in our consolidated plan and I think it's important for the community to hear how the strategic investment area is an integrated part of the integrated plan to promote

affordable housing in a mixed income, mixed use setting with a very kind of amenity rich neighborhood context.

So if that's all right, I think it's really important to hear.

So the core goals of the SIA as per the consolidated plan to rebuild and preserve public and assisted housing as part of an integrated plan for revitalizing neighborhoods, hallmarked by concentrated poverty to

to catalyze coordinated investments in neighborhood revitalization, including improvements in infrastructure, education, and community assets that attract businesses and industries.

Three, to build the foundations for economically viable neighborhoods of opportunity and choice within one of the city's most distressed communities by promoting mixed income residential development without displacement and with employment growth.

Four, to address interconnected challenges of housing decay, crime, disinvestment, health disparities, adult educational opportunities, transportation, and economic opportunities for youth and adults.

And five, and last, to create a healthy, viable neighborhood with urban amenities such as public parks, institutions like libraries, and excellent food sources, and safe, connected streets that promote walking, biking,

and Efficient Public Transit.

Thanks.

I just needed to get that out there.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

Okay.

I'm going to sit down for a second because I have questions for you.

Because I'm going to open the public hearing that we have here, but I don't, so I'm opening public hearing.

Anybody who wants to speak on this matter, I don't see anybody signed up, I'm looking at the sheet down here, but if anybody would like to speak, now's the time.

Okay, closing the public hearing.

It's the rain, everybody's mesmerized by the rain outside.

Well actually I shouldn't move it.

Okay, I'll second.

Okay, any further questions?

Okay, this is the first of one reading, so we'll vote.

All in favor?

Raise five to zero.

Thank you.

Okay, next item on the agenda is, we have a short agenda tonight, folks.

Resolution, authorize issuance of general obligation bonds in the amount of $15,250,000, first of one reading.

Again, we have 10 minutes allocated to this item.

Mr. Christopher Cullinan, finance director, will be presenting.

Yes.

Oh, public hearing in this one as well?

Okay.

All right.

It was advertised appropriately and in due time.

But that's just a technical, so as long as folks can sign, is that okay because they could have signed up?

So it was advertised and they, correct.

So anybody seeking to speak could have signed up.

And now we have a sign up sheet that will be here.

I apologize.

This came to my attention 15 or 20 minutes ago when I realized that the agenda item itself did not list that as on the summary of the agenda.

The agenda item itself actually does mention that it is a public hearing.

There's not.

One of the things we do build some

Slack into the timing of it for market conditions, so there is some time to issue it.

We're currently scheduled to go to the market on May 8th, but again, that's not set in stone, so to speak.

It's not like we usually get a horde of people wanting to comment on these, but I really am, I would be more comfortable if it's all the same to you, if we did wait

It was in the packet.

It's included as a public hearing.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

So the only thing that didn't happen was in the mortgage agenda that was on the website.

Which people look at, yeah, that's the one they look at.

Well, so Ms. Szakos has spoken.

Well, but I just want to

As I say that, I do believe that.

It's not that I'm questioning our legal ability to do it tonight.

I'm just saying that really largely for appearance and because there isn't irregularity and because there's not a rush, I would be more comfortable.

Does it cost anything?

So we have to advertise again?

We have to advertise.

I mean, it's a minimal cost.

And I just like to say, I think public hearings are very important.

And it's something that the public does understand that that's their time when they can come and air their views with no time limit.

They may not come, but it's something that I think they need to really be

It needs to be well advertised and it needs to be very prominently placed on our agenda.

And it doesn't guarantee we'll have more folks.

Absolutely not, but at least we know that we've been following protocol.

Alright, so with that said, does it make sense to

Ask Mr. Collin any questions now or should we wait until we have the full item in the future?

Yeah, we're like, give me a minute just to ask a few questions here.

It's a basic process of selling bonds.

So we're gonna sell 15,130,000.

No, they're sold en masse, on the sale date.

And the deal is closed and the cash is passed, correct?

Okay, alright.

Alright, we now move on to the second to last item in the agenda, which is ordinance.

This is an increase in salary compensation for city council members.

This is the second of two readings, so there will be a full vote on this.

Ten minutes allocated to this.

Mr. Craig Brown will be presenting.

That's what I have.

I don't know.

Maybe you don't need to.

I'm glad to answer any questions.

Do we have any presentation on this?

We are not, Mr. Mayor.

OK, so there's not really any questions to ask.

It's been moved and seconded, I believe, on the first reading.

I did not have a presentation prepared, Mr. Mayor.

I'll be glad to answer any questions that could come up between now and the first reading.

There was, yes, you're right.

OK, well, I will say that in the last meeting I asked to receive, I don't want to criticize anybody on staff, but I asked to receive information about cities with common workloads to us, like populations and like workloads, so that I could try and compare where we were.

And we only received information just right before.

And it was only a few cities.

provide any comparison against other workloads, cities with similar kind of time demands and... Mr. Mayor, I think the problem with that is that it's really impossible to determine what the workload is of individual city councilors in each one of these jurisdictions.

Well, but there still would, well, that may be the case, but I think that we could at least do a little bit more investigation to find out is there

I mean, asking.

And talking to, you know...

It really depends on the city councilors and how much work they do on a regular basis.

And Mr. Mayor, I would note that what they did bring us

gives it by population, which I think is a proxy for workload.

And I think that's why the General Assembly has set different rates for different populations.

Yeah.

OK. Well, it's just that at the last, we didn't have this back and forth in the last meeting.

I suggested that I'd like to receive that.

And there was agreement.

So anyway, Smart Seaville did provide us with an analysis where it talks about which cities are receiving the percentage of the max.

And it's very interesting, Charlottesville gets about

78% of the maximum that we could get currently.

Harrisonburg at 67%, Suffolk 65%, Manassas 92%, Danville 55%.

And then there are a whole bunch of cities that do what is proposed right now, which is to get 100% of the max.

Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Richmond, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth.

So I honor and respect the vote that I think will happen here.

I do want to say I think that by the structure of our government this will always be a part-time job.

This is how delegates and senators are paid in the majority of states.

They're paid on a part-time basis.

So unfortunately because of the design of the Jeffersonian system you can't ever have it be a job you could really make a living at because of the nature of the position.

I'm very concerned about

getting more resources for staff to help us with the increasing time demands of this job in the age of social media and email.

We get hundreds of emails a day and I was talking to the mayor of Roanoke at an Institute of Mayors event.

They have five staff members in Roanoke for their city council and they have a population of 72,000.

So there are different proportions out there about staffing.

I'm concerned about the message that this will send about going to the max, although I see the merits of the arguments for it.

I honor and respect those decisions.

But I am a little concerned about the message it sends.

So I'm not going to, I don't want to support at this time absent more research, which is what I hope to get.

But I respect the vote that I think will take place.

Mayor Signer, I don't mind, I'd like to say a couple words.

And we did speak at length last time, and I don't want to belabor a lot of the points, but I did

I did take some time to take a look at what has happened in our world since 2008, and that was when we last changed our salary.

The rise of the iPhone, Android, iPad, other social media has been phenomenal since 2008, nine years ago.

I think all of us will agree, we get 10 to 20 text messages a day, seven days a week.

Emails used to be purely task oriented.

Today they are packed with information, commentary, links, and positions that constantly demand attention and intrude on our work schedules.

That's what happens.

I receive about 50 emails a day, seven days a week, all of which are expected to respond within 24 hours.

Email requests to meet

to meet with me, I average about 40 a month.

And I'm sure my colleagues are the same.

I manage to schedule about 10 to 12 face-to-face constituent and staff meetings per week on top of council meetings with my colleagues and with six other organizations.

All of us are members of six other organizations.

Four-year requests have gone up.

It used to be nine years ago about two a year when I was on school board.

It is about two a week.

When we get a four-year request, we have to stop everything to find out where all our correspondence is.

Facebook went from 100 million to 1.79 billion registered users in that nine-year period.

I post once a week, I know more of us post more than that, but that's another channel that the public expects us to engage with them on.

But speaking of Twitter, public anxiety is high since the financial meltdown in recent national elections.

and that demands more council attention as the public is anxious about the fact they're not getting the same take home pay they got nine years ago.

Health insurance costs are higher.

The gap between the super rich, the middle and low continues to widen.

Although the unemployment rate is down from a high of 10% nine years ago, there are still very high levels of unemployment in our city and all of this is a public that really

demands the time of its five councilors.

So our population has grown to 7,000 people in the last nine years.

That's about 1,400 more people we have to work with now.

And I did, in light of the living wage discussion, I think this is kind of interesting to look at.

So I think after we've got four new portals of information that comes into council that we have to manage, we have to also do our own policy research,

It is a 40 hour a week job.

We'll never get paid for 40 hours a week, but I don't think it can be denied that this is not a 40 hour a week job right now as structured.

So when you crunch the numbers, a regular councilor's salary at $14,000 at $13.79 an hour, that is $6.73.

I mean, excuse me.

Yeah, that's six.

Excuse me.

When I take the $14,000 and divide it by 40 hours a week, that's $6.73 an hour.

City's living wage is $1379 for our city employees.

If it bumped up to $18,000, it would only bring it up to $865.

So I think the other way to look at this, and the mayor has brought this up, is that, all right, if we really want to get down to that level, and we pay each other $1379 an hour at no higher than $18,000 a year,

Then that would mean that we would have to drop down our hours per week to 25 hours per week.

That means to get the work done for the people that we would need one to two full-time additional people to help do the policy research, do the communications.

So it's something I think we do need to think about in the future of what additional staff support council needs to be truly effective as policy makers, truly effective in communicating with the public with all these different portals.

So I just wanted to add that once again it winds up being a rarefied air up here for only the elites

who have professional jobs who are independently wealthy that have very high paid spouses that don't have a mortgage or a rent payment to hold this job.

And if you are a single mom or you have to work two jobs, you simply cannot do this job.

So that means you're losing representation.

Well said.

Anything further?

You're not going to take it?

We don't need a motion.

It's already been motioned.

OK, on paper.

Okay, motion carries four to one.

All right, now last item on the agenda, Place Design Task Force Annual Report.

20 minutes allocated to this.

Welcome.

There are cookies for you.

Nobody's been taking them, so you can have them all.

I was the first.

That ice has already been broken.

She'll tell you.

No, you still talk to the screen.

Half of us are still up here.

Hello.

I'm Mike Stoneking.

I'm an architect here in Charlottesville.

I've been practicing for 25 years.

I have my offices at West Main, 300 West Main.

I also live at 1419 Cherry Avenue.

and I'm currently the chair of Place Design Task Force and so my job tonight is to present our annual report.

And I thought it might be good to start off with a few reasons urban design and placemaking matters, just a little kind of a reminder.

We do this kind of stuff because we seek to shape the environment that we live in for all the activities of our citizens.

to create beautiful and functional, safe and inspiring places and to allow for the positive public interactions, if you will.

But in addition to that, we also seek these special opportunities.

So this is Paley Park in New York, but we have opportunities like this in Charlottesville, small places that can be for work or play or relaxation, and they're an important part of urban design as well.

and not only that, we try to handle the difficult places.

We have lots of situations in Charlottesville that remind me of this where streets come into each other and sort of create the forgotten or nearly abandoned space and with careful thinking and a little ingenuity we can turn those into positive opportunities.

And we seek to manage the edges.

So this is a really interesting trend now to capture a lane, a travelway lane and

incorporated into the sidewalk sphere, so here they didn't just expand the sidewalk, they created places for people to sit, eat, gather, talk, but meanwhile they've essentially widened the pedestrian zone.

And of course we care about all the ways people use the city, so whether you're walking to and from work or walking home to see a friend or dining or whether you're biking to

All of those things come into play and good urban design handles all of them well.

So I like to share these kinds of slides with everyone I talk to about urban design because they are really clever.

There are several before and after situations.

The top photograph shows a really wide intersection, a lot of asphalt, kind of an unclear and not very well-defined street.

And just by some simple ground surface treatments and the addition of a median, you can see that they've created clarity of safety.

The intersection is now half as long by virtue of that median.

It's just a stronger urban design space for both pedestrians and motorists.

Here's another one.

This is sort of a high-speed road solution.

So they took the upper condition and they were able to create edges.

On the left side, on the lower image, you'll see a bike lane that is sort of bounded by some grassy strips.

And then on the right, they employed that steal-a-lane technique to create a safer place for pedestrians.

They even squeezed a little playground in there.

And this is maybe not a great solution for a low-speed street, but it's a pretty good solution for a higher-speed street if you have one running through your town.

This is maybe one of my favorites.

This is Pearl Street in New York.

So you get this rather horrible situation on the left where what's been left over has just been sort of commandeered by circumstance to be places to stick a car here or there, a truck there.

But by simply using paint and a few planters to sort of barricade the edges, they were able to create an urban place and in the process create clarity of movement, once again for both cars,

and pedestrians.

This one's far more elaborate.

This is your high budget kind of approach.

So the top photograph, you see pedestrians all over the place.

This is a highly populated area, but all of the people are sort of cordoned off into the shoulders, and it's overcrowded where they are.

And the cars sort of have maybe more space than they need.

So by kind of flipping it on its head, by creating multiple paths for pedestrians and kind of constraining the car, they

We create safety, clarity once again, and it's just a more interesting, vibrant, almost a plaza, if you will.

And in doing so, you know, we didn't have to get rid of the car, right?

You don't have to.

You just have to plan for the car, manage it.

The reason I couldn't present last month, the beginning of April, is that I went on a trip to Haiti, and this is where I went.

And I've been there a lot, and I've noticed a lot of interesting things, and I thought this was a really clever one.

So this is a hospital in Mirabolais.

and it's really common in Haiti for a place like this to be built within a wall, a compound, if you will, with a stingy kind of gate and an armed guard at the front.

Almost everything is done that way, but they chose not to.

They put the main entrance right here.

There is no compound wall and they put a little plaza to the street.

Now, this particular street went nowhere.

It connected Mirabile way over here to the countryside over here, but by making that gesture,

They suddenly attracted people to the area.

Some were coming, obviously, to use the hospital, but some just started using the plaza.

And then across the street, commerce started.

And you'll see these little lunch stands and whatnot, right?

And people sell their wares and they hang out and hospital employees come in by the food.

And it's just turned into an important public place where there wasn't one by the simple gesture of getting the front door right and the relationship of the building to the street right.

So, five things.

In our report, we talk about all the accomplishments from the last year and whatnot, but there are five things we wanted to sort of bring up today, and much of this has been before you, but I just want to go through it.

So, it all starts with community engagement, and I think we all know that.

We do a lot of it.

of what we think is extremely important about community engagement.

You can't get what we're charged with, urban design and place making right.

We don't involve all the people in our community and understand how each neighborhood, each node is unique.

The second thing is 3D modeling.

So we've engaged, as you know, we have a contract with some folks at UVA to do some 3D modeling of the SIA area.

And that is not the SIA, but it could be.

It's New York's SIA.

There's more like ourselves.

But 3D modeling is just a fantastic tool, and we anticipate it will play out well in the SIA.

With success showing itself, we're going to recommend expanding it city-wide.

So what's great about it, as just a reminder, is if you have a model, let's say this is the model, and these are the proposed new developments, we can all see it.

Literally.

See how it's going to play out in our town.

And every significant project can use this tool.

And even though I've been showing you some big towns, you know, this can happen in smaller towns.

This can happen in our town.

There's really no reason

When I think about all the design overlay districts and whatnot and all the architects working in those areas, we model everything anyway.

And the idea of just plugging it into a model that we all have worked together to create seems like a win situation for everybody.

The next topic is this form-based code.

So we underscore support and endorse the code audit going on, the testing of form-based code work in the SIA.

And once again, with that work completed and an assessment that follows,

Absolutely.

None of this can be done without community engagement.

And the form-based code isn't a one-size-fits-all.

One of the beauties of it is that it can morph and evolve and be special for each section of the city, which then is a great segue to the downtown mall.

We had a big idea back in the 70s and it took a tremendous amount of work and we did it.

We did that work and we went through the growing pangs and we got to our beautiful place.

And so we've been discussing a place, the recommendation, and I know this has been brought up, of conducting a cultural landscape report.

I think now they're calling it historic landscape study.

It sort of changed its name, but the idea is to create a comprehensive

Historical analysis report and recommendation strategy for caring for the mall and not just for a few years, forever.

Create a sustainable package that will congregate the efforts of all the agencies and groups currently engaged in the mall.

BAR, Parks and Rec, Utilities Maintenance, PLACE, you guys.

All of us would be working under a common

vision for the mall and a way of understanding how to make every single decision from what the trash cans are to how to replace the trees over time, et cetera.

And there's been talk about working with the Center for Cultural Landscapes.

There's already kind of a scope of work put together to solicit a proposal.

I think a draft has already been provided, but a final scope and a cost for working with those folks should be coming through shortly.

But not to say that the mall is our only asset.

It's perhaps the living room of our community, but we have good things going on all over the place and lots of opportunities.

This little landscape piece in Belmont is sort of a sweet little way of managing that funny condition.

The corner.

This little place off of the Mickey building is like our little version of how to capture a funny outdoor space like the Paley in New York.

and these are places on West Main that are already sort of working out well and we haven't even started our West Main rehabilitation yet.

And of course Market Street, classic street, Main Street USA kind of space.

So, how do we have all of it?

We want to have all of it and to us at Place it's simply a matter of vision and so this comes to our fifth

Recommendation.

We support this position or department that's being talked about, the strategic planner, the visionary design team.

It was called the city architect at one point.

I don't think anyone likes that name.

But we support this position or this department.

What we see as missing is somebody who or some people who are the curators of a long-range plan, a visionary kind of way of thinking about urban places and urban design.

that can work with enough jurisdictional authority to get the job done and without the distraction of some of the daily processes of plan review and those kinds of things.

And if we get all that right, we'll end up with one common vision and a more successful urban community.

I have just a real specific question.

You were mentioning the position of a strategic planner or whatever that is.

Speaking of Carrie Rainey?

Well, as I understand it, Carrie Rainey's workload has been almost entirely consumed by the work of reviewing plans and dealing with site plan applications and the normal work of NDS.

She's actually not performing the work of an urban planner and urban designer in the sense that we mean it.

Which speaks to two things.

NDS is incredibly overworked and so perhaps any new position that's created at a level without some jurisdictional authority will be

I would also add that obviously Ms. Rady's been heavily involved with the West Main Street streetscaping project from a urban designer plan, which is certainly part of her responsibilities.

And I'm not sure, I think what we're talking about with this new position, which we have to bring back to council and have a discussion about what direction you want to go in, because last time we talked about

Council is a couple of different positions.

I have a question.

Yeah, I think this person or department once again has to be

connected at the hip to economic development as well as the other places we've talked about because one way you engage the development community in your long-range plan is to show it to them and you invite people to participate.

They have a project in the works and you would bring them in through maybe the economic development team to

I think urban design is often sort of thought of as kind of a

a pricey sort of elegant thing that can drive land values up and cause gentrification.

But as some of the examples I showed you, that just doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to cost a lot of money.

We've just got to put things in the right place.

And there's no reason every neighborhood can't enjoy good design thinking without causing displacement.

I feel that's sort of one of those overplayed statements, but we all at the same time are

genuinely concerned about the idea of gentrification having its effect and we would want to work hard.

And there's where community engagement comes in.

So this department either has to have the skills within it or there has to be another department whose job it is to lead community engagement for all the concerns of the city.

I mean, community engagement is not just limited to urban design.

There's education and representation in every other facet.

And I probably left a couple things off your list.

Oh, that's right.

Every town that has a form-based code has somebody who is this curator.

And so this department will probably take on that responsibility.

It's also our feeling that the comprehensive plan, the sections on urban design and whatnot, this department or person could be the one who fleshes that out and brings it to life, breathes life into the words.

Well I'd like to compliment you for one thing that I thought was cool out of this presentation was how humble and accessible some of the places that you were talking about were as opposed to the example you were talking about.

I mean just some of these nooks and crannies and that all of a sudden is making me think, you know like the

You know, in Fifeville, like the Sycamore trees next to Tonsil or the basketball court were sort of a cool place.

And there's, there's, you know, I'm like going through the different blocks and the stuff that I like or that's aesthetically or that is comforting that you feel is like why you live in your neighborhood.

And there's, there's, and I wonder also if it could provide a kind of more robust baseline for the places that aren't working that well that also aren't

I think we cut the funding for that during the recession.

And Harris Street is starting to become repopulated with a new kind of industry.

And it is a lot of its alternative energy.

A lot of it is biotechnology.

And his plea was for more safe, walkable streets, more crosswalks, more access to places to go for lunch, wanting to be able to have places for his employees to live

there.

So that is also part of placemaking.

That is creating a place where there is now currently hundreds of acres of asphalt.

So I think those capturing of the street images were very compelling.

And they were done simply by putting wooden decks.

Thank you.

This presentation can certainly be.

Yes, sure.

So I have my question, is in the second page of the report,

It's this place request for city council action, and there are four items.

One is to endorse the 3D modeling citywide.

The second one was to endorse and provide funding for the cultural landscape report for the downtown mall.

Third was to endorse the creation of and provide funding for a city designer slash architect position.

And four was to add new ex officio members to place from the Charlottesville Housing and Redevelopment Authority and the Human Rights Commission.

So

I had asked earlier if this was something that Council needed to act on per resolution.

I went ahead and made one.

Is this what we need?

My anticipation was that I would get feedback tonight.

And then we could turn that into more of an actionable request.

We were speaking kind of conversationally about these things and why they're important.

I would find that helpful.

And some will take time.

The form-based code and the 3D modeling to expand citywide will have to follow the work of the SIA.

We can't ask for a vote on that.

After an assessment.

After an assessment.

The process.

Okay.

I'm comfortable with that.

I think with the position in NDS, I think that we all understand that NDS is overtaxed and that stuff gets, you know, the top shelf is the one that keeps getting cleared and then everything else sort of piles up under it.

but I think that there's not quite yet unanimity on council of which need is greatest within all of those needs and I think you've made a really good case for this need and I think that there are others as well so I think we just have to, like whether it's housing and dealing with economic development, all of those I think are competing needs.

I am feeling more positive about this than I was when you started so

We've got a couple or two points today.

But I think that I'm certainly not ready to accept that that's the recommendation.

I think there's more research to do on that position.

And we'll do more.

Yes, but it'll be fly-through, fly-by style.

And this is also a case in point, that this is a city engine, which is something, a software we already have, but our staff has never been trained how to use it.

And this agreement with UVA has been an opening to get that professional development.

Well, and at some juncture, there'll have to be a decision as to whether or not there's a requirement to present your schemes and your ideas as a developer within this model.

You get the only points, but I don't know when that trigger is pulled.

I would like us to consider about the small airplanes in general.

Sure.

The thinking there was that

By having those folks at our meetings and being part of our group is that we would have a conduit to the work that they do.

I mean, what I'm hearing too is that a lot of the confusion about the SIA and the form-based code might have been somewhat addressed before it became an issue

If there were members of the Housing Authority and members of the Human Rights Commission involved with the discussion to help kind of open up that conversation, I do see some value in this recommendation.

And it's a way to keep everybody informed and at the same level about what's going on.

And I would just like to remind my colleagues the place has no discretionary review.

It makes no decisions on anything.

It only recommends the Planning Commission and Council and the staff.

So I still would like some clarity.

Well, you could vote on the last part.

I mean, there's not going to be anything offered extra there.

Do we want two new members for place?

That might be worth checking into.

Maybe we can just express if we support it and then ask those bodies before we actually make a judgment.

I think that's a good idea.

So do we support it?

So heads nodding if you're looking for a direction from counsel.

and then the general.

We're not doing that.

We're saying that we would support it if they're interested in the approach.

Invite them.

There's a lot of communication that needs to, I mean I've been quiet, but we can talk about it.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I think the other issue, and it's something that actually the president of the Downtown Business Association, Ms. Joan Fenton, has talked repeatedly about the need for maintenance and care of the downtown mall.

And when you look at the trees, the trees are starting to fail because they are not

being curated as a forest.

And so can we at least give them direction to go ahead and bring back to us the estimate and the scope?

You're going to bring that?

I wanted to make sure that that was written.

So items one and two you're already working on.

Items three, you've given us your recommendation.

We need to have conversations up here.

And Mr. Jones, is that happening in early June?

Yeah, I think we need to talk to Mr. Stoneking and see where they are, and if we're ready by June, I'll consult with the mayor and how we pay for it.

I really appreciate what you've done.

Thank you.

All right.

We have finished with our regular agenda.

So thank you, colleagues, for allowing me a couple of moments to speak.

I'd like to

talked tonight about procurement and minority business contracting.

So I just have something relatively short that I'd like to read to you all, if that's okay.

So, colleagues, in the city as a whole, as many of us know, the city has made great strides over the years to address the issues of economic inequality in our city.

However, as we continue to make strides, we must look at how we help individuals throughout the area.

Policy is one way to stop generational poverty,

and break the barriers of systemic oppression.

As we continue to say that we are an all-inclusive city, we must also ensure that we are creating and implementing policies to reinforce what we promise.

This effort is not intended to condemn or expose anyone in our beloved city.

However, I do believe that as elected officials, we should be held accountable to issues within our community.

To be clear, what I'm about to present, I am well aware that city staff is working diligently to help solve around this issue in regards

to offering classes and resources for those wishing to become business owners and vendors with the city.

However, once again, as an elected official, it is our duty to help push and create policies that are not only creative and outside excuse me, inside but outside of the box, but also substantive when excuse me, we must continue to do what we can to take Charlottesville to the next level.

and before I go into this I just wanted to touch on something else that I heard tonight and if we really want to look at addressing the issues of poverty and we want to address economic disparities that we often see in the city in regards to race we can't just look at stand-alone items so I agree with many people when they say that moving the statue of Robert E. Lee is not going to fix all of the issues that we have in our city I think that's just one thing

and just like when I presented the equity package in February which addressed affordable housing, education.

Workforce Training and Upward Mobility.

I now want to address something below that's going to further address and look at economic empowerment as well as upward mobility.

Alone, this issue isn't going to fix everything, or what I'm going to propose is not going to fix everything, but I think not only myself, but all of us up here elected, we owe it to this city to push forward and do what we can for all.

Now, as has been aforementioned, I want to discuss

How we look at procurement and minority contracting and when we look at some of the data in which we've seen in the years 2013 in regards to minority owned businesses that the city did contracts with we were at 0.7%.

In 2014 we were at 1.1%.

In 2015 we were at 0.5%, in 2016 we were at 1.6%, and thus far in 2017 we're at 0.4%.

Now, this does not mean that our city staff is not working on the issue or trying to address the problem.

However, once again, we gotta do what we can as a council to move this along.

So after spending time with the Virginia Beach Procurement Team,

I've visited Norfolk, I've been to Hampton, and even this past Saturday.

I spent some time in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I've met with Tim Holbert from the Chamber of Commerce.

I spoke with several different members of the Chamber's Business Diversity Council in separate meetings with our Office of Economic Development and our Procurement Department in addition to our City Manager, Mr. Jones.

I believe that we as a City Council should direct and task our staff to do the following.

We need to create a minority business plan for the City of Charlottesville.

That first item includes updating the Minority Business Assistance website, which I've been told that we're working on.

I want us to look at creating a council initiated by a Minority Business Council, which is separate from the Chamber's Diversity Business Council.

So this will essentially be an advisory council.

The current purpose of our Business Diversity Council would be different from what we're looking at doing with this task force.

As this advisory council would simply, or excuse me, similar to as we see with the police advisory council, the youth council, et cetera, this council will serve as a purpose similar to that of the one in Virginia Beach.

Their council's purpose reads as such, the current purpose of the Virginia Beach Minority Business Council is to advance and facilitate an environment of business opportunities

focusing on increasing expenditures to minority and women owned businesses by the City of Virginia Beach as a means to further the city's economic development and vitality.

The Minority Business Advisory Council provides information, guidance and programs that enables business owners to understand how to work with the City of Virginia Beach and I would like for us to see us do the same.

A bond waiver and prequalification program is also something that I would like to see us move forward on.

One of the issues that I've oftentimes heard from individuals in the community who have general contracting capabilities, whether that be they have a Class A license, Class B license, Class C, they're well-established painters, carpenters, they have several different skilled trades, but when I asked them, why haven't you moved into starting your own business, the question often revolves around a couple of things.

One, I don't think that I'll be able to get insured, or I don't believe that I'll get bonded.

and secondly, why try?

Because I don't even know if I'm going to get the contract.

Well, this is something that I think we can work on to change.

From the first portion, from the bond wavering prequalification program, one of the things that I saw in doing my research that I thought was really innovative was in Virginia Beach, they created a program in which allowed for individuals

to come in through and get a quote unquote pre-certification that allows for them to state that we can guarantee your work, we know that you're going to complete the work, you do good work, and this is kind of our stamp on your business.

So for all projects between $100,000 up to $500,000, if this individual or this business or entity has gone through their pre-qualification program, they have the bonding and insurance fees waived for them.

This does not include for projects below $100,000, which essentially requires much smaller efforts in terms of getting the insurance.

So attached in our sheets that I provided for you all, there is indeed language for drafting a resolution for this bond waiver and prequalification program.

Nextly, I'd like to see us look at not necessarily setting a number goal, but I'd like for us to try and commit to steadily increase the number of minorities and small business owners and women that we work with on a year-to-year basis.

Again, we don't have to set a numerical goal because that gets us into a lot of different issues and trying to reach something that we may not be able to.

However, in the future as we work to setting or excuse me as we work to increasing this number, maybe potentially we can even get to a goal one day but not right now.

Revamping the ACE program.

I'd like for us to look at expanding qualifications, utilizing social media and traditional media campaign to get the word out, review how many minority businesses that have taken advantage of ACE over the past five years, and also look at conducting more business seminars and conducting those seminars in person opposed to just being online.

Again, I don't want us to look at any of these initiatives that I have before you,

and a way in which I'm saying that the city isn't doing what we're supposed to do.

I believe that our Office of Economic Development as well as our procurement department are doing relatively good jobs.

They're trying very hard and the onus is not all just on them.

This is essentially a method as a two-pronged approach.

I'm hoping that as we look to create policy that's going to encourage other individuals, specifically minorities, to contract and work with the city

This will also energize members of our community who have not gone about taking the next step of starting their business for whatever reason or those who even have businesses have decided not to bid on contracts for them to be encouraged to do so.

We're making our commitment and we're hoping that they'll do the same.

So again I have sent all of you this information, included in it is a resolution for Charlottesville minority contracting.

There's a bonding ordinance resolution.

There's also an ordinance to create the City of Charlottesville Minority Business Council or Advisory Council.

And then there's also a resolution outlining procedures for the pre-qualification program.

I'm not going to read all of these tonight because they've been sent to you all, but I would like for us to review them and at our next council meeting look at

Mr. Signer, I would like to second that, not motion, but second that suggestion.

I really strongly support these and really appreciate the effort that Mr. Bellamy has done to research this.

to look at how different places do it, to speak with staff and people in the community about what's possible.

And I think this is a very well reasoned and broad approach.

The only thing that I would think that we might want to look at as well is policies about, and this may just be more of a guideline rather than an actual requirement, of kind of looking at how we can take some of our larger contracts and break them into smaller chunks.

Because often in cities where you find that

either local or minority or women-owned businesses aren't getting contracts because the contracts are so big that you have to have a big business to do it and those tend to not be those businesses.

One thing I saw along those lines, both when I went to Virginia Beach and even this past weekend while I was in Charlotte, for larger contracts, as their minority business councils started to grow,

and they had more events and people started to get to know each other.

For the larger contracts, they saw several different smaller businesses partnering together and saying we'll go after this bid together.

But that was only after the relationships had been built and they had kind of been in the quote unquote bull pit together.

And I think we have the capacity to do the same thing here.

Furthermore, as we consider ourselves a leader, just as we were talking about the University of Virginia earlier, in regards to them considering themselves to be exceptional, I believe our city is exceptional in everything in which we do, or at least we strive to be so, and we can be.

We are going to set the tone.

In my research, unfortunately, I didn't see many other localities around us who were moving in this direction within our local area.

But I think that if we can show that we'll be the leaders in moving forward in this direction,

Other localities will want to join or even move in this similar direction and that's not just going to help the elected officials, that's going to help people because we can't just continue to think that education is going to be the quote unquote great equalizer because in many cases it's not.

Economics.

I just have a few comments and I have a lot of questions and a lot of comments that I'll be sending to Mr. Bellamy and all of you now that we've all seen this but

And I do want to make sure that we're understanding clearly what is being conveyed and communicated.

We do have a Diversity Business Council.

And you've mentioned several times that you're showing no disrespect or criticism of staff.

I'm not sure how this is going to be coming across.

I'm not sure if this is redundant.

I'm not sure if this is something that's in addition to, in lieu of, of that Diversity Business Council that was established as part of the dialogue on race.

So that's an example of the kind of questions I have.

And I think you're, it sounds like you're not sticking to the notion of having a set percentage

I'm somewhat relieved by that because Virginia Beach is the largest city in Virginia and Norfolk is the second largest city in Virginia.

Norfolk is 50% black, 50% white.

The African American population of Virginia Beach is 10 times the size of the Albemarle County and Charlottesville.

African American population.

So I was wondering, are we just making a job creation for African American companies outside of Charlottesville?

Because I think we all agree we want to get upward mobility among our residents that live in our lowest income neighborhoods that happen to be minorities.

Am I hearing it right?

because there really needs to be a very targeted effort at that and I'm not sure if only this is going to get us there and I hope that we would be willing to broaden this because I have been working on some other aspects with a Batten school intern and I'm realizing this is a much deeper issue that needs to have long-term professional expertise put on it.

to actually get the data we need.

I believe five months ago in the strategic plan update we had asked as part of our performance metrics to get what is our unemployment rate among our minority community groups.

Where are we in the number of jobs that we've created?

So there are a number of metrics that we've already asked our staff to provide us that we need as baseline.

So if this can be a vehicle to make sure that we get that data and that we always compare our growth to that, I will be very supportive of it.

But I really do want to see this be incredible and measurable and that it's geared really to our

local community.

So in regards to the first question that you brought up, is this in addition to or is it in lieu of the Diversity Business Council?

It's not, I don't think it's either.

This is a separate kind of initiative.

And again, I've spoken with Tim Hobart, I've spoken with several members of the Diversity Business Council.

and they've moved towards more so networking opportunities for individuals who already have businesses.

They're not necessarily doing the same, excuse me, workshops in regards to starting your business or if you have your business, how do you get involved in contracting and whatnot and some of that can be attributed to capacity because there are only a few people who have the ability to continue to carry all the load that the Chamber's doing as well as our Office of OED as we've ramped up

our goal initiatives and some of the other things in which we're doing to address different issues that we have in our city.

So this is, again, a set aside to add to solving the issue.

This is not going to solve everything.

However, I do believe that specifically as you brought up the notion of us having a concerted effort

This is going to be something that is a vehicle to get us where we need to be, specifically from the reasons of when you look at currently the makeup of some of the individuals who own businesses here in the city, whether they are specifically African American or Latino or women or minorities as a whole, many of them are not

necessarily just being involved or engaged and to play this kind of game.

They don't know how to navigate these waters, so for us to be able to create an advisory council of their peers, not people who we know or people who already know kind of how to do this, but people who are on the ground and the individuals who we don't normally hear from,

but the people who have the capabilities and the skills, giving them the opportunity to be able to address some of these issues, either serve on the council or have those individuals mixed with the Andrea Copeland-Witsets of the world, I think it's going to be able to allow us to touch a different population of people that we don't normally talk to or engage or interact with.

So again, this isn't the end all be all, it's just one vehicle, but we have to have, in addition to data,

in addition to having the Batten School Fellows kind of get us information.

And I agree with you in the sense that having Batten School interns helping us is not helping us get the policy we need.

We really do need, I don't know if this is pointing towards having a task, an economic mobility task force that would be working with an economics equity firm

to get us the policies and the procedures we need.

But I just, again, this is a lot, and I wasn't thinking we were going to talk about this tonight.

I thought we were still talking about it amongst ourselves.

You mentioned next week, the next meeting.

I don't know if that's enough time for Mr. Jones.

I'm not going to speak for Mr. Jones.

We've had a couple of different meetings in regards to looking at this, kind of what amendments may need to be made.

There may still need to be some tweaks here and there, which I'm all fine with.

But I don't think that this is something that's, and I'm not trying to push us or move us super fast, so we can take the time we need to make sure we get it right.

But when we look at, you know, tasking our staff, a great deal of the work is done.

So now it's kind of just tweaking and fine-tuning.

If we can't agree, we can look at, you know, what does it mean to create this council?

How do we make sure that we're doing our bond prequalification thing in the right way?

The laws and whatnot are already on the books, and again, much of the work is done.

I guess the last thing I'll see is that we have an economic advisory council for the growing opportunity report.

We have the diversity business council and now this is a third council.

Maybe we need to reflect on our council structure if the councils aren't being effective.

This is separate.

They're all supposed to be doing the same thing.

All I would say is there's been a number of conversations that we've had with

the vice mayor, he's done a lot of work obviously, he's spent a lot of time talking to other municipalities and if we're just talking about passing resolutions in two weeks that would be one thing but there's work that is behind this that we would have to do and I think the council needs to know what that is, right?

I mean the council needs to be well prepared to understand what these resolutions mean and then secondly what would it take to get there because if we do create a

the Minority Business Council, there'd have to be a staff person who would provide support for that.

I'm not saying we have to create an entirely new position, but it would move somebody away from something else that they're doing right now.

And so those are all those things we need to have an understanding of what that would mean practically for the city at this point.

And then so I think we need more than what is really a week to get it ready, because that would have to be posted next Tuesday.

So we do need some more time to work on that so that you have all the information that you

Well in regards to the resolutions you feel as if we couldn't look at creating the

Okay.

I have a question for Mr. Jones about, that's related to this, and Mr. Jones, I also, with regards to contracting, and mainly because I've worked with Ruth Skyle on this for a long time, and

So I just want to make sure that, and I think that's what.

Yeah, but even when they initially started their council, they were at like a little under 2%.

So I mean, they're now up at 6.5.

Okay.

I'm comfortable with kind of leaving it up to the city manager with, you know, kind of all that's heard tonight, to get it on with all due deliberate speed, recognizing that there is some urgency

Right.

I wouldn't want to see this go more than two meetings.

Like today is, this is our first meeting in May.

I think so, but before we commit to that, let's get our staff together and take a good hard look at that.

But I mean certainly, certainly within the next

Any other other business?

Okay, so let's move to the second matters by the public.

Edith Good, Second Street.

I just wondered if it's possible, you mentioned at the first matters by the public, somebody mentioned that they were having a hard time finding

City meetings, I don't have internet or email and sometimes little articles, not articles even, little items in the Daily Progress on Thursdays.

If these little things could be put in, it would be great.

Thank you all very much.

Have a nice evening.