City Council   9/18/2017

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Welcome, everyone, to the Charlottesville City Council.

We've got a large number here tonight, in part because there are a couple of classes that are with us.

I just want to remind everybody's welcome, of course.

I want to remind everybody that we have fire code regulations.

I think that some of the folks in the back will be advising we need to have the aisles be free.

And there is a overflow room in the Neighborhood Development Services conference room, which is just right back down the hallway there, if anybody would like to sit there and sit.

But we do need to keep the aisles free.

Thank you.

Ms. Rice, will you call the roll?

Mr. Bellamy.

Present.

Ms. Szakos.

Here.

As before, different members of council are going to chair some different components of the meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And as I recall, I started on the west side last meeting.

I'll start on the east side, and each of us have been assigned announcements.

So I'm going to begin with my announcements, and then we'll all just go down the line.

So, there will be a joint City Council and Albemarle County Board of Supervisors work session tomorrow, Tuesday, September 19th at 10 o'clock at the Albemarle County Office Building, room 241.

It's a very important agenda.

Item one will be a regional transit partnership, memorandum of understanding, an arts and culture initiative, updates on a memorandum of understanding activity, standard operating procedures for effective communication, and an economic development memorandum of understanding.

The second announcement is the Charlottesville Independent website and tip line is now live.

Citizens are encouraged to submit information from protest events.

Timothy Hafee, partner at Hutton and Williams LLP, who is leading the independent review of the city of Charlottesville's

Handling of the Summer Protest Events, announced today that his team has set up a website and tip line to be used by interested citizens who wish to provide information regarding the summer protest events.

Information may be submitted as follows.

The website is www.CharlottesvilleIndependentReview.com.

That is all one word, all low case.

Telephone tip line is 1-877-4-Hunton.

H-U-N-T-O-N.

The website includes a form that can be used to provide narrative information, submit documents and images, and request direct contact by the independent review team.

Anyone with information regarding the summer protest rallies is encouraged to use these resources.

All material provided will be reviewed and considered by the review team.

The tip line and website established by the independent review team is separate from the resources established by the Charlottesville Police Department,

and Federal Bureau of Investigation for reporting criminal activity.

Charlottesville Police Department is cvillarally.org and the FBI is 1-800-CALL-FBI.

These law enforcement resources are available to anyone as well who has information concerning suspected criminal activity and should be used for that purpose.

Haefi, a former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, has been hired by the city of Charlottesville to lead this independent review.

Haefi will evaluate the city's preparation for and response to the protest events that have occurred in Charlottesville this summer.

He will conduct interviews of agency representatives, law enforcement, government officials, and members of the community who attended the rally and review available documents and images.

He will prepare a report for the city that objectively sets forth what occurred at each event and makes constructive recommendations for improved practices going forward.

My last announcement is about the fall special waste collection dates.

This is one way to keep the environment safe and clean by participating in this collection.

Household hazardous waste can be dropped off at no cost on Friday, September 29 and Saturday, September 30 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Bulky waste amnesty days will be held on three consecutive Saturdays in October from 830 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It's Saturday, October 7.

That's for your furniture and mattresses.

Saturday, October 14, appliances

Saturday, October 21, Tires.

These special waste collections are free to residents of the city of Charlottesville.

The events are held at the Ivy Material Utilization Center located at 4576 Dick Woods Road.

You can also check out the information on the www.rivanna.org slash hhw.

So I have several announcements around Welcoming Week.

This is Welcoming Week.

Charlottesville is a welcoming city.

It's a week of events bringing together immigrants, refugees, and native-born residents to raise awareness of the benefits of welcoming everyone, September 15th to 24th.

For a complete listing of events and more information, please visit the Welcoming Greater Charlottesville website at

dot WGCville dot org.

Welcoming Greater Charlottesville is part of Welcoming America Network, which provides a roadmap to becoming a more inclusive

to becoming more inclusive toward immigrants and all residents.

So I'd like to invite welcoming Greater Charlottesville representatives who are here to come up, and then we'll announce a couple of specific events that are coming up.

And while they're coming up, I will say that the Seville Sabrosa Festival and the Pride Festival were both part of the lineup.

So welcome.

You've got three minutes between you.

Hi, my name is Dina Sherook, and with me today are Christine Mahoney and Russ Linden, and we're

some of the members of the Welcoming Greater Charlottesville Task Force.

We came together as a group after seeing an uptick in dangerous political rhetoric, dehumanizing groups, marginalized groups such as immigrants, religious minorities and people of color.

And we wanted to know what we could do here in Charlottesville to make

our city and the greater area a more welcoming place.

Among some points of our mission included making Charlottesville a more part of the welcoming network, Welcoming America Network, as you mentioned.

Sure, thank you.

So this is happening in hundreds of cities across the United States.

And we've had over a dozen different community organizations, grassroots organizations, put together 33 really fantastic events celebrating all the different cultures that are here in Charlottesville.

So I'm just going to highlight a couple of them.

And for the full lineup, again, go to www.wgcville.org.

Tomorrow, there's going to be a film screening, which is being hosted by the Charlottesville Human Rights Commission, as well as the Food Justice Network.

about immigrant rights in the food system.

Also, the IRC is hosting a volunteer opportunity tomorrow to work in their volunteer roots farm.

On Wednesday night, we're going to have another immigrant rights information session, which will also touch on undocumented workers.

On Thursday, we're having a cultural cooking class with over seven different cultural chefs from different backgrounds.

It's going to be at The Haven.

and you get to taste their delicious work.

On Thursday and Friday, there will be events on religious freedom.

On Saturday, there's going to be an art show festival celebrating art and culture.

And then finally, there'll be a fundraiser for International Neighbors, which is another one of our refugee support organizations on Sunday as part of Fox Fields.

Hi, finally.

This is a good time to recognize city council and the city staff who worked so hard for quite a while to get Charlottesville designated as a welcoming city.

How does that help us?

Being a welcoming city can help us gain funding and access to this welcoming network of cities and communities that are doing wonderful things.

It can help us learn and adopt some of the successful approaches that other communities are using to be more welcoming to everyone.

and it can help us get the training we need to succeed in that effort.

So we want to thank you and the staff sincerely for making us a welcoming city and help us strive to do what we all want to do which is to be as welcoming as possible to everyone.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So I also get to talk about the fun subject of parking, also validation for council meetings.

As the city continues its effort to implement the parking action plan,

A variety of changes to parking for the downtown mall area are planned to begin this fall.

Effective September 5th, the pilot program began to operate parking meters on street in a 12-lock area bounded on the north by Market Street between East 7th and Old Preston and on the south by Water Street between East 5th and West 2nd Street.

For information on parking, go to www.Charlottesville.org slash parking.

And please note, to validate for tonight's meeting or any council meeting,

Please pick up a stamped parking card from the dais.

The rubber stamps are no longer being used.

So you just pick up one of those and you put it in the machine when you check out.

And let's see, I have a couple of other things I wanted to check on, but somebody else may get them.

I have one about the open data web portal.

The city of Charlottesville is extremely excited to announce an open data web portal to the public.

This portal was launched on August 17th at a data science meetup, which was a collaborative event hosted by UVA, community groups and the city.

There were over 80 attendees and staff received constructive feedback and they look forward to continuing efforts to make the city's

I think it's important that we have data available to the public in an accessible and machine readable format.

What this means is that whoever wants to hack the city's data can do it.

They can gain access to data and figure out what we're doing well, what we're not doing well, and do it on their own without any error.

without any permissions, the data's just there.

So with the portal, the city hopes to eliminate burdens to access data and enable entrepreneurs, academics, developers and interested citizens to use the data in creative ways.

An open data boot camp is scheduled for September 22nd and there is an open house afterward at 4.30 at City Space to which everyone is invited to learn more about

projects underway in this whole area.

Okay, thank you.

Sure, good evening everyone.

Okay, so we have a couple of announcements to provide tonight and I would be remiss if I didn't again acknowledge everyone who's here tonight.

I really appreciate everybody coming.

It means a lot to see a lot of different faces.

So the first one I'll begin with is there is a lecture event.

entitled I'll Challenge This House.

It's the 150th anniversary of the African-American suffrage in Virginia.

So this is going to be Wednesday, September 27th.

So that's next Wednesday, September 27th from 6 to 8 PM at the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center.

So the description of the event goes as follows.

I challenge this house, the 150th anniversary of African-American suffrage in Virginia for African-American men who voted for the first time in Virginia in October of 1867.

Now, 150 years later, we look back upon the history and legacy of that momentous occasion.

So join us at the African-American Heritage Center for an evening of lectures inspired by that October 1867 vote.

Speakers include Virginia State Senator Jennifer MacLean, Dr. Nicole Myers Turner from VCU, Dr. Eric Clavell from Hampton University, and Dr. Corinne Field from the University of Virginia.

The Charlottesville voter registration office will have a table at I Challenge This House

again on September 27th to offer voter registration services and information.

So that's next Wednesday from 6 to 8.

Charlottesville Fire Department, they are accepting applications for full-time firefighters.

The CFD is now accepting applications for full-time firefighters.

We are seeking highly motivated community-minded candidates who are athletic,

have a positive attitude and want to be valuable team members.

No experience is necessary.

Again, no experience is necessary.

The training will be provided but a commitment to your personal growth and the well-being of your team is required.

A career in the fire service is both challenging and rewarding.

As a firefighter, you will learn a variety of skills and gain knowledge that empowers you to solve problems and become part of the public safety fabric

of this community.

The starting salary is just over $40,000 plus benefits, and to apply, please go to www.Charlottesville.org jobs.

The application deadline is tomorrow at 5 p.m., so you gotta get that in a little quick.

Chief Warner, you wanna raise your hand?

I mean, Chief Warner.

Chief Baxter, Chief Warner's our last chief.

Chief Baxter, you wanna wave your hand?

All right, so that's the chief, make sure you go see him.

Hi, Chief Warner, if you're watching, sorry.

And it gives me great honor to announce this next one.

We're going to do something a little special tonight and recognize a shero of this community, the first female African-American firefighter to retire from the Charlottesville Fire Department.

Ms. Celia Thompson, let's give her a round of applause.

She deserves a standing ovation, if you all don't mind.

I definitely appreciate it.

We have some kind words that we'd like to read.

You got your hair done.

You got your nice dress on.

So firefighter Celia Thompson was hired as a firefighter on August 3, 1992, and retired on June 1, 2017.

In August of 2003, she advanced to the rank of firefighter specialist.

Three years later, in March of 2006, she advanced to senior firefighter, which is the title she held for the last 10 years before retiring after an almost 25-year career as a firefighter.

Firefighter Thompson excelled in the field of public education.

As an educator, she was always able to relate to citizens of all ages and took the necessary time to teach them whenever the opportunity arose.

As a longtime Charlottesville resident, she understood the community intimately

and often taught new firefighters about the community and its history.

Firefighter Thompson also served as a recruiter throughout the years and often participated in Career Day events and spoke at schools.

She served as a role model to inspire and encourage female African-American youth in the area who might not have considered a career in the fire service.

Thank you, Miss Celia, for 25 years of service with the Charlottesville Fire Department and to the City of Charlottesville community.

You will truly be missed.

Chief Baxter is already up.

Let's give her another round of applause.

Thank you.

I tried to leave the same way I came in without any fanfare.

There were others that were not willing to let that happen.

So again, to City Hall,

Now you see why they're hiring.

Ms. Celia, you may not know this, but really quickly, you retired very quietly.

You didn't tell anyone.

And I had to have a fire thing replaced at my home.

What was it?

A smoke detector.

Smoke detector, yeah.

There we go.

Dr. Bellamy needs to work on some of these terms.

had to have a smoke detector replaced at my home.

And the gentleman who came, I'm not going to point them out.

I'm not going to point their elbows.

They're over there.

There you go.

They came and they said, it is imperative that we make sure we recognize you because you have truly been a pioneer as well as an individual who is well respected.

And they were adamant that we show you some love.

So it's not just city council or community members, but I think it says a whole lot when your colleagues make sure and they want to ensure that you deserve the proper recognition.

So again, thank you for all you're doing.

The Rivanna River Renaissance Conference and River Festival.

At the end of this month, we are co-hosting a series of events to celebrate and involve the public in the care and protection of the Rivanna River.

On Friday, September 29th, the conference will be held at the Albemarle County Office Building.

Come learn about the river and all the great things that are happening in our community around the river.

Registration for this event can be found via eventbright.com.

On Saturday, September 30th, the Rivanna River Festival will be held.

Join us at Riverview Park and Darden Tow Park for a day of river events, such as a 5K run, biking and floating, as well as food, music and art.

This free festival will consist of two components, Rockin' the River with River Safety Demo Parade of Boats, Water Quality Monitoring Demos,

River related exhibits, and Flow, featuring local artists, musicians, and dancers along the Rivanna and its trails.

We look forward to celebrating and sharing this beautiful river and welcome you to join the fun.

The Dialogue on Race.

The Citywide Dialogue on Race will begin next week.

If you haven't signed up to participate, there is still time.

The Dialogue on Race is a City of Charlottesville initiative that began in 2009.

The community of Charlottesville came together in courageous conversations that led to creation of the City of Promise Education Group, the Chamber Diversity Business Council, the Human Rights Commission, and the Office of Human Rights, just to name a few.

Call 9703023 or email dialogue at charlottesville.org to sign up for the Tuesday discussion groups, September 26th, October 3rd and November 14th.

Or the Saturday discussion groups, September 30th, October 7th and November 11th.

All of the discussion groups will be held at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

Thank you.

And Ms. Galvin, I do have two other real quick announcements.

I was waiting to see if anyone had them assigned to them.

Thank you.

Please join us on the downtown mall and surrounding streets for the first annual street fair and sidewalk sale.

Retailers will stay open late on Thursday evening with sales and specials.

On Friday and Saturday, stores will bring their bargains outside for a sidewalk sale and restaurants will set up outdoor kiosks to offer small and portable bites.

So that's the first announcement.

So I'll see you downtown on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

And also just wanted to express a thank you on behalf of the city to the Dave Matthews Band and Red Light Management for the concert that they're hosting on the 24th.

It's been an amazing process.

I know that there have been some

worries about people who want tickets and haven't been able to get tickets.

I'm hoping that more and more tickets will become available.

If you feel that you should have gotten a ticket and haven't, you can contact the city if you'd like.

We can see if we can help you.

But there's more demand for this than there are seats in the stadium.

But we are delighted that they are doing this on behalf of the city or for the city as a gift.

Thank you.

My apologies to those who are here for the 150th anniversary of the African American suffrage in Virginia.

Again, I'm sorry I didn't see the resolution, but very briefly if you don't mind.

So we do have a resolution where it reads, whereas with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln,

On January 1, 1863, followed by the end of the American Civil War in April 1865, enslaved African men, women, and children were freed from the degradation of human slavery, and whereas Congress in 1867 put the states that had succeeded from the Union, including Virginia, under military control,

and required them to reconstitute their state governments, hold constitutional conventions, establish new constitutions, and ratify the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution as a condition of readmission into the Union.

Whereas Congress mandated that elections and conventions to rewrite state constitutions be open to all males regardless of race, but excluding former Confederate leaders and that the new state constitutions provide voting rights for men without regard to race.

whereas according to Virginia Memory, a historical database of the Library of Virginia, freedmen registered to vote in Virginia and 93,145 voted in that election that began on October 22, 1867 on whether to hold a constitutional convention into elect representatives to that convention whereas in October 1867,

Twenty-five African American men were elected to the 1867 and 1868 Virginia Constitutional Convention to create the fifth of Virginia's seven state constitutions, and whereas the Fifth Amendment prohibits states from denying citizens the right to vote due to race, color, or previous condition of servitude, whereas the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center

has planned an event on September 27 entitled, I Challenge This House, 150th Anniversary of African American Suffrage in Virginia, to look back on that occasion with an evening of lectures inspired by that October 1867 vote.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council commemorates the 150th anniversary of African American suffrage in Virginia.

and urges all residents who are eligible to vote to register, update their registration whenever they move and to regularly exercise their right to vote.

Fitting words for the time that we are in today.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Bellamy.

And the next part of the evening is to get the report from our city manager, his response to last meeting's questions.

Thank you, Chancellor Galvin.

Yeah, there were a couple of items that were raised at the last city council meeting I just wanted to provide an update on.

First, there were a number of questions that were raised about the independent review of the events this summer.

As you mentioned, Mr. Tim Haffey

is conducting a comprehensive review for the city at the same time that a task force is reviewing the state's response.

We believe that the full review will take several months.

However, Mr. Hafey and I have discussed the possibility of coming before the council in the next few weeks to discuss where he is with the review.

and to provide an update on any issues that he feels he is at liberty to address at that time.

So we are working at a way to provide an update to council before the full review is completed later on this year.

Also, several residents spoke about affordable housing.

As I reported at the last city council meeting, the city has invested in affordable housing both on an annual basis with $2.4 million

in this year's budget and $3.6 million slated for next year and as special opportunities have presented themselves, for instance, the crossings at Preston and 4th Street.

We're also seeking council action tonight on several affordable housing initiatives and we'll be coming back to the council in October to formally approve a significant investment, $900,000 in a rental assistance voucher program and the creation of a land bank corporation

That includes outreach to low-income residents

We will be working with the coalition, the Housing Authority, Piedmont Housing Alliance and FAR to reach out to low-income residents to hear from them and have their voices heard as we're developing future affordable housing opportunities here in the city.

Oh, and one other issue that Councillor Fenwick raised concerning the Field House at Tonsler Park.

Just wanted to provide a clarification on that.

We have put money into the budget to build the Field House at Tonsler Park.

We have $750,000 currently in this fiscal year.

Another $750,000 will be available in fiscal year 19.

That would represent the $1.5 million that City Council put aside for the

Thank you very much.

Do any other Councils have any other comments?

As we did last time, we're going to have a public hearing to talk about the events of the summer, especially August 11th and 12th.

It was a very traumatic event in our community.

A lot of people have wanted to

have things changed.

They've wanted to see responses from the city and get information from the city.

And so we have heard you, we have listened.

I think that there are still people who have new things to say as well as say things again if they don't feel that we've heard them the first time.

So I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that everyone will get a chance to speak who wants to speak.

There will be the rules that we always have, so no cussing, no interruption, no speaking out of turn.

Everyone will have three minutes to speak during this public hearing.

If you can make your comments in less than three, I'm sure that other people will appreciate it, but you have three if you need them.

The timer here will help you keep track of time.

The green light goes on at three minutes, the yellow light when you have 30 seconds left, and red light means you're done.

So I've talked with my fellow counselors, and we're comfortable with folks sharing their time.

But please come up and announce that it's your time and that you are sharing it and with whom you plan to share it.

If someone breaks any of these rules or if they keep going after their three minutes are over, I'll give them a chance to stop and stay in the room.

If someone continues or if it happens again, I will ask them to leave the meeting.

And if they need help leaving, our sergeant at arms can help them out.

And if someone has to be escorted from the room, which I hope will not happen, they won't be allowed to return this evening.

We have these rules so that everyone can have a chance to address city council without fear of being bullied or drowned out, and so that we can focus on what you've come to say.

So I think we're fine for the fire marshal.

I think most of the crowd was actually firefighters.

So three minutes each, one turn per person.

You might want to line up if there are a lot of people who wish to speak to make it go a little bit more efficiently.

Is there anyone who wishes to address the council?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

There were four names already on the list.

OK, that was your question.

So Lawton Tufts is the first name.

Is Lawton Tufts in the room?

Is Lawton Tufts in the hall?

All right.

I want to say thank you Oceanside for the beautiful tapestry, but this beautiful tapestry is not placed in the proper place.

All you need is love.

Where is the love for your city May, June, July, and August as you've known the answers for all this time and you have had plenty of info to stop it.

Parks and Rec, Judge Moore, City Council, Police Chief Thomas, UVA,

I've known that y'all have had plenty of strategies and meetings with state police on the reserve.

I actually got to watch them tour the city, but it seems to me it was a waste of time.

All we need is love.

You're promising to citizens weeks ago that now it's been more than a month and a half of not having answers.

It's going to take 90 days for the answers that you already knew, and you didn't respond properly to the citizens.

Hurt versus Love.

So where was the love?

You send this lawyer of yours, Tim Heafey, who has been a lawyer with the city for years, which is a conflict of interest.

Now you want to use him as an independent investigator to ask questions of the city, expecting answers, expecting us to answer him to do your dirty work.

Please, do we look dumb to you as you do to us, the citizens of Charlottesville?

You want us to heal, but we're healing ourselves as a whole.

We can't trust how you feel because you're on the fence, bipolar actions toward the citizens.

You know and you knew, stop paying Tim Heafy.

It doesn't benefit the citizens' well-being.

because too many people are wasting taxpayers' money.

You continue to lie, lie, lie, and tell more lies, test the lie.

Tell us the truth now.

Charlottesville citizens, we demand and deserve it.

Judge Moore resigned, Jones, Signer, Galvin, Fenwick, Szakos, you're already done.

Emily Gerensky.

Emily, are you here?

All right.

I'm Mary Carey and I'm a resident in Charlottesville.

I wrote something, but I decided not to read it after what Mr. Bellamy said about the Emancipation Proclamation.

I feel like that park shouldn't be named Emancipation.

You should change that name.

Like I said, this is the fourth time.

That is the worst name to put on a park

while a Confederate general is still there who fought to keep slaves.

And then you're going to name a park emancipation while he's there.

What are you going to do when you remove him?

Still going to be emancipation?

Sure, because it's a law of the land.

But anyway, I like to say that you say a lot of kids watch this meeting.

They sure do.

because a little boy walked up to me and wanted to know the same thing I just asked y'all.

What is the Confederate General doing in a park named Emancipation?

Now his family has taught him black history like mine taught me.

So evidently somebody that named that park forgot where the priorities were.

So I'm saying it's demeaning, it's disrespectful, it's mean-spirited.

and are you going to, is this a reflection from Jim Crow?

Because that's what put Lee there in the first place is that you put the emancipation there so that when Lee do leave, you still got emancipation to make the black people remember Jim Crow.

Is that the significance of the name?

A lot of questions you need to answer.

I don't think y'all can.

because evidently you haven't gotten to the US history, which is black history.

Understand and believe.

Because these kids coming up there ain't no joke.

And they believe in everything that they see out here.

And you talking about getting Charlottesville back together?

You better get that name off Mark Street along with Lee.

All right, one more chance for Lawton Tufts or Emily Gorchinski.

All right, so would anyone else like to speak to counsel?

There will be another public matters at the end.

Hello, everyone.

Hey.

So I just want to say that I'm very disappointed that the city decided to go with Tim Haffey.

First off, this city has a long-standing relationship with him from criminal charges on individuals that are from Charlottesville.

So he's worked closely with the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, the Jay Task Force, as well as the city of Charlottesville Police Department.

So that's a conflict of interest no matter how you try to paint the picture.

The other thing that I'm very upset about is also learning in the meeting and speaking with him

is that if you guys give him information to not disclose, he's not gonna disclose it and this information will not be available via FOIA Act.

So that's kind of a slap in the face to the citizens.

Like I said it before, I'm gonna say it again, and I don't know, I think I've made myself very clear to people on an individual basis, I will not help you guys look better.

That's not what the citizens wanna do.

Like it's not our job.

to do your job at this point.

I mean, you guys know you dropped the ball somewhere.

What you going to do to correct that?

Who knows?

But getting that man to do what you call an independent investigation.

It's definitely not independent.

It's a conflict of interest.

You should have got somebody outside of this region to do that investigation, somebody that has no direct connection with any of the city government entities, whether it be the police department, the Jay Task Force, the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

or city manager or city attorney.

To try to pull a wool over our eyes, it's really not going to work at this time.

We already been dealing with enough, the lies, the police, not doing nothing on August 12th.

Then when you see them in the street and you talk to them about it, they get offended like, are you telling me I didn't do my job?

Dude, I didn't stutter.

You didn't.

Somebody died at the hands of you guys.

So I kind of feel bad because we've been really

really like giving a great to the city council members.

So I'm going to excuse y'all this meeting.

OK, y'all excuse.

But the fact is for you guys to even go and hire this man like it's really independent.

Be real with the citizens.

We ask for transparency and y'all still refusing to give it to us.

Like we I mean, if we go if we trying to fix this, you got to fix it.

You can't sugarcoat it.

You can't cut corners.

You can't halfway do your job.

You gotta do it right or don't do it at all.

And if y'all don't wanna do it, then guess what?

Just leave.

I respect y'all more saying, look, I don't want to deal with this.

I'm just going to leave.

I'm going to walk away from it.

Because all y'all got a life outside the city council.

Like, for real, they don't pay y'all enough to be dealing with us yelling at y'all all day and night.

So I mean, if you don't want to do it, like, for real, just leave.

And then let the city attorney or the city managers or whoever decide to stay, let them deal with it.

Ms. Hudson, so what would you suggest that we do?

Not have Tim Heafey do an investigation that's clearly not independent.

He's not independent.

What's independent?

If Mike Signer would have said, Tanisha, go and pull Mr. Bellamy tweets.

First off, there's a conflict when I know you, and I done responded on some of the daggone tweets.

So at the end of the day, you see what I'm saying?

That's a conflict.

This man has worked with this city on more than one occasion.

Louis Antonio Brown case to be exact.

And to sit in my face, somebody that grew up in Hardy Drive, and say you're gonna get the facts?

Dude, you ain't even get the facts in that case and that man got two life sentences in ten years.

Come on.

Facts matter.

Facts matter.

So we're going to go off of facts.

He clearly didn't go off of facts in a case from 2005 where everything was made up.

And one of the officers that was deeply involved sat right in this hallway and told me that he never was the investigating officer, that the officer resigned after the first mistrial.

And this man still went on with this case.

He can't do that.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Dave Gamondi.

I'm right on the other side of the city line in Albemarle County.

I do want to pick up on some good points that Sister Tanisha made.

Because Mr. Fenwick was on the TV bemoaning that too few people have been contacting Tim Haffey.

And the reason is it's not going to necessarily lead to charges.

That's not necessarily a criminal investigation.

The gentleman also donated to Mr. Signer's campaign onto this council and now is recouping that at $545 an hour.

Someone on this day has also let it slip last week that the entire report may not be made public due to attorney-client privilege, but the client is the city which means that the client is us.

So that's another reason not to divulge information that's going to go into reports from nowhere.

Couple other facts that we need to talk about is this tarp that's being removed repeatedly, yet the police cannot find a charge against these people.

Come on, you stop and frisk all the time with no charges, no reason to harass people.

Can we stop and frisk the people removing the tarp?

I mean, police are excellent at finding bogus charges against poor people and brown people and black people.

That's an example of white privilege, by the way.

If brown people and black people were pulling down the tarps, the police would be hassling them.

A welcoming city, also, I really hope, and I do mean this seriously, that the welcoming committee goes and visits DeAndre Harris.

Let's talk about DeAndre Harris for a little bit.

Three people got arrested attacking Kessler.

One was for spitting on him, one was a woman tackling him.

Two people who bloodied DeAndre Harris have been arrested.

The others have not been identified.

We owe a great deal of credit to a journalist named Sean King, an out-of-state journalist, who today tweeted he wants to know why he's doing the police's job in the city and the state.

I think the man deserves a paycheck.

He's the one who single-handedly is using social media to identify the attackers.

When he talks to city police, they have no more information than he has.

He's a man doing this in his spare time at 3 a.m. online.

When FBI talks to him, they have no more information.

He's the one who's leading to the arrest and to the identification of these white supremacist murderers and killers and attackers.

He just identified another one.

His name is Dennis Mothersbaugh.

He punched a woman in the face.

That woman said that CPD, Seville Police, had not spoken to her.

Sean King spoke to that woman today and she said that Seville Police had not spoken to her and she got punched in the face.

What's going on?

People think, and then the governor and a bunch of you all said that these people came from out of state on August 12th.

We have an element of white supremacy in the Seeville police force that we need to talk about.

That's why no one wants to talk to Haefi.

Nobody wants to talk to Haefi because we saw that Al Thomas, for whatever reason, doesn't have the command of the police force.

They went on strike on August 12th, and Haefi's not going to be able to undo that.

I see my time's running out, but I'll meet with you all in two weeks.

Mr. Fogel?

Good evening, my name is Jeffrey Fogel.

And I also want to hone in on Mr. Heafey.

Many people may not know how Mr. Heafey was chosen.

Mr. Heafey solicited this job.

And he starts out his letter saying to the two of you, thank you for your leadership during these difficult times.

Well, a fair number of people have questioned the leadership of the city during those difficult times, but not Mr. Haffey.

I appreciate all you've done to provide calm voices of reason in the midst of this tumult.

Well, it would seem to me that increased tumult was caused by the interplay between those two particular people.

There is no way that this is an independent investigation.

You chose not to hire Mr. Heafey as an investigator, but as a lawyer.

If you want to know how to conduct an independent investigation, ask the United States Department of Justice when they appointed Mr. Mueller to conduct an independent investigation of the President.

He is not constrained by the lawyer-client relationship, and therefore he will publish whatever he finds.

He will indict whomever he wants to.

Mr. Efi can do nothing without your permission.

You hold the keys, and you control the process.

Now, I just happened to think that maybe there was a problem with vocabulary, so I looked up the word independent in three separate dictionaries.

First in Merriam-Webster, not dependent, not subject to control by others.

Cambridge Dictionary, not influenced or controlled by other people, but free to make your own decisions.

The Oxford Dictionary, free from outside control, not subject to another's authority.

Well, if we're using a different definition of the word independent than one is of common parlance, you should share that.

But the fact is it is not, and you know it's not, an independent investigation.

And frankly, it's a little sleazy to be using those kinds of terms when it's not the truth.

Good evening, Council and everyone else.

In case you haven't heard, the citizens of your town don't trust Tim Heafey.

or what job he may actually be allowed to do.

We deserve transparency.

We deserve answers.

And by God, I'm not sure that we're going to get them the way that this is going.

So with all expediency, I would request that you all, if you're going to still continue to go the route with Heafy,

Please don't let him wait 90 days, 120 days, 6 months, 6 years to give us any answers.

Set a deadline for him for 30 days out from this point to give us some sort of response, some sort of answers, and the response I don't know at this point is not acceptable.

Set a deadline for him to give us some concrete response as to what happened, what went wrong,

what should have happened and what we need to do moving forward.

Your citizenry deserved this and anything less than that is unacceptable.

And while we're conducting investigations, I think that someone, God bless Dave Matthews and his band and everyone who has signed on for this concert, but someone needs to do an independent investigation on how these tickets were dispersed.

You have people here who were directly hurt because of what happened on A11 and A12.

And these people signed up for tickets and they couldn't get them.

Yet we hear that people in Lynchburg, in Danville, in Pennsylvania are getting tickets.

Something's not right about this, especially when they made the statement that the citizens of Charlottesville would get first priority.

So something doesn't quite smell right about this too.

And I'm starting to wonder if the Justice Department have their hands in this as well.

But you've got people who should be and who are deserving of being able to go to that concert if we're really interested in healing.

If that's really what we're looking to do and if that's what they're looking to do.

God bless the students over at UVA.

I love them.

But many of them have tickets, and they were nowhere near around on that weekend.

Now, if we want to make sure that UVA students get tickets, let's make sure that those ones who guarded the monument over there on the 11th get those tickets.

Please, this is just another step in the healing process.

And everyone knows what's wrong and what needs to be corrected.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

All right.

Thank you.

Any responses from council?

I will offer just one wording thing that I think

I hear the critique of the choice of Tim Heafey, and I think that's something we'll need to discuss at length, but it has not been promoted or described as an independent investigation.

And Council Szakos, I do have a comment to make.

As I had made the request at the last meeting on September 5th, I am now asking again of our city manager that we get an interim report that is actually filled with answers to the questions that the community has.

and that I appreciate from your report that we are going to get an update, but we need some answers to some very big questions without being the full-fledged report.

I think that we can have two separate tracks.

I don't know how my colleagues feel, but we must push for transparency.

I hear our community

and I just have to ask that again.

Well, I think as I mentioned before, Mr. Athey will come before the council and we'll have a discussion about that, provide an update on where we are and how to deliver an interim update.

There's a community a community engagement

process that the Community Engagement Office of the Department of Justice did.

There's a state task force that's been assigned by the governor.

And that task force is also looking into the events of this summer as well.

Do we have a date for that?

For finalization, I guess is what I'm saying.

That's correct.

That's the full review.

And what Councilor Galvin is asking for is kind of an interim report.

And do we have a date for the state review?

I think they said by the end of November.

Is it too late to talk?

Actually, I'm happy to reopen the public hearing if you'd like to say something.

Thank you.

I'm Amelia Brown.

I'm city of Charlottesville.

I hear everybody asking you, can you change this?

Bob, we've got the hearing open.

Is there anybody else?

OK, closing the public hearing.

Could we explore the possibility?

I mean, we hear the community saying that.

So is that possible for us to do?

Or could we answer to those questions?

I think, at the very minimum, they deserve to hear whether or not that's possible.

I know there's contracts.

And there was another idea that was at the beginning of this that a couple of us talked about, which was having some sort of commission that would be involved with this at some level, either as a review or as developing the questions.

There have been different commissions in the

that have had a degree of independence separate from who actually does the function of the investigation.

And if you have appointees who are members of commission, they can provide.

Like somebody suggested to me in the wake of the Rodney King incident, there was a commission.

There have been different commissions.

And those can, depending on how especially you put them together, they can add a real level of independence and validation of the findings.

And they can say, go back and look at it again.

And so that was something that we had talked about a little bit, but this was all

I would like to ask that, excuse me, I'd like to ask that for our October 2nd meeting which is our next meeting.

that we put that on the agenda and discuss kind of what other options there are for a commission.

I think it isn't on the agenda today.

We don't have all that information in front of us, but I think it's a reasonable thing to ask.

Are there other counselors who'd like to join in?

Counsel Zegers, I just would like to say, though, that I don't want to delay what Mr. Haffey is doing, because right now there is that is the person we've got and there is some collection of information going on.

and everyone wants answers sooner versus later.

So I do think a middle ground though would be to have a citizen review commission that is gonna be also looking at some results.

If that is possible, I would like to support that so that there is trust built into the process with Mr. Hafee given that there is some question about his ability to be detached from our local police force and investigative units.

So I don't want to slow what we've got going down.

I want answers and I want to get some credibility back.

And it does sound like having a citizen review commission built into this process right now might be the way to go.

So we'll add that to the October 2nd agenda.

But there may be other ideas that people have in the two weeks between now and then about what else we ought to ask about this process.

Good evening once again.

So now we will proceed with the matters of the public, the rules of the meeting.

It has already been read.

So we will proceed with the first person who was selected.

And I will gavel us into this section of the meeting.

Ms. Andrea Negrete, please come up.

My name is Andrea Negrete.

I live in Charlottesville and I'm here to comment on the DACA resolution.

Since announcing his run for president, Donald Trump has waged war on the immigrant community.

He has engaged in Islamophobic, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric.

His call to build a wall, his efforts to recruit police departments to enforce immigration laws, his pardoning of Joe Arpaio who engaged in racial profiling of Latinx individuals, and his most recent action to end DACA sends a clear message to people who look like me.

We don't want you here.

You don't belong.

These actions are part of this administration's white supremacy agenda to further silence and do harm to black and brown bodies.

I appreciate your call for all institutions in Charlottesville and Albemarle County to come together to urge Congress to pass the DREAM Act for the permanent protection of undocumented youth.

While those actions are needed, they won't help our undocumented community today.

We need Charlottesville to step up and put forth real policies that will protect all members of our undocumented community now.

It's time to move beyond symbolic gestures and to set forth concrete policies that will protect members of our community today.

I urge the City Council to join other city governments from across the country by making all government services available to everyone regardless of immigration status.

I urge you to prohibit city government, including police department, from any cooperation with ICE or enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Our local jails do not have to and should not be honoring ICE detention requests.

A broken tail light or getting stopped by a random checkpoint can get someone deported and separate children from their parents.

In the state of Virginia, if you don't have papers, you don't have a license.

Not having an ID creates barriers to driving and access to other services.

Other cities with similar state laws such as New Haven, Connecticut have provided city identification cards that allow people to identify as a city resident or employee.

Localities that pass such policies are more safe than those that adopt xenophobic and anti-immigrant policies.

The state of New York, for example, has also put forth a public legal defense fund to help folks get legal representation who aren't documented.

I feel like our city can do more and should do more in order to really call themselves a welcoming city.

Next up, Toni Juppe.

Toni Juppe, excuse me, I may have mispronounced it.

Is Toni possibly in the overflow room?

Is that Tony?

OK, we will come back to Tony.

Next up, Missy Wernstrom.

I put down that I wanted to speak about Cherry Avenue, but it's really more specific than that.

I wanted to speak about, and I know you've already mentioned this, Mr. Jones, the Tonsler Field House.

There's a lot of change going on in the city at large, but there's also an enormous amount of change in Fifeville, and I realize I'm part of that change, for better or worse, so it's maybe a little awkward that I'm up here, but Tonsler Park is very important to the community, always has been, and I think the city-making

An emotional and financial commitment to Tonsler Park would really go a long way towards easing some of the concerns about the direction of Fifeville.

I think affordable housing would do really a lot more as well, but I know that you guys know that.

Anyway, I just appreciate anything that you guys can do to kind of hurry this process along.

I know that Cherry Avenue was picked as, you know, an area of development and I think that's absolutely great.

because there's really a lot that could be done there, and the university is not always the greatest neighbor.

Thank you.

Timothy Baldwin.

Timothy Baldwin.

OK. Mr. Jeffrey Fogel.

Not to be repetitive, my name is Jeffrey Fogel.

I live here in the city.

I want to commend Mr. Bellamy for bringing up the issue of Indigenous Peoples Day.

It's long overdue and it's highly appropriate.

And while I was thinking about that matter, I think it's important for people to note, particularly in light of the president of the university referring to a statute and the grounds as sacred ground, what it was that Thomas Jefferson had to say about Native Americans.

and it's no secret.

We only have to look at the Declaration of Independence where he referred to merciless Indian savages.

Put the word Muslim in there

and you understand in your own ways why you would have thrown Thomas Jefferson out of this room for having said that.

But Jefferson went beyond that and called for the extermination of Native Americans, the extermination of an entire race of people.

Now we're talking about Nazis.

Now it is very difficult to have respect.

I don't care whether he was a renaissance man or not, which apparently he was and there were things about him that are interesting.

but to be a person not only that was we already knew who was a racist, who was a slave holder, who was a rapist that he was also believed in the extermination of a race of people.

It's simply intolerable to think of a person like that with any moral credibility at all.

And I think people ought to know that it's true.

It may well be true about others of our founders as well.

And so this great reverence for our past is something that in many ways is an American myth.

And it's time that we expose the truth about who the founders of our country were and about who plundered this nation

who plundered the peoples of the native peoples, who brought people here in slaves, who profited from it, and who've never paid back even, even the wages that they withheld from people.

Next up we have Lacey Weeks.

Lacey Weeks, Carol Thorpe,

And Ms. Storpe has also requested to share her time with Mr. Joe Thomas.

Spinal degeneration is not fun.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joe.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Carol Thorpe, and I'm a resident of Albemarle County.

Back in the day when I had a little more energy and a little better health, I was chair of the Jeffersonary Tea Party.

I'm chair emeritus, which is an active title, although the group isn't quite as active as it used to be.

And I think for city council that might be a good thing because lord knows you have your hands full as it is.

I've been watching this fiasco and it is a fiasco.

From the very beginning I watch all the council meetings, I watch them to the end.

I'm up late nights like you guys are.

And you couldn't have screwed this up worse.

You just couldn't have screwed it up worse.

And there's a lot of people in this room on a regular basis with whom I disagree on a lot of things.

But I think we all can find common ground in one thing.

You deserve a lot better government than what you've been getting.

And I sincerely hope that the people in Charlottesville, although

your options are self-limited a little bit by the fact that folks from other parties feel like they can't run here or they won't win, and so your choices are limited.

But this is what happens when any political party, not just all Democrat, all Republican, would be the same.

But when one political party controls as much as they do, puts all of us in a position of weakness.

And so I hope that there's a lesson here to be learned.

And as you said, I'd like to share my time with Joe Thomas.

Thank you, Carol.

And against popular opinion, I did not buy her time on Craigslist.

I want to say something that may be surprising to this body.

I'm going to thank you for something in a moment.

But first, I'm going to point out that we've heard a lot of people talk about not listening.

Commissions are held, commissions.

I've lived here 10 years in the city.

And commissions are formed, and commissions report, and commissions are ignored.

Just recently I was at the Chamber Job Summit and there were no members of city council there, while 25% of the population can't find a job that pays $30,000 a year.

Yet you vote to increase their rents.

You vote to increase the property taxes on their employers, in some cases $50,000, which is a pretty good salary in Charlottesville.

You vote to increase their utility bills.

So before I say thank you for something, I'm going to be critical of the fact that when the talk is being made, you say a lot of nice things, but when the votes are cast, they don't match up with what you say.

I didn't expect that.

Now is where I'm going to thank you.

We've watched the devastation in Houston and in the Gulf Coast of Florida from something that not even Homeland Security could have warned their citizens about.

So it's with that that we're trying to find a way to raise money for those victims and I want to thank the Vice Mayor for providing us with the opportunity when he suggested that we take our hats.

My listeners have been sending hats into the radio station.

I probably shouldn't have brought this one.

in and we are going to auction these off for charity and the money we raised we're going to send to the Salvation Army in belief but we are going to leave these two created by our friend Ashton who created these two hats especially for the vice mayor if you'd like them one says compromise and one says respect on them.

Thank you.

Next up, David O'Shine.

David O'Shine.

OK. Also, we'll have Bethany Hurley.

That's right.

Hi, I'm Bethany Hurley.

I reside at 414 Oak Street in Charlottesville.

My name is Edgar Lara.

I live in Charlottesville, and I work with Sin Barreras or Without Barriers, a Charlottesville-based nonprofit working to support, educate, and empower the immigrant community regardless of status, but focusing on the Hispanic population in our greater area.

We have partnered with the city on various initiatives over the last five years, including participation in

the declaration of Charlottesville as a welcoming city, hosting various police outreach events, welcoming week activities, and Civo Sabroso this past weekend, Charlottesville's only Latin American music and dance festival.

We are pleased to support the city's proposed resolution relief for DACA youth, many of whom are our clients, and promoting a path to citizenship for them.

The undocumented community has contributed to the American way of life

since long before the laws that supposedly make them illegal were put in place.

This community makes our state, our city, our country better in so many ways.

If we hope to build bridges with this community and gain full access to all it has to offer, the dreamers are the ones that will lead the way, not only for the community that they come from, but for our entire society.

This shouldn't even be a debate.

because we need them desperately now and for our future.

Cimbereras looks forward to working with the city on concrete steps to fully participate in our community without fear and realize our potential.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, Miss, excuse me, Virginia Luna.

Good evening.

My name is Virginia Luna and I'm a resident here of Charlottesville.

I work as a child care provider and I live here as well.

I am also a member of the Baha'i Faith and I'm here tonight representing the Baha'is of Charlottesville and our community is celebrating the 200th birthday of our prophet and founder named Bahá'u'lláh.

We will be having a festival to celebrate his birthday next month in October and I'm here to invite the community and the larger Charlottesville area to attend.

Baha'u'llah wrote in the 1800s, ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch.

Baha'u'llah worked his entire life to spread the message of peace, love and unity and that we are all one human family.

The Festival of Unity and Light will have a film screening of Baha'u'llah's life and work, as well as music and refreshments.

The festival is open to the public and its purpose is to bring together people from all different backgrounds, from any religious or non-religious, in a spirit of healing and companionship.

The Light of Unity Festival will be held at Piedmont College Dickinson Theatre on Sunday, October 22nd at 3pm.

and I would just like to offer this booklet as a gift from the Baha'is of Charlottesville and just read this to close.

And no other country is the promise of organic unity more immediately demonstrable than in the United States because it is a microcosm of the diverse populations of the earth.

And I'll just leave the booklet here that I read from the vision of race unity from the Baha'is

as well as an invitation.

And that is open to the community as well.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Cliff Hall.

Cliff Hall.

That we do, sir.

Cliff Hall, City of Charlottesville resident.

June 4th, I lost my fiancée and we were to be married September 1st.

And part of the healing and mourning process, I'd just like to talk about her.

I met her when I was 17 and she was 15.

I met her at the Kaplan SCT prep class and she was the first one in the door.

I was the second in the door.

Once I met those grayish green eyes, I said, you're gorgeous.

And seven minutes later, after edifying her, she wrote on a note, my name's Sarah.

This is my pager.

This is my home number.

Page me first.

When you do, I'll call you, and we can

decide where we're going on our first date.

Now Sarah was effervescent, chipper, radiant.

Her disposition was just something that charged my negativity.

She was very positive, and I tended to be very negative.

And she was my soulmate, my lover, my best friend.

Take your time, man.

When I was 17, two months into dating, she got pregnant.

We got pregnant.

And Sarah was very wise for her age.

Her wisdom was just far beyond her years.

Two weeks prior to finding out,

I had purchased a engagement ring, a Till Green Dolphin six studded ring, and it had been in my glove compartment for two weeks.

And she called me up and said, I'm taking you out tonight.

We're getting takeout, we're going somewhere, and we're going to talk.

She said, by the way, you can finally give me the engagement ring that's sitting in your glove compartment box.

So we got Subway, went to McIntyre Park, and we chatted.

She said, you can get me the ring.

I haven't looked at it yet.

But I can tell you, if we were in our 30s, I would say yes, we're not.

So I got the ring, showed it to her, and she said I'll accept it as a promise ring.

Two months later, we lost a kid and the relationship changed, but the fire and passion were there.

When I was in my 20s, we reacquainted.

Unfortunately, at that time, Sarah was an alcoholic.

And after about 10 dates, I said to her,

I love you.

I don't love the alcohol.

At that time, I said, you know, Sarah, I've always said, like Texa told them, I'm all in for a lifetime.

I said, if you can try and overcome your alcoholism, I'm all in for a lifetime.

At that point, she couldn't do it.

Forward.

Three years ago, she called me up, sent me a text.

She said, remember the ring?

Well, it's on my finger.

Now, the caveat to this situation is, previously, she was, two weeks earlier, she was arrested at work for a drunken public.

She was court ordered to mandatory rehab.

And I went and saw her that weekend.

she had to take care of herself, her sobriety.

The next time I saw her was September of 2016.

Thank you.

We got back together and after that the plan was to get married September 1st.

So my soulmate, my lover, my best friend, I will miss you forever and ever.

Our condolences, Mr. Hall.

And thank you for your bravery for sharing that story.

Can we give Brother Hall a round of applause, please?

If you don't mind.

Thank you, Mr. Hall.

Next up, we have Miss Annie Stu.

Am I pronouncing it correct?

Hi, my name is Annie Stupp.

I'm here to advocate for more affordable housing and home ownership opportunities in Charlottesville.

I am both personally and professionally very committed to this issue.

And just this morning I learned that the city staff have recommended to council that the city's affordable housing fund support only two projects.

Both of these are rental projects, one of which is a rehab, and they are both in the same neighborhood.

while they are very worthy and very important projects this really does very little to increase the amount of affordable housing in Charlottesville to break up concentrations of poverty and to fight segregation based on race and income and I think we can all agree after the events of the summer and the long history of these issues in Charlottesville that racial segregation and racial justice is something we really need to pay attention to at this point and housing is a

very critical way of addressing this.

So I ask that the council reconsiders the staff's recommendation and fully funds all the projects and honestly allocates far more funding to affordable housing.

Overall in Charlottesville, and especially towards home ownership opportunities for low income communities.

We need to preserve affordable home ownership through rehab and repair, such as through AHIP, which is not going to be funded.

And most importantly, we need to increase the number of affordable home ownership opportunities available.

to all communities, such as through Habitat for Humanity.

Charlottesville is a majority rental housing market.

The rate of African-American homeownership has drastically decreased over the past decade, at least.

Prices are rising, and a lot of longtime residents are being displaced.

But we know that affordable homeownership is critical to enabling low-income families of vulnerable populations to build wealth, to break the cycle of poverty,

to improve access to opportunities for their families.

And we need more mixed income, racially integrated neighborhoods that's really critical to healing this community.

I think we can all agree on that.

We need kids and families of all different backgrounds coming together, building understanding so that we don't repeat the events of this summer and repeat the history of this town.

And I think that it's really critical because all families

deserve the same opportunities that the most affluent of this community can access.

And Charlottesville is full of opportunities and full of affluence.

So if we're really committed, if you are really actually committed to racial and economic justice in Charlottesville, we need to provide access to opportunity for affordable housing and especially home ownership.

need to allocate far more funding to the Affordable Housing Fund.

I know a lot of people have left.

But if you do support affordable housing, can you please stand up?

This is a really critical issue.

And most importantly, we need to listen to the community.

We need to listen to populations who are really in need.

And so I ask that you all stay for the next two speakers.

Next up, we have Ms. Luisa.

Do I start?

OK.

Yes, please.

Hi, my name is Luisa Candelario.

I'm here today on a different issue.

The issue today is about affordable housing fund.

I learned today that the recommendation is to zero out

funding for home ownership.

As a citizen of Charlottesville, I strongly urge you to dedicate a portion of your housing fund allocation to affordable home ownership.

And I'm here because I'm a Habitat homeowner.

Five years ago I bought a house on Sunrise Park Lane.

Sunrise Park used to be a trailer park.

It's the first in the nation to be rebuilt as a

as a community of townhomes and a co-op, but it's the first in the nation to be able to do this without gentrifying the neighborhood and displacing the residents.

Many of the residents that were there forever, for over 20 years and more, who are now still living there, and they were provided homes through Habitat for Humanity.

Habitat for Humanity is very close to my heart because I've never dreamed of owning a home.

and now I have one.

My parents are immigrants and they came here for an American dream and I got their American dream that they came here for and I would not have had it without Habitat.

When I talk about Habitat, my heart races and my voice quivers because it just means so much to me.

I don't have to, with Habitat for Humanity, we don't have to rely on programs from social services such as Section 8.

We now can say goodbye to those days.

Now if I'm no longer restricted by poverty, my credit score has raised.

I'm now a citizen who can do so much more with this home.

And I would love for other people to have that opportunity.

If we only have the opportunities to rent places, how do we grow?

We need to own homes.

And Habitat is there for people who have never imagined that they could ever own a home.

My children can now proudly say that they live in a house.

I came from New York.

under a lot of poverty in New York.

My situation there was not very good.

And I came here, lived here in the county for a few years.

And once I came to the city, not only did I help to develop that community, but that community that I live in is now mixed income.

Mixed races, mixed ages, it's extremely diverse and it's just the best thing that's ever happened to me and I think that it should be available to so many others.

I believe that you should allocate a portion of the funding to home ownership.

Home ownership is important in getting people off of situations that are not good for them, getting people in the right direction to be able to prosper.

Hello to your feisty sons, who I'm sure are watching.

Next up, we'll have Miss Shamora Cooper.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Shamora Cooper, and I reside at 200 Burnett Street.

I also came today to speak to

Advocating funds for Habitat and for affordable housing in Charlottesville because it's such a short supply.

We need to continue to break the barriers of poverty and providing home ownership for low income and working families in Charlottesville, especially families that work at UVA housekeeping, nutrition services,

and other jobs around the city that would love to purchase a home but can't purchase a home because of the barriers and how expensive it is to live in Charlottesville.

The social needs for Habitat for Humanity is important.

Researchers have proved that children

needs safe and decent affordable homes in order to receive better education and live a healthier and happy life.

With adequate housing, families would have less trouble in maintaining their daily lives.

We all know that decent affordable housing for working class and lower class income families in Charlottesville is in short supply.

I would like to ask City Council to continue to fund Habitat as well as other affordable rental units for working and low-class families.

I have been living in Habitat, I'm now a Habitat homeowner and I've been living in my home for a year and I can see the changes in my children.

I used to, couldn't keep them in the house.

I used to couldn't keep them out the house, but now they won't come nowhere with me because they enjoy their home.

They enjoy having their private space, their own bedrooms.

They enjoy having a safe, clean, quiet community.

And I think that's important.

That's important for all of our children.

and we see all of these things that's going on in Charlottesville.

And, you know, we talk about the events that happened leading up to August 12th, but what we're not talking about is our children that suffer in our low-income communities.

Nobody wants to address the killing of people in our communities, but we expect our kids to get up every day and go to school.

You know, I think Habitat is a strong program to provide families with safe and decent affordable housing.

I don't know if y'all are aware, but I know just last year when I purchased my home, five other homeowners was able to come out of public housing and own their own home.

And I know for this year coming up, we have several public housing and Section 8 residents that's about to make the same stepping stone of becoming a homeowner.

And this is very important.

So I just will hope and pray that y'all continue to support programs like Habitat for Humanity because

Those type of programs are sustainable.

Next up, last but not least, we'll have Ms. Emily Krasinski.

I think she was on the list earlier, but she's not in.

Mrs. Amy Chapman Delaney.

And that concludes our matters by the public.

Counselor responses.

Thank you.

I have one.

Actually, the first speaker was talking about things that we can do in our community beyond the DACA resolution that we have on our consent agenda tonight.

The making of all services available to people regardless of citizenship.

and I would just be interested in hearing in Mr. Jones's next matters or responses to matters from the public, kind of what limitations there are and how we're dealing with that issue in our services.

Also, I know that I have checked about checkpoints.

I know in the county, often they do have random checkpoints where you just get stopped because they happen to be there and then if you don't have a license, you're in trouble because you get ticketed for not having a license and I do know that the city police do not do checkpoints

for various reasons, but including this.

And so that's not an issue that we are making worse.

And we have in the past talked about a city ID as a way to establish residency in the city.

We can provide you with an update on that.

As we all know, things are a little bit different in the state of Virginia versus other states in terms of what a local ID would actually do.

What we're struggling with is what it would actually provide for someone.

And one of the things that we want to be careful about is not giving them the idea that it's going to provide something more than it really could in the state of Virginia.

So that's something that we are looking into.

Well, it was good to see the young kids come back to the council meetings.

I think it's really important that the young people see what goes on here, sees the energy that our system of government has.

So I think they've all just about left by now.

All right, thank you all very much.

Thank you again everybody who comes up.

We say it every time but it takes a lot of courage to come up here no matter what you're saying and we really appreciate your feedback and comments.

We will now go to the regular business of our agenda.

We begin with our number one item on our regular agenda is the consent agenda.

Item A minutes for September 5th, 2017.

Item B, an appropriation, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 2017-2018 certified local government grant funding for Rose Hill neighborhood historic survey, $24,000, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation, victim witness assistance program grant, $250,902, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation risk management fund line of duty act insurance reimbursement, $28,200, first of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation physical year 2018 fire programs aid to locality funding appropriation, $145,343, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation Virginia homelessness solutions grant, $477,151, first of two readings.

Item G, a resolution, city sponsorship for Black Business Expo, $2,000, first of one reading.

Item H, a resolution, transfer to facilities capital projects, lump sum account for the Preston Morris Building interior improvements project, $37,000, first of one reading.

Item I, an ordinance, Stonefield gas easement, second of two readings.

I'd like to pull, but I'm asking for clarification on item F, the Virginia Homelessness Solutions Grant.

There was a question earlier from someone asking for clarification.

This item F, Virginia Homelessness Solutions Grant, there was a question in regards to what exactly were the funds going to and kind of what would the $477,000

What entity would be receiving the money?

And we can answer that question at the end of the meeting.

I mean, we can certainly pull it for I mean, it's in the document rapid rehousing prevention that would go to the haven.

Pacham is also a recipient for sheltering as part of this grant.

and then there's also a homeless management information system that will be completed through an agreement with TJAC.

So there's several different entities that would be receiving the funding for this.

Thank you.

I'm Tiara.

Okay, all right.

So you heard the question?

No.

Oh, okay.

No, no, no, it's fine.

I think City Manager Jones answered the question that was asked by someone who was here earlier.

So I think he has to do well enough.

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

OK.

I move that we adopt the consent agenda.

No, go ahead.

You can make the motion.

Oh, OK, great.

Ms. Galvin has the motion.

And I'll second.

Ms. Szakos, second.

So a resolution in support of continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, and permanent legal status for dreamers.

Whereas Charlottesville is officially recognized as a welcoming city and as a city of dreamers where people from all walks of life and from all backgrounds can bring and build their dreams, and whereas dreamers are integral to the fabric of our community, they are teachers, nurses, artists, scientists, valedictorians, members of our armed forces,

and have actively contributed to our city economically, socially and culturally.

And whereas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, provides employment authorization and protection from deportation for undocumented immigrants who entered the United States before they turned 16 and has benefited nearly 800,000 undocumented youth across the nation since it began in 2012.

And whereas in order to make the provisions of the DACA permanent,

Congress has introduced but not passed the DREAM Act, Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors.

And whereas ending the DACA program would leave 800,000 young people who now call this nation home unsure of their legal status and would lead to the loss of an estimated $1 billion in tax contributions over the next four years and $3.4 billion from U.S. gross domestic product over the next decade.

And whereas the federal administration's intention to end the DACA program causes uncertainty and fear

and endangers the future of these young people who have come forward and entrusted their government with their information and whereas the ability of youth to live and work in their communities without fear of deportation is a foundation of sound, responsible immigration policy and enables these young people to participate in and contribute to our city, now therefore be it resolved that we, the Charlottesville City Council, do hereby call on all government, business and non-profit agencies and institutions and individuals in Charlottesville and surrounding localities

All right.

Good.

OK, so we have a motion and a second.

All in favor of the consent agenda?

There's five to zero.

Okay, thank you all.

Moving on to item number two on our agenda.

This is a public hearing.

There's a public hearing sign-up sheet for this that's right in front of us.

A review of program performance and setting priorities for community development block grants.

CDBG Grants and Home Investment Partnership Funds for Program Year 2018-2019.

We've got 30 minutes allocated to this item on the agenda.

Ms. Tara Howard, Grants Coordinator with the City, will be presenting.

We have clarifying questions from Council after this.

We'll open the hearing and close the public hearing, but we will not have a vote on this matter tonight.

This is for the purpose of having the hearing and getting some questions from Council.

My name is Tiara Howard.

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

The purpose of this public hearing is to one, serve as a public forum for public comment on the fiscal year 16 consolidated annual performance evaluation report, also known as the CAPR.

And this document basically is a report that we submit to HUD

letting them know how we did with the funding and the accomplishments for the previous fiscal year.

It kind of just gives them an overview of our accomplishments.

And then the second thing we're here to do is to aid city council and staff in setting priorities for CDBG and HOME funds for fiscal year 18-19.

Goals and priorities determined as a result of this public hearing will be the framework for funding recommendations made by the CDBG and HOME task force for funding available after July of 2018.

We are uncertain currently on how much funding, if any, that the city will receive next year.

However, we will estimate based on prior year funding, given this, the city can expect to receive about $388,000 in CDBG funds and about $57,000 in HOME for the city.

Or that translates to $457,000 for the HOME consortium, which is divided amongst different, the city and a few counties.

So moving on to program performance highlights for fiscal year 16-17.

In fiscal year 16, there were 167 CDBG beneficiaries as a result of CDBG projects.

Projects included technical assistance from micro enterprises and entrepreneurs, reentry services, childcare scholarships, and had enhanced access to quality childcare and workforce development programs.

Of the 167 beneficiaries,

68% were extremely low income, 25% were low income, and then the rest were moderate income, and 81% were minorities.

Overall, CDBG accomplishments for the past four years have far exceeded the strategic plan goals from the 2013 to 2017 consolidated plan.

For home in fiscal year 16, the city completed 18 total projects including, actually that should be 12,

including 10 down payment assistant projects, one substantial rehab in construction of one rental unit.

The home consortium, for the home consortium, 29 projects were completed.

Of the 29 beneficiaries, 21% were extremely low income and 79% were low income and 72% were minorities.

I will add that all comments provided during the public hearing, I can't talk, will be captured and reported in our caper submission.

The full document is located on the city's website and there is a link to the document in the council agenda materials.

Next up, we will discuss CDBG and home priorities for fiscal year 18-19.

Council is asked to determine what the priorities will be for fiscal year 18-19, confirm the priority neighborhood, determine if funds should be set aside for economic development, determine the percentage for public service projects and admin and planning, and add any additional guidelines that you all see fit.

Staff recommends that council move forward with priorities similar to the priorities outlined last year, which include workforce development, microenterprise assistance, quality child care, homeowner rehab, and down payment assistance.

Staff also recommends that council approves the 15% maximum allocation allowed for public service projects and the 20% maximum allocation allowed for admin and planning.

Staff recommends that public service funds remain citywide, but that nine

but that nonprofit partners are made aware of the fiscal year 18-19 priority neighborhood and are encouraged to recruit beneficiaries from priority neighborhood areas.

Staff recommends that $45,000 be set aside for economic development activities.

Staff recommends that remaining estimated CDBG budget of $200,000 goes towards the priority neighborhood funding and that fiscal year 18-19 priority neighborhood

Shelby Belmont and Ridge Street, with funds being targeted in income eligible service areas as approved previously by city council.

Other considerations include that all public service, housing or economic development activities must meet the goals and recommendations of the growing opportunities report in addition to the consolidated plan.

And for home funds, if there is any program income or reprogramming available, that those

Funds go towards housing activities to support down payment assistance and homeowner rehab.

Thanks.

Yes, Ms. Howard, could you refresh my memory?

So the previous, so the current fiscal year with public service activities, we funded City of Promise,

for a childcare access program called Enroll to Launch.

We funded OAR for reentry services.

We funded United Way for childcare scholarships.

We've funded the OED program before.

So those are the types.

And I have a follow-up question because

in that category.

And thank you very much for all the tables and the tracking that you're doing with these programs.

And it just seems like when I look under CDBG activities for 2016, I see under the support homeless and transition to independence, the row public service activities, the goal

is 150 persons assisted, but the actual was 75.

So that's like a 50% difference.

And then similarly, with the support job improvement total,

and that one CAT or support job, it's 215 was the goal for those assisted and 167 was the actual.

Well, the reason why is because, the reason why we didn't meet that goal is because when an applicant provides their RFP,

expect to get a certain level of funding.

And so they reach high for how many people they can expect to.

And so when we get our funding cut at the last minute, what's already submitted in the action plan far exceeds what a subrecipient can actually do.

Say that again.

The funding wasn't actually available by the time they made their application.

Right.

We don't know.

Just like you just passed a home, a resolution for home funding, it changed last month.

And so they submit their RFPs in October with the expectation that they're going to get an estimated amount of funding.

And then HUD comes in and say, oh, we don't even know if we're going to fund you at all.

OK, so that answers my question.

This does not at all reflect the fact that there may not be as great of a need in this category, that there really is a need.

It was just a matter of kind of accounting, it seems.

I have just a question because I was going to ask that same question.

And are these charts dictated by the federal government, or is it possible to add another column that says percentage of requests funded?

Because that might help us to see if we only funded them 50%,

We have a chance to provide a narrative in the caper, but the caper actually I have to go into this thing called IDIS and submit the information.

I think that would be really helpful because then it wouldn't look like the people we funded didn't do their job.

And we can include justification in the narrative.

I had one other question.

Actually, it's probably more discussions.

A couple quick questions.

So this is federal funding, is that correct?

Well, we don't know how much we're going to get next year.

So we just received approval for fiscal year 17-18.

Okay.

We've heard a lot of talk tonight about home ownership and rental.

Do you have any, what the percentage is?

One of your tables had

that one just below the midpoint.

There's no page number on here, but the second page total of 10 goal actual 18.

That's year by year.

That's OK.

So the consolidated plan is a five year strategic plan.

And then the action plan is a one year.

Yes.

So on your chart, you'll see where it says that the city of Charlottesville provided down payment assistance for four families through PHA and Habitat.

The goal was four.

We had 10.

If I may offer this, Mr. Fenwick, I do seem to recall that the RCLCO study said it was between 30 and 40 percent home ownership in the city of Charlottesville.

It's pretty low.

Can I ask just a question, just a little more information about how the down payment assistance works mechanically.

What kind of figures are we talking about?

Is it administered through PHA and Habitat exclusively?

So the CBG process starts here, where you set the priorities and you say, these are the things that council wish to focus CDBG and home funds on.

So previously,

previous years, you supported down payment assistance and homeowner rehab.

So with those priorities, we take those to CDBG task force, which is made up of residents of the city from each neighborhood.

And also, I believe, a social services representative and an at-large member of the community.

And they review the evaluations and the proposals based upon council priorities and also based upon what our consolidated plan says, what the need is,

Do you have any idea what the average assistance grant is?

We only receive about 50, I think we received about 57,000 this year and then we have the match which comes from

So it's like a five or $10,000 assist, maybe, in that range.

Correct.

I just was curious about that.

I think we received like 16,000.

Got it.

Or something like that last year.

Okay, that's all I wanted to know.

Okay, thanks.

Other questions?

Okay, well, we can do the public hearing.

OK. Well, let me open the public hearing.

We have time here for anybody to speak about this matter or these set of issues if they would like to.

So I'll open that up.

If somebody would like to come up and speak for three minutes, you have your time to do it.

Okay, I'll close the public hearing.

I do.

One of the things that I was wondering, in the report it talks about the priority neighborhood, which is there are two that the council had kind of looked at for when we were done with the three years of 10th and Page.

and it also talks a little bit about the SIA, the strategic investment area and both of these neighborhoods are, Ridge Street I think is entirely within the SIA and Belmont is partly within the SIA and I'm wondering if there's any interest on council

Is that?

So we have to, with CDBG funds, when you do priority neighborhood, you have to make sure that the area is income eligible.

Yes.

Meaning 50% or more living in the area is low income.

And so I believe that when I'm thinking of the map that the areas that are income eligible fit within the SIA.

Great.

Thank you.

That was easy.

The other one that I am really struck by is when you talked about if we did the amount that we've generally given to kind of programmatic things within the neighborhood of $200,000,

that if if the amount that we could kind of be led to expect if no if no catastrophe comes and we get nothing from CDBG and home, it could be more than half of the amount that we're dealing with.

And just wondering if anybody wants to instead make it a ratio or if that just, you know, makes it too complicated.

And just keep in mind that for public services, there's a 15% cap on the entitlement that we received, so we can't go above that.

And then for admin, we can't go above 20%.

So I guess I'm not quite sure what you're asking, Councilor Szakos.

Well, last year, I believe that we did a certain percentage of the total was this amount to the neighborhoods.

Was it, what, 40%?

Oh, it was in here somewhere.

I'm sorry, I don't have it at my fingertips.

So what typically happens is

the $200,000 shifts and changes, it could go up, it could go down, depending upon how much we actually receive.

And so there's language that we usually put in the resolution that says- Pro-rated or something.

Yes, so that because we know that if we get more funding, we say $200,000 and we get more funding, that the more funding can't go to public services, it can't go to admin, it can go to economic development because that doesn't have a cap, it can go to the priority neighborhood,

It can go to other categories.

So I think what you're saying is, do you guys, do you all want to cap it?

Do you want to decrease the amount?

Or do you want to stay with how we've been doing it?

I guess at least that's what I'm hearing.

OK. And I'm not feeling strongly about it, but I do want us to consider it, given the fact that it was in the report that it could increase the proportion

of the budget that goes toward that.

I think they're all worthy, but everything that it isn't paying for is worthy as well.

So I'm hearing none.

Well, one possibility would be to say that, you know, 45 percent of the total allocation will be used for priority funding, neighborhood funding, and any additional funding over that amount that's not already allocated here would go toward housing.

And that neighborhood priority could choose to go housing because it's going to be the task force that decides.

And this is not an anti-neighborhood priority thought.

It's really just so that we don't suck the other parts dry by funding this.

Well then the other thing that I'd like to propose is that as

Is there other support for this?

I mean, we're sort of in the direction from council phase.

It looks like we're not really taking votes.

So is there other support for these ideas?

Yeah, I support.

OK.

That's why we pay her the big bucks.

Sign me up as well.

I do want to just kind of point out that we heard a lot in the public comment about the need to support both Habitat and AHIP, which are groups that do build access to home ownership and home ownership preservation in the community.

Do you want us to fill in the blanks right now?

So I kind of provide it with a template, but you're going to have to revise it with the revisions.

And that's the one that's in the book, I think, right?

Is that the one that we have in front of us?

OK, there was a little bit of confusion in the assembly of the agenda.

So we have a we have a vote now on a resolution.

So it's going to be two, just because this is on a grant

Yes.

So you need this now?

Yes.

Right.

Okay.

So you filled in, okay I see, so we have a draft here, and Ms. Howard filled, and there were some blanks, and then you filled it in.

So this, okay, so we actually are in place to vote on this now, I think.

Is everyone okay with that, as it was in our materials?

I think so.

It wasn't the materials that were publicized, it just wasn't in the first sheet.

And it sounds like it's important to staff.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So what's in your document is actually blanks, a blank resolution.

Bob, yes, yes, because I have another hard copy, yes.

So it is on the opposite page in your analog version, like I do.

So how about, OK, so let me just read this so everybody knows what page we're on.

So, whereas City of Charlottesville's US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD designated entitlement community for the Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership programs, and as such, expects to receive fund allocation on July 1, 2018, and whereas in accordance with the City of Charlottesville's

Citizen participation plan for HUD funding.

The CDBG task force composed of citizen and community representatives will need to review potential projects and make recommendations for funding in spring 2018.

Be resolved by the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia that the priorities and spending allowances for fiscal year 2018-2019 shall be as follows.

I actually need to catch myself on this because somebody else should make this motion as it not the mayor.

So just we're reading it.

OK, Council.

These are the recommendations.

Right, but the recommendations is that they be the same as last year.

Right.

Okay, right.

So here's the draft.

Council's priorities, the CDBG and home program for FY 2018-2019 Shelby workforce development, micro enterprise assistance, access to quality health child care, homeowner rehabilitation and down payment assistance for fiscal year 2018-2019 $45,000 CDBG entitlement shall be set aside for economic development.

for FY1819, the priority neighborhood shall be Belmont and Ridge with funds being targeted and income eligible service areas in the allocation shall be $200,000.

The total CDBG entitlement, if the CDBG entitlement received is less than the estimated amount of $200,000, this amount will be decreased accordingly.

for the CDBG admin and planning budget shall be set at 20% of the total CDBG entitlement.

Number five, public services program budget shall be set at 15% of the total CDBG entitlement.

That's added to the first bullet.

Rather, it would be in the first paragraph or the first bullet.

OK, so instead,

Are there any priorities that we don't want as priorities?

I guess I have a question about the workforce development.

Is that any level of redundancy because we have the job center and we have a workforce development specialist?

So typically the agencies that apply for workforce development funds are OER.

Oh, so they apply to you?

Yes.

OK.

Even though they're a grantee, even though the city's a grantee, they can apply for it.

Isn't that third goal point, that the next priority neighborhood shall be blank?

That wasn't read out as part of the resolution just now?

And is there any, that was Mr. Bellamy and Ms. Galvin.

Is there any further discussion, questions?

Okay, all in favor?

Let's take our break.

We'll try to be back in here in five minutes because we're over.

I didn't mean to arrange them so artfully.

Please eat them.

Yeah, eat Ms. Szakos's cookies, please.

And the rest of the show.

you

Thanks for watching

I'm moving back into the remainder of our agenda.

We now are on item number three, which is the Historical Society lease of the McIntyre Building.

This is the first of one reading, which means that we will have a full vote after it.

We have 20 minutes allocated to this.

Oh, OK.

Good evening, everybody.

Just a quick background.

The current lease for the Historical Society lease, the McIntyre Building, it

It was up on June 30th of this year and there was a provision for a one-year extension of the lease agreement.

However, the Historical Society has requested a brand new lease in lieu of a renewal.

So I've provided some information based on their request and a lease based on the provisions that we had negotiated with them through the Attorney's Office.

It's basically the opinion of the staff that the lease itself would have to be reviewed by council in terms of whether or not to move forward.

There's some financial implications for the public works department in terms of maintaining the building and the costs associated with that.

I have a question.

And that was a very brief presentation, and we always appreciate brevity.

But I just want to make sure that I have this right.

So four years ago, we leased the building to the Historical Society at $185 a year, saying that at the end of four years, the lease would expire, and that if they

or that the lease would go to $750 a month going forward.

And that during that four years, it would only go forward if they had employed at least one person whose duties would be focused on developing a strategic plan to procure funding, develop a professional partnership and relationships with community organizations to increase visibility in the community and increase and enhance funding sources for their activities, establish a dedicated reserve fund of at least $5,000,

produce and submit to the City Council an annual progress report on the various programs conducted by the Historical Society and submit an audited financial statement with any request for renewal of the lease and upon request of the City's Department of Facilities Maintenance provide information on progress toward reaching the goals set forth herein.

Okay.

I thought that's what I was reading.

Thank you.

And may I follow up with a question?

Yes.

I am curious about staff guidance on possible steps forward.

It's a remarkable property that is right in the flush moment of a lot of discussion about history that is really important for the city.

It's right next to an even more historic site right now with a lot of opportunity, so it

You know, there's either on the one hand getting a new mission and vision statement from this organization that would have some chance of being realized, I think.

On the other hand, maybe there's other possibilities that, you know, I suppose some of it is up to the applicant if they can act or the, you know, the leaseholder if they can

come up with something that would satisfy council.

Are there any other councilors who want to say anything before we... One question.

So just to review, there has been no audit

I've received none.

Just a point of order, Mr. Mayor.

I mean that we can have that happen after the public hearing.

Sure.

Sure.

All right, well, with that said, let's do the, so we have a sign-up sheet for a public hearing that'll open now.

I see several names are signed up.

If anybody else would like to sign up now before the sheet comes up to me, this will be the time.

All right.

I'm going to open the public hearing now.

We have Jackie Lichtman first.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Jackie Lichtman.

I'm a resident of the city of Charlottesville.

And I'm concerned about the functioning of the Historical Society.

I've done a little bit of research, so I just want to go over a couple of things.

First of all, it is an IRS 501c3.

entity and receives in-kind funding from the city of Charlottesville.

But here are some of my concerns.

It has never made a public budget.

It has no annual meetings.

It has no minutes.

No minutes are available whenever they ever had a last meeting.

None of this information is on the website.

There's no information on how the members of the board are appointed or how long they stay on the board.

And there have never been, and there are no exhibits about African Americans from this historical society in that area.

Mostly important, I'm concerned about the finances.

So I looked at this agenda item and looked at over five years what

It's proposed that the city is going to spend, and it comes to close to $180,000.

Over the last 10 years, it's listed as having spent $430,000.

So it seems that with all this money that is projected to be spent and that has been spent, there should be an audit.

There should be some governmental oversight.

There should be a budget.

We should know something about how the money is being spent.

So what I did is I thought, well, since it's

I think it's a non-profit.

I contacted the State Corporation Commission to see if they're registered.

The answer is no.

They're not registered.

The person who emailed me back said that I should contact the State Corporation, I'm sorry, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs.

They have an online database.

The Historical Society is not listed in their online database.

I called someone from that agency this morning and asked if they solicit donations on their website.

Don't they need to be registered?

He said yes, and he suggested I send in a complaint letter, which I did this morning.

So they're not registered with the SEC.

They're not registered with the Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs.

They're soliciting donations on their website.

They have no audit.

They have no budget.

It seems to me that the city is given in kind an awful lot of money without any kind of oversight.

And I'm just suggesting that before anything is done about renewing the lease that there should be some oversight.

That's really all I need to say.

Thank you.

A lot of things that need to be done.

I just came on their board of directors, but I've been involved with the Historical Society for

Long time.

As a matter of fact, I've spent 80 years of my 88 years living right here.

I've been very active at times in the Historical Society.

And it does look like we're, we need, and this, we've been, most recent members have been involved with trying to straighten out some of this and get it going properly.

Albemarle County Historical Society is 75 years old.

It keeps history alive and it's a repository for family records, historical artifacts, exhibits.

We have had one on the African American in the community and we have an excellent historic library there.

Let me give you a run real quickly.

Our first building was off Court Square up here.

It wasn't adequate in size.

The city, when that building became empty, offered it to us at a very, very nominal fee because we didn't have a big income then.

and then we changed the name of the Albemarle County Historical Society to the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society so that we could give Charlottesville its due recognition as part of our historic society.

Oh, by the way, we're trying to be apolitical.

We have remained neutral on the statue issue because we feel that's our apolitical stand.

And we would like to even consider being placed on a rent-free basis, but I think that we've got to meet some of your requirements first.

For example, I don't think that the Jefferson Madison Regional Library pays a penny for rent to the city.

Isn't that right?

Yeah, we have it on pretty good information that they don't.

That's why we would like to be that way, but I agree with you.

We shouldn't do that until we straighten out some of these things that you just brought up.

We've been discussing those.

They haven't been left out on the limbo.

But anyway, we haven't been able to get things in motion quite yet.

At any rate, it's a great place.

It's done great things.

It is a real great repository for the family histories around here.

All the old families from way back when, they published a great magazine and guess what?

I just haven't picked this one up.

And look what it says.

First article, Shall We Become a City?

The story of Charlottesville's incorporation as a city in 1888.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Lloyd Smith.

I live at 620 Park Street in Charlottesville.

I came to Charlottesville in 1950 and started college then.

I've been here ever since.

And I've been involved in the Historical Society for many years.

The Society, I think, needs a lot of help

I think it needs help from the city of Charlottesville.

There's so many charities, non-political demands for money.

and for volunteer help that we have suffered because we're not as popular as it may be that some of the other ones are.

But our time isn't up.

We have produced a volume every year since 1940 of the Albemarle magazine and we've produced

a large history of Charlottesville and all sorts of books.

He's got a book, my son back there, has a book on touring Charlottesville.

Day walks around.

But we've had trouble getting volunteers and our finances are in bad shape and I think the city

should help us.

We're not just some little private club that has decided to start an organization.

We are a servant of the city and we are not in good shape right now.

So I hope the city will allow us to continue to stay in that building at the same rent as we've had

but also take some charge over the thing to see how it's being run.

I would like to do that, but this is my 85th birthday and I'm not gonna.

Happy birthday.

Thank you.

I'm not gonna do it anymore.

I'm just too old.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you for listening to us.

I'm a former president and director of the Historical Society and I remain very interested.

I'm not currently involved.

The fact that Ken Wallenbord has just joined the board is a bright sign and I'm happy to get interested again and do what I can.

to help.

But I wanted to just help you by highlighting a few of the things that the Historical Society has done over the years.

And these were fairly recent when I was still involved.

I think of it mostly as a public history society.

It's not an academic, although we did have leading professors.

When I was on the publications committee, we were led by Bill Abbott.

and Frank Grizzard who were with the George Washington papers, wonderful scholars who guide and made sure that the magazine was of good quality and it still is.

One of the important things that the society does is it collects history, accessions that are stored and preserved.