City Council   12/18/2017

I don't know what to say.

of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Fenwick?

Here.

Dr. Balanis?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

Here.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay, let's wait, sorry, let's wait until Ms. Galvin is back.

Everybody could get your announcements and everything in order.

Ms. Galvin, I made the mistake of looking away while you were out of the room.

Ms. Galvin?

Okay.

There's some interest tonight among my colleagues in switching things up and starting, instead of starting with announcements, starting with the matters by the public.

So we're going to, unless there are any objections, let's go ahead and do that.

Ms. Galvin, you'll be running that portion of the meeting.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And I apologize.

I have very little voice.

I had surgery on Wednesday to take out my thyroid, which was lots of fun.

There's no cussing.

Oh, well, you're right.

The wrong thing written down for the matters from the public.

But it's still the same rules, same as always.

No cussing, no interruptions, no speaking out of turn.

Everyone will have three minutes to speak.

If you can make your comments in less than three, that would be appreciated.

But you have all three if you need them.

The timer will help you keep track of time.

When the yellow light goes on, you have 20 seconds left.

And if you go over, I will remind you to stop.

All right, so I have the list.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Hannah Hein.

I live on Delmade Lane.

I have moved around the country with the Navy and have experienced my career in towns and cities.

I moved to Charlottesville with my husband about a year and a half ago.

And I would first like to thank you all for what you do for Charlottesville.

In the six states that I've lived, in over 10 towns and cities, this is my favorite place to live, honestly.

But no city is perfect, and that's why I'm here tonight.

I'm here tonight because no matter where I've lived, I've got involved in the animal welfare scene, if you will.

Now, before anybody tunes out or subscribes to the thought that animals are not boaters and therefore not citizens, let me assure you where there are animal welfare issues, there are always human welfare issues.

In the years that I've been doing this, very rarely has there been a case where a rescue group or social welfare group comes in and says humans are doing fine, but the animals are the ones that are in bad shape, always coupled.

Child Services will report abused animals along with child abuse.

Domestic survivors will bring in pets to shelters because they don't feel like they have the funds to care for it.

People will stuff dogs into freezers because they don't have enough money to euthanize them.

The list goes on.

Every community struggles differently and many times it reflects in the way that we treat our animals.

I'm part of an organization here in Charlottesville called Houzz.

I spend every Saturday

Now before you jump to the conclusion that this is a rural living thing, there are some days that we never leave Charlottesville.

Eight hours of taking care of dogs outside in Charlottesville.

It's December and I don't have to tell you that weather can be unpredictable and crazy.

Many cities have started to adopt extreme weather policies

protect the animals that have been bred to serve us and not themselves.

As a human race, we have bred many dogs to survive in extreme, we have not bred dogs to survive in extreme temperatures.

Now in Charlottesville, you can see people leaving dogs outside because that might be what their family has always done or they would die before that dog came in the house.

This can change and I guarantee the citizens of Charlottesville would all benefit from people with more empathy.

Remember how I was talking about my Saturdays?

I spend my days up to my ears in dog poop, in the rain, sleet, snow, and over 100 degree temperatures.

I left that part out the first time, but we do it because we are in it to change the hearts of those that we work with.

We want to change the hearts of the people that we work with.

But to do that, we need to be able to use the legal tools that animal control and

we can discuss with the people that this is not the right care for animals.

So what am I proposing?

Extreme weather conditions, you need to bring your dog inside.

Over 100 degrees or under 32 degrees inside.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm a resident of the city of Charlottesville and I have a quote for you tonight.

The central problem of democracy for 9000 years has been controlling the passions.

This is the statement of Mayor Signer.

I can't speak for 9000 years, but I know that we have a problem with passions that had been let loose in city council chambers leading up to the events of the summer and in the aftermath of those events.

It's gotten ugly in here.

We have agreed as a community on a set of democratic norms for conducting meetings in a civil manner.

I want to remind you of some of those rules that have been adopted by council and are in effect.

Speakers may not concede their allotted time.

Improper comments and disorderly conduct are not permitted.

A vanity, vulgar language or gestures not permitted.

No behavior that intimidates others and no interruptions of other speakers or behavior that disrupts the meeting.

I have observed that all of these rules are routinely disregarded.

When I took my seat after speaking on civility at the last council meeting,

I was called out by an individual who said, in effect, we are entitled to throw our democratic norms out the window because of the terrible tragedy that befell our community this summer.

I believe that to the contrary, this is the time to renew our commitment to the democratic norms that ensure civility in council meetings.

As leaders, you are responsible to lead us forward in a constructive way

from the tragic events of this past summer.

Your important work will benefit from proceeding in an atmosphere of civility.

Thank you.

Dave Kamandi.

Is he not here?

Why is he speaking?

He caused all this.

We are not having interruptions tonight.

We're going to allow speaking.

He's awful.

He's a disgrace to this community.

Your time will start when the people stop interrupting.

Your time is starting now.

My name is Jason Kessler.

Please stop interrupting.

Do you want this to take all night?

Do you want

We hold to those principles because when speech is suppressed, it is usually the most vulnerable who end up with their speech suppressed.

I have two people that I'm asking right now to either stop speaking or leave the room.

Officer, it's time, you need to leave.

Miss Carey, Miss Carey, Miss Carey, you need to stop speaking now or leave.

That does not give you the right to interrupt this meeting.

I'm not speaking to you like a child, I'm speaking to you like a citizen who's responsible for her own behavior.

You're using your time if you want to keep going.

Yeah, I'm ready to go as long as they're not interrupting me anymore.

My name is Jason Casler.

I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia.

It's not only... What are you talking about?

stop talking stop talking all right so I can I get that time back

Alright, about a week before this event I met with Maurice Jones and I told him that the exact thing that I was concerned about happening would happen and that was that there was going to be no way for people to safely enter into the front of the venue.

He listened to me and he didn't do

anything about that.

He canceled the event because these guys are more interested in placating a mob than the First Amendment.

So what I'm here for is I'm not here for Nazis.

I'm here for the forgotten man and woman.

I'm here for white people because they need civil rights right now.

Just to stand up and say white people have a right to exist, we have a right to our heritage means that you're going to get attacked and shouted down by people like this.

And I'm just like all of you who are sitting at home and if you're thinking that normal Republican solutions are going to deal with this, they're not.

Standing up for white people is not hate speech.

In your mind, it is.

You people called the police to stay there.

Please stop.

You and your permit have sealed it.

So now I've applied for another permit and instead of focusing on the safety issues, because you all know you cannot deny me, it is my constitutional right of all white advocates to stand up just like other American citizens.

So we could be thinking about how we safely do this thing, but instead you're playing games again, bringing up who you know are unconstitutional.

What you guys have become is a mirror image of what you claim to hate.

You are the anti-white KKK.

Why do you think that it's only me who's able to stand up?

Your time is up and you need to leave.

I know this was really hard for everyone.

And now, Miss Carey, it is your turn.

Mary Carey, it's your turn if you want to speak.

So before I start, I'd like to say thanks to Bobby Green and the Ebony Club for coming over to Midway Manor on Wednesday to give the resident over there a little Christmas cheer.

Thank you, Ebony Club and Bobby Green.

They're still functioning.

So now, Mr. Signer, numbers

you and Tanisha and Miss Rosetta Parker argued about numbers how you didn't like what everybody's talking about slavery and you were talking about the Holocaust and everything and what the pressure you had and all this kind of stuff.

Six million, we know all about that and maybe more.

What about 600 million in Stuart County?

What about that?

What about the Holocaust with the Japanese?

Okay, the Jewish people, they're doing very well.

Japanese have ownership in half of America.

but the African American and the Native American still struggling, okay?

So let's not give out numbers.

And as far as the Emancipation Park down there, y'all can reserve that tonight.

You can vote on it and get it off the docket right now.

It don't need to be down there.

It shouldn't have been there anyway, Ms. Szakos, since you are part of the 100 Black Women's Coalition, which is no longer black that you're in it.

But anyway, Ms. Galvin,

Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Fenwick, y'all can vote on that tonight and get rid of that name down there.

It shouldn't be there.

It should never have been there.

600 million still struggling, Ms. Szakos.

And you are nasty to me and I don't like it.

Don't let it happen again.

I know this your last meeting.

Don't make it your last meeting.

But anyway, Chief Thomas, he has, somebody has to take the fall.

Mr. Jones, watch out.

Mr. Bellamy, you know they got you because a little puppet just left out of here.

But anyway, when you start doing stuff like y'all do in this town, which I've been here all my life, all these boards and things, everybody on these boards, nobody was born here.

Nobody has a passion that I have for Charlottesville.

Nobody feels it like I feel it.

But I'm going to tell y'all something right now that's got to stop.

You leaving, God bless America and Charlottesville, Virginia, because you started so much stuff that's wrong in this city for six years.

The first two years, you're all for the black vote.

Then after that, you're all for Christian.

and you always have been.

What did you say?

Emancipation is there.

It's going to stay there.

We decided.

Like you're the queen of Charlottesville, I beg to differ.

But I'm going to tell you something right now, sister girl, since you're a part of the Black Women's Coalition, I'm going to tell you right now.

Charlottesville needs to take that name or that part away.

I got a couple judges that's gonna look at this petition.

I'm not done.

I got a couple judges that's gonna look at this petition after the holidays and they will decide.

Your time is up.

Your time is up.

He doesn't need to touch you, but he's walking out with you.

You're leaving though.

Ms. Kerry, I need you to leave.

We are following the rules.

I was very clear that I was going to enforce the rule about

going over.

If I don't enforce the rule, then I can't enforce it on one person and not on another.

Oh yeah.

I'm not throwing her out.

I asked her to stop speaking.

She refused.

She refused.

Then she went over her time and refused to stop.

I've already recessed.

So the entire council has voted on policies that include this process.

I have been advised that we can proceed with the meeting.

Ms. Carey will be allowed to stay.

If there were further disruptions, it will not be true.

And I also want to make clear that this has nothing to do with who is speaking.

This was the timing I was trying to be consistent with what I had done before.

But I'm willing to take the advice of our officers and let it go this time.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry for the interruption.

Hello, I'm John Lawrence from 213 West Main Street.

Thank you to Chairwoman Szakos, to Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, City Manager Jones, and to the Council and other representatives for allowing me to speak to you directly and publicly this evening.

My wife, Lynelle, and I started Mud House Coffee on the downtown mall back in 1993.

We chose the downtown mall because for us it was the broadest cross section of all of the different people in Charlottesville and that's where we wanted to be, right in the thick of everyone in Charlottesville.

The downtown mall is such a crucial part of Charlottesville.

It's the heart of it.

It's important because it's the social and cultural space for all of Charlottesville to hang out together.

It costs nothing to be here.

It's a large park where we can all commingle and therefore that makes it also one of the key parts and solutions for helping Charlottesville to heal.

I wish I could say that I'm here to talk about kittens and puppies after the tough acts to follow here, but I'm here to talk about the downtown mall and the effect of the parking meters on the business downtown.

We've been here for 24 years.

never seen an economic environment like it is today, not even during the great recession.

When we started in 1993, there were many empty storefronts on the downtown mall.

And it was people like Gabe Silverman, Ali Kachin, Chuck Lewis, even Lee Danielson who really invested in Charlottesville and the downtown mall and made it something for everybody to come into and congregate.

So what I see

We've seen a dramatic loss in our numbers over last year.

There are many businesses, and they're not talking about it publicly perhaps, but there are many businesses who are tapped out on loans, tapped out on their lines of credit, and they're very close to the edge, and they're living week to week, day to day.

So if we're not careful, we will see more

Storefront's coming back and it's so hard to reverse that process once it starts.

Let's see.

We need to understand the economic condition of the downtown mall as a result of a number of conditions.

One of those is that we are in competition with 5th Street extended, that development and also Stonefield.

But the most acute thing that I would say from all of our experience has to do with this summer of hatred that has had such a dampening effect

and this extraordinary development has a severe effect.

We need to do everything we can to make people want to come downtown, remove all the obstacles for them to come downtown and make it easy for them to enjoy the heart of the city.

I ask the city to suspend the parking program until the downtown mall recovers.

I'm Jennifer Tidwell.

I am a resident of Charlottesville.

I live on Chesapeake Street and I've lived here since 1993.

I started a petition four days ago to oppose the reinstitution of the parking meters.

I did this because I have observed and listened to tons of workers, residents, business owners, watched my own self have to pay every time I went to pick up my paycheck.

That felt weird.

And I actually feel like it is connected to, the timing of this was absolutely terrible, like drilling on 4th Street as Heather Heyer's memorial sat there.

If we want to make this city more welcoming, I mean I've seen it over the last 25 years that I've been here go from a place where anyone could kind of walk up to being

Evermore, a feeling that you had to be privileged.

You have to figure out how these meters work.

You have to be able to afford it.

You have to have a car because our public transit is no good.

I'm much more radical about wanting free parking everywhere, but I'm here to convey that in this petition I started, which now has 750 signatures and about 300 comments, which I really hope you guys get a chance to read or have read, we're hearing from workers who are having trouble finding parking and are sometimes parking way out and are feeling unsafe about

you know, walking home at two or three in the morning.

We're having, hearing from people who've stopped going to the downtown, dozens and dozens and dozens of people have said, I'm not going there anymore for anything.

Why would I do that when I can go to Stonefield and know that I'm going to find parking easily?

The last thing we needed was to feel that this was just a symbolic place and not truly a place of gathering.

And I feel like we ought to be doing the opposite.

I think the goals of the parking program were to make parking more available for people coming close to the mall.

And in fact what I'm seeing are empty spots.

I'm seeing confused and frustrated people who are trying to deal with the meters.

and I'm seeing business, I'm hearing, of course I'm not a business owner here but I'm hearing a business going way down and I know, I'm hearing a lot of creative solutions from all sides about how to come up with a different way of dealing with the parking and I just, I am here to advocate of pausing the program, evaluating the numbers and trying to come up with something that it feels like way more inclusive and easier to get to the mall.

Hi, I'm Joan Fenton, 3705 Country Lane and I'm going to follow up on the discussion about the parking meters.

I believe that a lot of work was put into creating a plan and that there was a lot of thought put into it.

That plan was not what

We in the business community thought what happened, we thought it would be less expensive, we thought the hours would be less, and we thought there would be a well thought out rollout.

What we've seen is after August 12th and all the horrible things that happened is that people are mad.

They're angry.

They're mad at you guys.

They're mad at downtown.

They're mad at each other.

and that impact is hitting us downtown.

And when you look at your figures, you may see that there's three or five percent drop in sales all across Charlottesville.

But this city doesn't even know what the economic impact is downtown from August 12th.

You don't have a way to measure it.

We don't know what it is.

But anecdotally, we're hearing from businesses somewhere down 20, 40 percent.

And when those meters came in,

People went, that's it, I've had it.

And if you've read those petitions, and you've read for 300 people to sign a petition and comment, and you read those comments, they're mad.

They don't want to come down here.

They want to be able to park for free.

They want to feel welcome, and they don't.

And I think that we really need to step back and say, this program didn't work because of the timing, because of how it was implemented, and instead

Why are we just turning the meters back on January 1st?

Why not look at the overall program?

The goal was to get people off the street, to be parking in the garages if they were working here so that anybody that came downtown could park.

And that's not what's happening.

Nobody wants to park in those meters.

They don't want to pay for them.

And everybody's still mad.

And I think what we're asking downtown is the whole community's had a disaster

and lots of people are getting help in recovery and we need help in recovery and the major thing we need is to not have those meters.

Scrap the program, put it aside and let's figure out because everything changed.

Everything in this town changed August 12th and I think on every level we need to look at what is it we need to be doing and I think on the meters we need to say okay it's not working right now and let's just say okay it's not the time and let's think about it and then start all over.

I hope you'll do that.

You all are welcome to continue that conversation.

Hi, I'm Kat Mayberry.

I live in Charlottesville and I'm also an organizer for Indivisible Charlottesville.

and I wanted to talk to you all about two things.

So we're actually here from Indivisible Charlottesville, here more just supporting and amplifying the voices we've heard from other communities about two issues.

One is the possibility of the Albemarle courts separating from the Charlottesville courts here in the city and the other is the

the independent review of the police, either citizens or I guess I've forgotten what the other term for it was going to be.

So I was just actually just at the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors hearing on the court, so I'll start there.

So we've heard from many sides that if the county courts are actually removed way up 29 North, it would actually be devastating.

It would really degrade access to justice for especially low-income communities.

and so that and it sounds like I had to leave the county hearing to come here but it sounds like they are really seriously reconsidering that plan and they're going to be looking to you all to renegotiate so our message to you is please be really proactive in renegotiating things like parking and space

This is more important than, say, a hotel.

So we really want to encourage that.

And on the other issue, we just wanted to say that we're very supportive of an independent police review board, and we understand, I'm no expert on this, but I understand there are some really good models in my old hometown of Washington, D.C., for instance, or in Newark, New Jersey,

where they really are independent.

There are things like, you know, that nobody certainly on the board has ties to, personal ties to law enforcement.

The board has things like subpoena power.

They have powers for disciplinary authority.

They have the authority to review not only the conduct of individual officers, but the power to review actual policies so that systemic

Michael Payne.

I'm just here to speak about the Dewberry Hotel Performance Agreement set for the end of the agenda tonight.

I would just like to reiterate points I've made at previous council meetings.

I think this performance agreement of giving a 50% tax discount worth at least $1.1 million, along with 75 public parking spaces that are going to be given at a discount for 40 years is a terrible deal for the city.

I think it is not going to result in a positive outcome.

and I think City Council is presenting a false choice of either we have to give John Dewberry this money or the property will remain abandoned and developed.

I think there are other options and again I would urge City Council to use the authority you have under section 5198 of the existing city code to declare the property a public nuisance, to condemn it and to use that in order to perhaps again as a pilot project to the public land bank

acquire the property and develop it for affordable housing or some kind of public use.

Not only is the money itself an unneeded loss of parking spaces and public revenue, but I think just the basic idea of a five-star luxury hotel does not fit with the character of the downtown mall.

It accelerates gentrification.

and again this is coming when we are at a crisis point in the city.

Economic Policy Institute recently did a study showing we're one of the top 50 cities in terms of income inequality in the country.

Charlottesville income housing coalition has shown statistics that the black home ownership rate has fallen 12% in just the past 15 years and it's projects like this that are going to continue to accelerate gentrification and I think we have an opportunity to do something with this land especially when it has been abandoned

and John Dewberry is using that as a negotiating tactic to get easy money from the city to do something different and show that city council is ready to take bold, creative and different approaches in terms of development in the city.

I'm Robin Bryant, Jason Shiffer's mother of Belmont.

Of course, everyone knows that he was murdered two years ago by three to four people.

And I came to y'all here last month asking to let the FBI gang task force in.

And I was told I would be receiving a call, and I did get nothing.

I did call the mayor's office and I did call Chief Thomas' office two weeks ago and explained that I'd be here today if I hadn't heard anything.

The picture you just seen of the boy with the gun was sent to my children and I was saying, they're next.

He was the first suspect

and my son's murder.

Charlottesville Police, when Longo Man was on, he said it, he was cleared.

He was locked up at the time.

There was no records.

He was not locked up.

That boy was out when today my son got shot.

He killed my son.

Now he's torturing my children.

The picture you've seen of the son holding a diploma.

Yesterday, that is Jason's son.

He don't get Christmas.

He had Christmas at a cemetery be getting his dad's high school diploma and class ring I gave him.

Then he cried and cried.

I found out this morning that y'all slept with that.

I just asked, and my God, I mean, there's no one to run that police department since Detective Mooney was taken off.

He's the only man that was able to get anywhere with my son's case.

And y'all can't give me Detective Mooney.

My God, give me the FBI.

I mean, someone, this is two years.

We deserve priority just as well as that Heather Howard stuff and this hotel stuff.

He deserves to come first too.

And he's two years.

And the gentleman, he has a gun.

He's out here.

He will kill again.

Then whose fault is it going to be?

It's not going to be mine because the cops won't lock him up.

And I've done everything I can and pray to the Lord

every night that y'all do his job and just let the FBI take over my son's case.

Give me someone I can talk to and stop the murder for my son next year can have presents instead of a diploma.

My grandson, I'm sorry, my grandson.

So my family, we will not celebrate.

How we celebrate?

We cry.

Everybody stays to their self because we can't take it.

Every year gets worser.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

In case the FBI needs them, please.

If I get them.

Yep.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Janet Martin.

I'm President Albemarle, Charlottesville, NAACP.

We finally got around to discussing the EFI report, and I'm here to make a statement.

The Albemarle, Charlottesville branch of the NAACP has read and accepted many of the valid points of discord brought out in the report of the July 8

and August the 12th Rallies.

The report was recently presented to the public by former federal prosecutor Tim Heavey of Hutton and Williams Law Firm.

The report focused on three major factors, the unpreparedness of city and state law enforcement as well as city officials, a lack of communication and a failure to ensure safety measures to protect citizens.

Opinions varied as they were

have been expressed by voices from the community.

What happens now?

They are still questions that have not been answered.

Are we waiting to hear from anyone else?

Are we close to a resolution?

And I must say, hopefully, that resolution is not the immediate retirement of the chief of police.

While we are waiting, it is hopeful that black and white clergy

will continue their efforts to encourage and sustain a peaceful vigil throughout the city.

Black churches during early years of the Klan's mayhem, intimidation, and terrorizing tactics have been a source of calm and strength for all persons during reigns of terror.

Are we once again reentering to this era of violence?

However, it is up to us as citizens

not to allow our families, our children, our homes, our friends and neighbors to relive those days of horror and tragedy.

Thank you.

Don Gathers.

Good evening.

Wow, what a tumultuous and turbulent year we've experienced.

We've gone through things that no city, no population should ever have to endure.

We've gone through incredible tribulations, and we still continue to fight through the heartaches of this year.

The events of today have done nothing to ease the pain that your community has suffered.

You've done what I did not believe was possible.

You further fractured an already divided community.

I hope that the incredible irony is not lost on anyone that a black man is being forced out of office because of a white supremacist rally.

This is seemingly another step in a systematic effort to attempt to eliminate any black man in office of his position.

This is directly from the plantation owners in our country's pipeline to prison playbook.

Remove the strong powerful black man from the head of the family and watch the family crumble and deteriorate.

It is disgraceful to watch

to watch it all unfold while wondering who's the next charter.

Yet that's the atmosphere that's been created here.

You failed the city while allowing the racist white supremacist movement to flourish.

That racist stench permeates our streets and even this once hallowed chamber in as much as a subhuman racist redneck turd with legs and feet has felt entitled and empowered to take up shop at various locations throughout the city.

while holding a sign proclaiming that Wes is a jackass.

Because of the atmosphere that has been created here, it gave rise to that same racist redneck subhuman, the feeling that he should be allowed to refer to a racist activist as an effing B here in these chambers.

Then while his feelings were obviously, and he was obviously butthurt, he decided to call my church and complain about me being disrespectful to him.

Well Mason, I tell you what, if you're going to act like a 13 year old little girl, I'll treat you as one.

If you don't like what I say to you or about you, and prayerfully you're listening to this, cash me outside.

Chief Thomas should in no way be the only one forced to fall on the sword here because of that fateful weekend.

That being the case, tonight I call on and ask you, Mr. Signer, to please show the character and the courage worthy of the office you hold as a councilperson and resign.

Further, please stop the foolishness with this black hole money pit called the Dewberry Hotel.

I urge you to please stop the madness.

Do not do the due.

There's nothing at all wrong with another Marriott or Ramada here in town.

Let the city construct that space to address the homelessness issue if we have to use it for anything.

Good evening, my name is Jeffrey Fogel, I live in Belmont here in the city.

I come to you with a very simple request.

One that you keep talking about which is called community engagement.

We have before you tonight a proposed amendment to the city charter with respect to permitting.

And as the memo points out, it's been adopted without any prior community engagement.

This is a very important document.

What's been done here, and of course none of us has had the time to really go through it, is to make it as onerous as conceivable to get a permit in this city.

From now on you will need a permit if 10 people are gathering.

We will not be allowed to have a candlelit procession as we did shortly after a couple of months ago.

You are requiring people to make their applications 60 days in advance.

These are things that will make it onerous and the people who are going to suffer, the free speech rights that are going to suffer, are right here in our community.

It's not going to be the Nazis.

This is something that always plagues governmental entities.

Something bad happens and you come back with a proposal that may even be worse.

Don't shut down the First Amendment because of a couple of ass

So really all I'm asking for at this juncture is slow down.

Let's have an opportunity for community engagement.

Let's have an opportunity for us to go through this in detail and look at other proposals.

There are some good things in here, no doubt, but there's no reason to rush it.

and so I ask you simply to do what you keep claiming you want to do which is community engagement over important issues and that's what's needed here.

Now secondly I also want to talk about what happened with Chief Thomas and frankly I'm surprised there was no announcement from anybody here, there's virtually nothing anywhere from the city.

He did so voluntarily.

He did.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, but I'd like to hear that from him.

I'd also like to hear from him what pressures have been put on him since the release of the HAFE report.

I'd like to hear from him what his view is of what happened on the 12th.

As you might remember, he factually disputed some of the assertions in the HAFE report.

I would like to hear from him, and I think he owes it to us, to tell us what the truth is about what happened.

If it's contrary to what Hafey said, good, we should know that.

If it's consistent, good, we should know that as well.

But you can't be left with the feeling that he voluntarily resigned when he made his resignation effective immediately.

People don't do that normally.

People go through a transition phase with their successor.

The end of the year is only two weeks away.

So the natural question had to arise in everybody's mind, why was this need to be done immediately?

Perhaps it was his idea.

And that's certainly his choice and it was to our detriment.

The thing let me just say that I'm most worried about now is the person you've got in charge of the police department.

Gary

Yeah, Gary, if you'll remember Gary, damn right, I gassed them, they deserved it.

Pleasance is now in charge of the police department.

He is an animal, he's a fascist, and he represents the worst of everything in this police department.

I'm in here.

You a part of that market?

That's somebody that changed it.

It's the part I'm trying to get to.

I don't care.

You guys don't need no food.

Well, Lord have mercy.

I didn't come up with an agenda tonight, but I listened and then I decided I wanted to speak.

Now, when Kessler came in, why did he think that the rally was the way to speak for white rights?

Now, if I had to say it, OK, I felt like I've been discriminated against all my life, and I was bringing in the Black Panthers, and the Luds, and the Crips, would that make sense?

The KKK, the Supremates, and those other people, the Nazis, are racist.

They want to kill anybody that don't believe what they believe will look like them.

I don't understand how he thought that was supposed to speak for anybody, right?

I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone, I swear.

I mean, this stuff, it's a mess.

I have never seen such in my life.

The older I get, the worse it's getting.

Ain't nothing getting better.

I came up on a hard life.

It's not going to ever be peace.

I can see now I'm going to have to die to find peace.

And I'm serious when I say this.

This don't make sense what's going on today.

2017, this shouldn't be happening, you all.

And I'm not blaming anybody.

I'm speaking truth.

None of this should be happening.

I swear.

And now about this parking.

Every time somebody spoke, y'all gave me something to speak about.

Now the parking, and this is a truth.

Down here, when I come down here to pay my utility bills or go to the registration office, I can't find a parking space.

I'll ride around three and four times.

And it should be some parking for people coming down here to do business.

I don't come down here to socialize.

Everything down here is too expensive.

I can't afford it.

OK.

Now my next question.

Now I heard on the news tonight, this wouldn't have brought me out because I wasn't coming out tonight, but I'm so tired that the police chief was leaving.

Now they wanted to blame this man for everything that happened that day, and you know good and well it wasn't all his fault.

If he didn't know what to do as far as a plan, what these older policemen, don't they have anything?

Don't they know anything?

I mean, all they had to do was go read some books in the library about the KKK, the Supremacists, the Nazis.

They would have known what to do.

They should have known they wasn't coming for peace.

Now, why didn't they help the man?

I swear to God, I think it was a setup.

They didn't want a black man over them.

I just do believe it.

See, I don't live a long time, but I've been through a lot.

I worked all them years at UVA.

I learned a lot.

So why did they help him?

Now anybody know of a whole lot of people, those kind of racist people coming to a town, you should have a plan.

Just like at the hospital, they taught us emergency plans.

But certain different emergencies came into the hospital.

We had to go to those in-services.

You know, I came up here to talk about something else, but I just heard, I just heard that the interim- Be quiet, please let him talk.

Huh?

I was saying silence so you could talk, go ahead.

I can't hear you.

Silence so you could talk, so we could hear you.

I came up here to talk about something else, and I read something wrong today or heard something wrong that you guys,

The interim police chief is pleasant.

Is that right?

No, he is the acting chief.

There will be an interim chief that will be hired within the next two weeks.

But it's not him?

Okay, he's the acting chief.

Why?

Okay, that's the protocol.

Yes, sir.

Okay, okay.

I don't have anything to do with the protocol.

if that's a protocol.

But you can't hire that man.

You can't hire that man.

You really can't hire that man.

It would be the biggest force in the world if you hired that man as the police chief of Charlottesville.

It would be wrong to hire that man.

He's the worst police chief in the country.

He shouldn't be elevated to that position at all.

And you know that.

So hopefully you will not hire him.

My talk today is silence is betrayal.

The spirit of the black church has long animated the movement for civil rights and social justice in America.

The near silence of the black church in Charlottesville is particularly disappointing.

It's disappointing because it was not long ago that the black church would have insisted on being a part of the community response to this important report and sitting at the table working to find solutions to the city's problem.

How about the black community find its way during difficult times no longer seem to be the black church priority?

The black church appears to be too timid

to speak publicly about the city's police chief's false resignation.

The silence in the face of the hatred and violence our city has endured is deafening.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that silence is betrayal and that the black church was once played a leading role in cultivating white supremacy is now seen less conservative.

If you go to church on Sunday,

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Chairman.

Thank you, counsel Szakos.

Yeah, this is the

This is now the moment when we talk about announcements and I'll start again this time from the West End with Mr. Fenwick.

Council Fenwick.

These are the holiday closings.

City offices will be closed on Monday, December 25 and Tuesday, December 26, 2017 in observance of Christmas.

Our offices will reopen on Wednesday, December 27th.

In observance of New Year's Day, city offices will also be closed on Monday, January 1st, and our offices will reopen on Tuesday, January 2nd.

Trash and recycling will not be collected on Christmas Day or New Year's Day.

These services will resume on the next working day and continue

a day behind through the rest of the week, including Saturday.

Charlottesville Area Transit will not operate on Christmas Day.

On Monday, January 1st, 2018, New Year's Day, CAT will operate only the free trolley, Route 2, Route 9, and Route 12.

Thank you.

A couple of announcements.

First and foremost, just so everyone knows, is a notice of termination in order to amend the City Council agreement for operation of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So to the CACV Board of Directors, along with the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County,

Excuse me, Mr. Bellamy, that's supposed to be discussed under other business.

I'm sorry.

Well, there's a preview for that.

The other announcement that I have is the Kwanzaa celebration.

Just so everyone knows, there'll be a guest performance by Farafina Khan.

And this will take place on December 26, 2017 from 3 PM to 5 PM at the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center that will be located, again, at the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center.

We kick off Kwanzaa at, again, December 26 from 3 to 5 PM, 433 4th Street, Northwest Charlottesville, Virginia 22901.

and while we are, while I have the mic, I think it's also important to note that we heard your concerns loud and clear.

It is definitely not being ignored, at least and I think by all of my colleagues, we hear you and we are definitely looking to make amends.

There are certain things that we can and cannot go into.

I know in regards to your son, we'll be asking for an update of sorts.

So looking into how we can

get the communication that you properly need and your son won't be the only one in regards to getting an update about some of the issues that have transpired in the city.

Thank you.

Two announcements.

We sent letters after discussion to both of our senators here, Senator Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, and we got substantial letters back from them.

These were about the tax bills and the consequence of the tax bill on localities like Charlottesville and how harmful it would be.

And we got, I'm not going to read them, they're long, but they were very supportive.

They were very empathetic about the consequences of

this awful bill on a community like Charlottesville specifically on lower wealth and deserving populations here and we just wanted to express our our gratitude to them for hearing us and for the work that they are doing on behalf of cities like Charlottesville to try to fight back against very harmful legislation like this and try to improve it where they can so we could we can make these copies available for everybody to look at them so they see what what our senators responded to

Thank you.

And Council Szakos, you've got nothing.

And I have an announcement about Soul Smart.

We're pleased to announce that Schausel has been designated a Soul Smart Silver Level Community.

That's a national program supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Sunshot Initiative.

Receiving the silver level achieves the goal set at the beginning of 2017 and builds on our successes after getting a bronze level designation.

To reach silver, the city clarified solar systems as a buy-write accessory use for all properties in the zoning code.

and City Code officials completed increased training relative to solar permitting and inspections.

These and other actions also was taken through the SolSmart program aimed to reduce the cost of solar systems and to make their installation easier.

We have an award on the dais and it's Susan Elliott here to accept it.

Maybe we'll try again later.

Anyway, thanks very much to the Office of Sustainability for really pushing through those important zoning changes.

Here she is.

Oh, here it is.

Oh, good.

I just want to say that getting to the Silver designation, it actually took a lot of team effort, and it took a lot of people contributing what their personal advice was based on their professional experiences, but also it took input from the community to make sure that what we were putting forward were things that made sense for Charlottesville.

We were building on best practices that we found elsewhere, particularly when it came to our zoning code.

But what I think where we landed on a lot of pieces is are things that made sense for our community and that were informed by our community.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The last announcement that I have does relate to the parking agreement on preliminary agreement that the city has offered the Almonte County and that was presented to the county's negotiating team way back in June 3rd of 2016.

The parking agreement was intended to keep the courts consolidated in court square.

All of us on this council day fervently believe and understand that this is a social justice issue to keep the courts together combined in one place.

And it is involving parking because the parking garage was a condition that the county demanded in order to keep the courts downtown.

So the city has moved forward with buying land.

The city has moved forward with establishing a parking division and the city is moving forward now with asking the county

to please come back and begin negotiations with us again in earnest.

So I will just provide some of the details so that you can all hear what we've been putting forth to the county so that you can understand, the community can understand that we are very committed to keeping the courts downtown.

The city will continue to support a co-located general district court with Almonte County in Court Square.

The city has $6.5 million in its five-year capital improvement program to support the city's share of constructing that building.

The city will commit to building a parking structure, which will offer a minimum of 250 to 300 new parking spaces near the corner of 7th Street and Market.

It will provide the county with up to 100 spaces in the garage to accommodate their needs.

The city has $10 million in its five-year capital improvement budget to support the development of additional parking at this location.

In addition, in 2016, the city purchased an adjacent parcel in the 800 block of Market Street to allow greater flexibility in the creation of this new parking capacity.

Based on our understanding of either court square option, we believe that the city can deliver the new parking at or about the same time that the court construction is completed.

The county will not be asked to contribute to the construction of those spaces.

However, the city requests that the county grant its ownership share in the seventh and market property to the city in lieu of contributing to the capital costs of the spaces.

The county will be asked to share on the future costs of maintenance and management of those a hundred spaces.

The maintenance and management cost share agreement will be discussed with any future negotiations.

It is my understanding that this letter has been sent to Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to the attention of the chair,

and Diana McKeel.

And it's a very important step to begin that process of keeping our courts consolidated in court square.

Thank you, Councillor.

A couple of items to follow up on.

One was an issue that Ms.

Beard had mentioned a couple of meetings ago.

This is a concern about jaunt and some folks in Nelson County whose routes have been cancelled.

Apparently Jaunt back in 2015 had struck a deal with Nelson County to have a certain number of visits and they've been exceeding that for the last couple of years but they've been losing money as a result of that and they've not negotiated a new contract with them so they have decided to eliminate some of the routes until they have a chance to either negotiate a new contract but they've gone back to the levels

that they had agreed to in 2015.

And that's between Jaunt and Nelson County.

So just wanted to give you an update on that.

I don't off the top my head, but I can get that information to you, Ms. Beer.

I can give that information to you and we can pass that along to you.

The other issue, Ms. Carpenter had asked about a community group at the last meeting that we had.

There's a community group that's been working on a series of issues.

They will be announcing next steps with their process in the next week or so.

So you had mentioned that last time.

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, can you repeat what's going to happen with the police chief?

Sure.

We have an acting police chief that's now in place.

Within the next week?

That's right.

OK.

All right.

We have an open hearing at the end of the meeting, so anybody here can stay.

We don't actually have that long of a meeting tonight.

We've got three regular items after the consent agenda, so everybody, we can hear from you when we're finished with the meeting, and that's open-ended.

Everybody can talk.

Yes, that's a promise.

That's how we always do it.

Well, Ms. Walker, you're coming on the council.

It is no way that Chief Thomas walked out of here voluntarily.

We're talking about white supremacy at its finest,

Those are the comments that you heard here today.

Are you allowing her to speak?

I mean, I guess we have somebody speaking from the floor who's not recognized, but she's a...

I did.

I asked you to speak.

So we have to figure out what we're going to do here.

Council needs to make the decisions up here about what we're going to do.

We've heard you some, so there's been some feedback from the floor.

We can make a decision here but we need to do it with some

I'd like to make a motion.

If you want me to do what you want me to do, you need to allow me to be able to do it, please.

So, with that being said, I'd like to first make a motion to allow Ms. Walker to come up so that she can finish her comment.

And then secondly, I would like for Mr. Jones, if applicable or agreed on by my colleagues,

So I think that it's unacceptable.

First of all, we found this out on the news.

We haven't had any answer.

If the police chief was retiring in the way that it has been presented, I think he would have been able to show up and tell us why.

And for the person who's been put in charge, whether it's protocol or not, that should be changed immediately.

That does not build trust within the community.

That does not lead to healing.

And this is not the time to follow protocol.

There's no trust there long term and there's definitely no trust there after the report.

There's a fact in that report, I mean more than one, but the one about the tear gas would lead to a lot of the discord leading from July 8th to the 12th.

So that's unacceptable.

And then to tell us that he resigned voluntarily and expect us to believe that, that is unacceptable.

I sat at home today, and I want to make sure all of you hear this too.

I sat at home today because this is not how I live my life.

And I signed up for four years in a city where I don't think really people understand what they're trying to dismantle on either side.

You have people applauding the fact that a black man is the only one that's going to be held accountable.

When we have our governor creating task force and not being able to FOIA documents, we have the state police not being held accountable.

We have deputies and captains within the police force, one who has now been put in charge.

We have Mike Signer saying that two people were going to go.

Interfering with planning, he's still here.

And one of those people, they're out the door.

And when we're talking about moving forward in the city and how that looks, this is not a good start.

It is absolutely unacceptable and you're digging deeper into the problems.

I hear people applauding because they don't, apparently they didn't read and they don't really understand.

You're talking about a person who had been here for a year.

who had to deal with in that year what planning looked like for the city for the events of the summer.

He was here in April and May was the next month, then July, then August.

And again, yes accountability, but is that how we're going to enforce accountability?

Then there are people that we can't hold accountable, that we don't have the power to hold accountable, right?

Up to our governor, we have a president who has been clear on what he stands for and we can't hold

them accountable.

And the only person that is being held accountable at this point is a black man.

So do any of you really understand what white supremacy is?

The foothold that it has, the legacy of the creation of this country and what Charlottesville and how it has contributed to it.

And then we're going to sit here and just go on with business as usual.

So we need to talk about what next steps looks like, who are in charge of those processes.

And the next two weeks, whether it's protocol or not, that individual should not be allowed, the individual who helped create the discord should not be allowed to be in charge of that police department.

And not only are the police departments or captains that were in the court as defiant orders,

helping to create the chaos should be at the head of the police department either.

And then there needs to be a list.

because we haven't received a list of all the people who need to go.

I was asked during the campaign why I wasn't given names.

I walked into almost every room I've been in in this city and there are people upholding white supremacy, white power culture that don't address it like Jason Kessler stands up here and address it.

And those people are still at the heads of tables throughout this community.

So it's not just the community.

When we talk about a list of people who need to be held accountable, it is a list.

And it is a very long list.

And it is unacceptable for it to be just him.

Thank you, Ms. Walker.

So Mayor Signer, the second portion of my resolution was asked if whether or not we could have some form of response from our city manager.

Chief Thomas made a statement as part of the press release today about the reasons why he's stepping down and it's up to him as to whether or not he wants to say anything else about it.

It was the Chief Thomas's decision to step down immediately.

And that was his decision.

And he volunteered.

You would have to ask Chief Thomas that.

Right?

Chief Thomas said he wanted to retire now.

Chief Thomas has stepped down voluntarily and he has stepped down voluntarily.

He decided

You know, you have to talk to Chief Thomas about his reasons for voluntarily retiring.

He decided to step down.

Those words are between me and the Chief, not you, Mr. Fogel.

And if he wants to tell you that, he can do that.

If he chooses to do that, I'm not going to do that for him.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

We're gonna have to, everyone, we're gonna have to move on.

We have an open hearing at the end unless, I mean, we have some important business to get through.

We're going to go to the consent agenda now.

That's an issue that has to be cleared through legal.

Ms. Rice, can we go on the consent agenda?

Do you mind reading it?

We've got to do business here.

We're going to have to suspend the meeting.

We're going to have to have folks removed.

We're gonna have to have you removed.

I don't want to at all.

So you're yelling before you've been called to order.

You've been called to order.

Okay.

All right.

We're doing consent agenda now.

item A minutes for December 4th 2017 item B an appropriation housing opportunities for people with AIDS HIV $19,543 second of two readings item C an appropriation FY 2018 transit grant $793,270 second of two readings

Item D in appropriation, City Schools reimbursement for Greenbrier Elementary Modular Classroom Project, $6,306.28, second of two readings.

Item E in appropriation, 2017 Grand Illumination Sponsorships, $4,000, second of two readings.

Item F in appropriation, Insurance Settlement for Damaged Police Car, $6,294.95, first of two readings.

item G an appropriation for the local emergency management performance grant $7,500 first of two readings item H a resolution the council regular meeting schedule for 2018 first of one reading item I a resolution civilian review board first of one reading item J a resolution extension of the Charlottesville affordable housing fund grant agreement with Habitat for FY 2016 scattered site down payment assistance program first of one reading

Item K, a resolution amendment to fire services agreement between the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, first of one reading.

Item L, a resolution 2017 City LEAP climate protection program support grant, $67,000, first of one reading.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a comment, not to pull, but just to make a comment.

This is a very important topic to the public and I wanted to just read the changes that were made to the previous resolution so that the public understands that they were incorporated.

So with regards to the composition of the initial board, that would be seven members, what was added is that they must have had direct experience with past and present, past and current Charlottesville Police Department policing practices, that the current or former members of the CBPD, city officials and employees, and immediate family members of either the CPD or city officials and employees shall not, shall be prohibited from serving on the board.

The council will make appointments based on a transparent and accountable application process in keeping with the current board application process, makes the application available on the city's website and in paper form, and allows for a 30-day posting period.

and that the city will publish the names of all board applicants to the Civilian Review Board on the city's website on a rolling basis.

And finally, that the city will host an applicant forum to give applicants the opportunity to speak to the community and council about their interests and qualifications, as well as receive and answer questions from the community.

I just wanted to make sure that that was underscored.

Those are contributions made by the legal aid.

Okay, any further?

Okay, all in favor?

CRB moves ahead.

Okay, item number two, public hearing in an ordinance.

We have a public hearing sheet signed up for this.

This is a conveyance of portions of Cleveland Avenue right-of-way in exchange for land dedicated as public right-of-way Johnson Village phase three.

This is the first of two readings, which means we just need a first, a motion and a second.

We have 10 minutes allocated here.

Thanks.

Matt Alfley, City Planner with Neighborhood Development Services.

City Council, the ordinance before you tonight is for basically a land swap between what is now known as the beacon in the city.

And typically in the past the city would either do a maintenance agreement or an

an access easement for the sidewalks.

We're in a situation where we can do a land swap, get everything the city doesn't want to maintain out of the right of way and all the things we do want to maintain in the right of way.

Okay, any questions?

We do have a public hearing signed up for this.

Sometimes people, this is a public hearing about this matter.

So we've got two folks signed up, Mr. Turner, Mr. Rick Turner, and Ivy McCall.

That was about, okay.

Would anybody else like to speak about this matter, the conveyance of portions of Cleveland Avenue?

We have a public hearing about it that's opening right now, and you don't have to sign up.

You can just come up and talk about it.

Is there a second?

OK, that is all we need, unless anybody would like to make any comments about this.

All right, great.

This is an appropriation, the fiscal year 17 year end

Preparation, this is the second of two readings, some changes have occurred.

We have 10 minutes allocated for this.

I don't have on my sheet who's supposed to present in this.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

My name is Chris Cullinan.

I'm the Director of Finance.

This agenda item, the 2017 year-end memo and appropriation were presented to you at your last meeting on December 4th.

The memo and appropriation has been amended as part of that discussion of that agenda item back on the 4th.

So tonight we need you to make a motion to amend that, get a second and vote on the appropriation, and then a final vote to adopt the appropriation in its entirety.

The amendments included downtown mall restrooms, $250,000, police portable camera system for $47,000, and then a $1 million addition to the council reserve for racial equity and engagement.

was meant to encompass several of the ideas that were enumerated that evening to give you all the flexibility to have those funds available, but also give some time to be thoughtful and to think about how they might fit in with some other efforts underway during the next year to have those funds available.

So in total, those amendments total $1,297,000.

So to summarize, the approximately $8.9 million surplus

we're requesting that a total of $4,214,844 be appropriated or carried over and then the balance $4,726,726 be appropriated to the CIP contingency.

I will just say that for many years folks in the homelessness, the advocacy for people who are homeless

the community have been urging us to have a 24 hour restroom in the downtown area that doesn't have to be monitored.

It's self standing.

And so I think this is something I'm really pleased to see in this budget.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Cullen, as we move forward, the idea of the council reserve for racial equity and engagement at a million dollars, I would like to see regular reporting on that as that gets more structured and fleshed out.

Thank you.

Are we ready to vote?

We already have a motion, do we need an amended motion or is this included in that?

And if that amendment passes then you can have the second reading.

Okay, but we need to do that with a full vote.

Is there a second for that motion to amend?

Second, Mr. Fenwick.

Any further discussion?

Now we vote on that.

Now we vote on the appropriation full vote, which was already motioned and seconded.

Yes.

Okay, so now let's vote on the amended motion.

Any further discussion?

No.

All in favor?

That appropriation carries five to zero.

Thank you very much.

Let's take our break now.

It's a good idea.

OK, because we have two big items coming up.

So we're going to take our 9 o'clock break early.

Everybody back in your seats by 5 till.

Music playing

Michael Kochis,

I don't know what you're talking about.

Thanks for watching

We're going to come back into session now.

Turn to item number four on our agenda, which is an ordinance.

It will be the first of two readings, which means a motion and a second.

Craig Brown, city attorney, will be presenting on this.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

As you referenced, there are two documents that are in your agenda package tonight.

The first is a standard operating procedure entitled Regulations for Special Events and Demonstrations on City Property, and the second

is an ordinance amending Chapter 18, which is the city code chapter on Parks and Recreation, to add a new article entitled, Permits for Special Events and Demonstrations.

As you're aware, work on this project began soon after August 12th, and I think I've mentioned

that these documents were only made possible by the excellent work provided by the law firm of K&L Gates.

They volunteered their assistance to the city shortly after August 12th, and we've taken full advantage of that offer.

There were quite a few attorneys from that firm, both locally in Washington, DC, in Chicago, in Dallas,

who did a lot of research and writing and consultation on these permit regulations and ordinance amendments as well as some other discrete legal issues where they let us take advantage of their expertise.

There were many attorneys involved behind the scenes.

I'd just like to publicly acknowledge those who really donated significant time to the city.

And those are Linda Odom, Alex Kaplan, Eric Love, Elana Safner, Reese Bramel, Danny Cohen,

and Ernest Simons.

And we are fortunate to have with us Linda, Alex and Reese.

And with your permission, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to go down to the microphone and ask them to step up with me and I will review the SOPs in the ordinance.

Alex Kaplan.

Reese Bramel.

And Alex, I believe, works in Washington, D.C., and Reese is from Dallas.

Thank you all very much.

May I have one more brief question?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Basically some of what I think are the most significant changes in our standard operating procedures.

We last had these done in 2010.

Typically standard operating procedures are operational documents that are drafted and approved administratively by the city manager.

In this particular case we thought these were significantly important and had such a high public interest that we would bring them before council.

I will say that Mr. Jones did approve these on Tuesday, but we would like your input, your review, your comments and suggestions and concerns about any issues that you see.

And the document that I'm going to be working from as this is the cover page is entitled Regulations for Special Events and Demonstrations on City Property.

You will see in the definitional section many of the definitions are retained from the prior SOP.

We have added definitions for open burning and open fire and open flame and they are among the prohibited items that you will also find in the definitional section.

This is section 3.1.9.

Now one of the first comments that we received

with regard to that provision was whether candles could be allowed and the attorneys at K&L Gates turned that around remarkably fast and did research and found that yes we do have the authority to regulate candles in a different manner than other open burning

and that that can be written into the standard operating procedure where candles are allowed but other types of open burning are not.

I don't know if any of you have had the opportunity to review the Commonwealth's interim regulations on demonstrations at the Lee monument in Richmond.

but they have a prohibition against open burning but at the same time they allow candles.

Let me see if I can...

I believe I may have left that.

on the dais up there.

City of Richmond has similar provisions.

There are a couple of ways you can go about it.

You can just write in an absolute permission for candles, handheld candles in your SOP.

Or you can require, have a permit process where someone would have to go to a city official, say for example, a fire chief to get a permit to hold candles.

As written right now, the SOP does not allow them.

So we would be interested in having

We can discuss it later.

Let me just give you an example.

From the city of Richmond, their rules basically prohibit open flame, but state that candles may be placed on tables for recreational or commercial purposes or for ceremonial occasions, provided the candles are securely supported on non-combustible bases and the flame is protected.

Handheld candles may also be used for ceremonial occasions

but may not be passed from one person to another while lighted.

The state's interim regulations for the Lee Monument ban hazardous, flammable, or combustible liquids or materials and open-air burning but allow handheld candles with drip guards.

So there are a couple ways to do it.

So if, during your comments, if that's something that you would like

Like the proposer, the adopted SOP to reflect, we certainly can do that.

But there is a fairly lengthy list of prohibited items that is new to our SOP.

I think there is a reference to them as

implements of riot.

I think that term probably speaks for itself.

These are things that generally can hurt people, and we have firsthand experience with that, unfortunately.

Section 3.2.1 requires a permit for events that involve 10 or more persons.

The prior SOP, I think there was some ambiguity between the definitions of demonstrations and special events.

but the prior SOP did not require a permit for demonstrations of fewer than 50 people or for demonstrations that did not occur within a city right of way.

The new SOP also recognizes that there may be occasions where spontaneous demonstrations or protests should be allowed to take place without a permit.

just as an example if a court decision comes down one afternoon that upsets people.

legally they should not be required as a condition of exercising their First Amendment rights in support of or in opposition to that court decision to go through a permit process.

The primary one is, and I can ask the team to help me here, is that once 48 hours passes after the event, the event that sparks the spontaneous demonstration, it is no longer spontaneous.

And a perfect example I think were the demonstrations, the first torch-lit rally which prompted a

the second candlelit rally the next night, I believe, that would have been an acceptable, spontaneous protest or demonstration that did not require a permit.

The candlelit?

Correct.

No, I don't think there is.

Generally, the

The regulations require a permit for any event where there are more than 10 people.

Previously, that was more than 50 people.

Is it OK if we ask questions during?

I just seen a wait, but if one does.

I'm sorry.

Section 3.3.2 requires applications to be submitted at least 60 business days in advance of an event.

May I also point out, this is the first of two readings, so we're not voting on this tonight.

There are some financial obligations associated with getting a permit such as agreeing to indemnify the city from any loss or damages that result from the permitted event.

and there are insurance requirements.

Constitutionally, what we have included or what has been included are provisions that allow a waiver of those costs and fees and monetary obligations in the case of financial hardship.

So that is something we think is compelled to be in there.

The city manager is allowed to request additional information about the proposed event and

to deny, modify, or limit the permit if the sponsor of the event does not provide that additional information.

Section 3.4.6 also allows the city manager to place reasonable time, place, or manner conditions on a permit and that specifically includes the relocating of an event to an alternative venue or limiting the number of persons allowed at a specific event.

and one provision that has been problematic for us in the past is what's called an automatic approval provision.

The old SOP stated that if an application was made and no action was taken within 10 days, then the application was deemed automatically approved.

And there are legal reasons for having to have a provision like that.

However, we have increased that 10 days to 30 days.

And we think that will give staff an adequate amount of time to review applications and to get information.

These SOPs will not prevent people with the vilest and most odious of views from coming to Charlottesville.

That's not what they're designed to do and they can't do that.

The purposes of these regulations, and they're stated on the very first page and if they sound familiar,

You will recognize them from being identified in the independent review of the summer protest events by Hunt and Williams as the areas where, especially on August 12th, we failed.

And that is number one, the preservation of public order and safety, and number two, the right of persons and groups to organize and participate in assemblies and engage in free speech.

So that's a rough overview of the new SOPs.

One of the things that cannot be done in a standard operating procedure

is to put in meaningful sanctions because these are typically done by staff and staff can't impose penalties without sanction from city council and for that reason we are also proposing amendments to chapter 18 in the city code and the primary purpose

of those amendments is to include a list of prohibited acts and to make them a misdemeanor and those are various items that were recommended by outside counsel as well as items that we felt we could have benefited from in light of the rallies that we've had in the past.

That's a

Kind of a brief overview of these.

They are significantly more detailed and more specific than the standard operating procedures we've had in the past.

And I think the ordinance, which is before you for first and second reading tonight if you are so inclined, put some additional teeth into the measure.

I will ask my colleagues if they want to add anything else that I have left out or overlooked.

So is this your area of expertise, permits for events or whatever?

Okay.

We reviewed Washington DC's, New York's, San Francisco, Raleigh, Dallas and others to see what was out there and this is what was done with the SOP's before.

They were based I believe on the U.S. Park Service out of Washington DC.

So we definitely looked for best practices and did a very detailed survey of other

Okay.

So you mentioned Richmond and you've heard of the Dillon Rule.

Would any of these run contrary to the Dillon Rule?

Because as far as I know, the governor had an emergency order

Yeah, I have certainly reviewed these councilors with that rule in mind because as you know we live with that every day.

And it is a restraint on localities but not the commonwealth.

And I'll give you an example.

Shortly after August 12th,

The Governor, in effect, enacted a moratorium on any demonstrations at the Lee Monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond.

I have real concerns about our ability to do that, to say no more protests, no more demonstrations until we get our new policy in place.

So we're certainly cognizant of that.

The other obvious example is if you look at the interim regulations that the Commonwealth adopted.

The first thing they list under prohibition, weapons, any pistol, rifle, shotgun or other firearm of any kind, whether loaded,

or unloaded or prohibited.

As you know, we cannot do that.

There's a specific state law

rest and takes that authority away from us.

And as you also know, we have asked for some relief from that in our legislative package that's going before the General Assembly.

Since these protocols are under review and we're heading to a certain decision, it seems to me common sense that

Until they are approved we would be able to either delay a permit approval or somehow impact a permit.

Well we, as you know, we had I guess 10 applications for events on August 11th and 12th.

of next year.

And under the existing standard operating procedure, those were all denied.

And since that time, we have adopted these new procedures.

And, um, yes, they are more rigorous.

Let me jump in.

No, sir, these have been adopted.

These are standard operating procedures which, you know, we have quite a few in the city that are routinely adopted administratively by the city manager.

It was because of the significance and the importance of this that we brought these to council for review and comment.

And again, if you have concerns

Okay, one final question.

You mentioned it would be a misdemeanor if somebody didn't follow these.

These right now are class four misdemeanors and if you look at the ordinance you will see the list of things.

Now that's not exclusive of the potential offenses that could take place at a rally or demonstration.

You could still have assaults.

You could still have disorderly conduct.

Those are prohibited by existing laws.

These are more specific and they're more tied to the rules and regulations.

that are in the SOP.

I have one question that I want, a really good question of my fellow counselors.

There is one in 3.5.1 excluded areas and prohibited items.

It says no events may take place in 6th Street between City Hall and East Market Street parking garage.

That I'm assuming doesn't include the Market Street portion of in front of the police station.

It says between City Hall and East Market Street parking garage, but I'm assuming that only 6th Street is what's prohibited there, not Market Street.

Right, you would still be allowed to have demonstrations on market in front of the general district court, size permitting.

That would certainly be allowed.

Yeah, as you know, the law enforcement vehicles utilize the basement of the East Market Street parking garage, so that is an important means of ingress and egress for them.

and a lot of this is retained from our existing SOP.

I have a question about item 3.4.5b, impact on public safety.

So this I know is a

is a thorny area of constitutional law when public safety is referred to.

I'll take a shot.

The challenge in these rules and in kind of living under these rules is balancing First Amendment rights with public safety.

And this is an expression of when that balance tips in favor of public safety.

And this is designed to be a deliberative process.

It's designed to get

applicants to fully and adequately represent the facts that they anticipate happening and allow for preparation and kind of big picture.

And this is a statement of when, you know, given everything that public safety would win out.

The rule I would think is fairly common.

The application of it is what can be challenging because you're in effect crystal balling it.

You're projecting what will happen at a protest.

And there is case law that says it is better

Well, we're very cognizant of that.

And for those who are not familiar with what the mayor just referenced,

You cannot take action against a speaker, a permit holder, a demonstrator, a protester because of the reaction he gets or she gets or the group gets.

You can't let the heckler is what

You see in a lot of cases, veto the exercise of First Amendment rights.

So that's a very good point.

It has to be read and applied in that context.

And in our ill-fated foray into federal court before August 12th,

Mr. Kessler's attorneys tried to argue that we were in effect using a heckler's veto, which we were not, and I don't think the court saw that, but they at least tried to argue that.

One last question.

I think, and I'll

I'd like to ask my colleagues here to jump in.

Or hate speech that provokes a physical injury.

Okay.

I don't know if there is.

I'd actually like to have a separate discussion about that because there was some one-on-one back and forth about it.

So one of the issues I have in regards to candles is just very candidly.

In effect you have to have regulations which on their face and in their application do not discriminate based on what the person is saying, the content of their speech.

And you all know that.

Having brought it up I'll just say that I think that there are often times kind of historically in this community and also everywhere else where candlelight vigils are held and they're very moving and meaningful to folks.

I have never seen candles used in a threatening manner so even if people who are threatening in their speech are holding candles I don't know that it makes it more threatening like torches do.

So to me it would be

And for the community's benefit, if somebody came into the city who had a history of bringing disruption, that in itself would be taken into account, is that correct?

I think but to be honest we didn't find you know a case on it or anything but I think in evaluating the public safety issues surrounding a demonstration the city's entitled to take into account historical knowledge of the group that's coming and you know kind of how

And I'll just add, I think that becomes more problematic.

I agree with Ms. Odum.

It becomes more problematic when you talk about associates, unless you can somehow show that degree of association.

This is like everything else.

It became much more difficult.

and much more problematic in terms of getting a handle on it with social media and the internet and internet marketing and who's invited and who shows up because they've heard about it.

Again, though, I have to say, I think, you know, you have to, if the police department's here, I think they'd be talking about the practicalities of doing that in the field, on the ground, when you've got thousands of people showing up and you're expecting them to identify people with a certain history.

They may or they may not be able to do that.

I think that's the other piece we have to keep in mind.

You know, a lot of these things make sense and look good on paper.

But when we drafted these we had them reviewed and had input from the Charlottesville Police Department, the Charlottesville Fire Department, the City Manager's Office, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Commonwealth Attorney's Office.

So we had a pretty broad

review and that more often than not was a concern about the police department not a difference of opinion about the rule itself but concerns about as a practical matter how do we enforce these and I'll give you another example.

In an earlier version there was a provision about the prohibited items and

The earlier version had the police able to seize those items and the police department's response was, what do we do with them?

Where do we put them?

Do they get them back?

Can't we just have them leave the event area with their prohibited items?

And that's what we ended up with because the practicalities of it were difficult.

It's difficult in a vacuum but you put it into a context where you have hundreds if not thousands of people and not always liking each other and trying to control that.

I have one more question.

I'm assuming this question is just for clarification.

So the suggestions that have been presented tonight, are they already adopted to be implemented?

No, not to my knowledge.

I mean, we certainly, to their credit,

published some very useful information about the rights of demonstrators and protesters and counter demonstrators and some of that we distributed prior to the events this summer because we thought it wasn't a very accurate portrayal of what the law is.

But the standard operating procedure has been approved by Mr. Jones.

So it is in effect if someone comes in now with an application, then it is these procedures that will judge that.

The benefit of having an SOP is that they're easily amended.

He can do an amendment by signing his name.

Mr. Mayor, I just have a question.

I just want to get straight in my own mind the difference between the ordinance and the standard operating procedures.

Is it fair to say that the SOPs implement the ordinance?

Ordinances are generally of greater dignity because they are legislation.

And ordinances can only be adopted by a majority vote of city council.

SOP's deal more with the operational minutia of government and how government functions.

You certainly could have a permit procedure where everyone that applies for a permit or a special event is treated like a zoning applicant and they have to come before this body.

to do it.

Don't recommend that.

But you raise an analogy that I was thinking about because whenever we have a special use permit or a change in zoning, it requires a public hearing.

That's certainly within your option.

I will say that routinely that that happens in the land use context because it's legally required.

It's not here but that's certainly within council's discretion and again it's here tonight on first reading

Colleagues, I would appreciate that, having a public hearing of the ordinance, understanding and respecting Mr. Jones as the city manager's ability to write and manage and implement standard operating procedures.

And they are.

And your action on the ordinance, I mean, you can have your motion in seconds tonight, but after hearing from the public, if you have a public hearing and considering the ordinance, there may be things in there that you want to change.

So one question in regards to the follow up to Ms. Galvin, which I'm in favor of having a public comment, but the

I guess the question I have is if we were to move forward in that direction, would that temporarily suspend the current modifications that Mr. Jones has made?

It would not.

Those would remain in effect and I would advise you to let them stay in effect because

A couple questions.

So the idea of intimidation, I know is a very powerful one for enhancing public safety at these

at Free Speech Events and You Must Be Black, which was the cross burning case.

That was the idea.

It was when a cross burning is used to intimidate.

So it kind of does get into speech act theory when speech also constitutes an act.

And that idea of intimidation is one of the ways to get to considering the public safety effects of language.

So my question is, I see that intimidation is used in here when an item is used in a way that's intimidating in the prohibited items section.

But is there any part of this, or could there be any part of this that is about conduct setting aside an implement that is intimidating?

So a lot of what we saw here on the 12th before was people in public conducting themselves and always saying things that was intimidating in a horrific way to people.

And is there a way that we can get at that kind of speech that becomes conduct that I think the Supreme Court has

upheld as a as a regulable kind of speech because it has an intimidating effect.

Is there a part in this or could there be a part in this that talks about when they start doing that kind of thing at an event that it becomes something we can regulate.

Or if we know that they would do that, that the intent of an event is to be to intimidate, we can gather that from evidence out there that

First of all, let me just make clear that, you know, all the laws, the criminal laws and whatnot, still apply at these demonstrations.

So if anybody's breaking the law, doesn't matter what they say, they can do that.

Intimidating

And the question would be, I guess I'm asking a question.

I think what you're getting into is the type of disorderly conduct in the context of what are called fighting words.

One issue though is the sponsor you know is sponsoring the event and they get to have an event so what if somebody that you know they didn't invite or how are we going to know if they're invited or how do we know if they're supposed to be there it's a really challenging

Really challenging area.

Okay.

I understand your question.

I'd just like to say I really appreciate the work that you all have done on this.

I think we do, I

I also agree that we should have a public hearing, but we have gotten an amazing amount of public input, both before the July event, before the August event, after the August event, of what people want us to be able to do in this city to prevent the kind of violence we saw this summer.

And I think that this is getting to that.

It may be that over the next year or so, the city manager may do things that slightly augment it as we work with it and learn how it actually works.

but I think that overall this is what the public has asked for is an ability to control behavior without unduly and illegally restricting free speech and so I think especially I'm reassured by the spontaneous demonstration provisions because I think it is important sometimes for people to be able to, I mean clearly legally

necessary, but it's also important to our democracy to have people be able to protest.

But it's also, you know, something that we need some assurance in this community that we can respond when something like this happens, and this gives me a great deal of assurance about that.

Can I try to poll my colleagues on the candles part?

There are pros and cons, obviously, and as I was just talking about before, if we were to prohibit this entirely, you can do the tea candle lights that people get that do have a flickering effect, and people would figure out a way, and Mr. Bellamy's concern was that

You know, these, I mean tiki torches have not really been used offensively much.

Torches have.

The torches have, but the tiki torches that use, and you know, and so they very well may find a way to use candles in an intimidating way in some kind of assembly.

And so the question would be, we just would

Do what the regulation says and just all open flames are regulated.

Or do we want to carve out candles, wax candles, and use the language perhaps that handheld wax candles that Mr. Brown gave to us.

The alt-right is probably watching right now.

They're probably listening on TV.

They're going to pick this thing apart

So to try to get it perfect, I don't see the point in that.

And personally, I don't see the harm in having candles, votive candles is what I would call them.

So if we do that and they abuse it, if that's the only thing they abuse, then OK.

But their pattern up to now is they will pick this thing apart with a team of lawyers looking for a weak spot.

And we have to expect that.

We cannot anticipate what they're going to do, but I think we can close a lot of the loopholes.

Okay, I am as well.

Is that enough of a motion?

Mr. Mayor, just because, if I may, because we've got a couple people that came a long way from Austin and then not so far from DC, is there any

and reflections from you as to what you observed here because this was a lot of work and again thank you because you're a local person but I am curious as to what you kind of took away from this experience working with Charlottesville.

I'll just think for a moment.

I've followed the news in the city pretty closely.

I went to law school here.

So it felt it'd be pretty close to home, even though I live in Dallas now.

Ms. Audum, we've known each other a long time, and thank you very, very much for marshalling these resources.

This is a ton of work that went into this.

I know it took longer than we, you know, we're balancing speed and care here, but this did get done by the end of the year, at least this first vote, and it was a ton of work that you guys did for free to the city, which is really

Well, I just want to say that everyone on my team was just so supportive of this effort and so supportive of the city and just wanting to help and you know, no one ever said, oh, I'm too busy or after I get this other thing done.

No, this was a pro bono engagement.

All right.

Thank you very, very much on behalf of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councilor.

All right, on to the next item.

This is item number five of resolution, the Dewberry Hotel Performance Agreement.

First of one reading.

Who's presenting?

Mr. Engle, Director of the Office of Economic Development.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Chris Engle.

I'm with the Office of Economic Development.

authorizing some support for the hotel at 201 East Main Street, formerly known as the Landmark Hotel.

The item before you tonight is the performance agreement that came out of that initial resolution.

So within the packet tonight you have the actual performance agreement that's been agreed upon by both parties at this point and ready for your consideration tonight, as well as the Mark 6 resolution that

contained very specific items that you were interested in supporting.

Just to highlight, the performance agreement was designed to encourage action to move this project towards completion and it has some basic criteria in it that must be met before it's actually activated.

A minimum of a $20 million investment.

the creation of 60 jobs on site and minimum thresholds for transient occupancy tax to be generated at the site in year one, year two, and then years three through ten.

Those are specified as well.

So all of those requirements have to be met in addition to a completion date of September 30th, 2020.

Provided these criteria are met, the performance agreement then provides

a grant to the developer of 50% of the incremental increase of the real estate tax generated by the project.

So 50% of the new tax is generated based upon the assessed value of the project when it's completed.

So and that duration of that grant would run annually for 10 years.

Currently the base value of the parcel and the structure that's there is $6.6 million.

The amount of the grant is estimated to be about $110,000 annually for 10 years.

That assumes some basic assumptions about the amount of investment at least being that $20 million.

The grant is determined solely by the change in the assessed value created by the project and is only based on the real estate tax.

The other 50% of the real estate tax would be collected by the city from day one and all other city taxes would be collected.

None of those are subject to this agreement.

The project is expected to generate between $800,000 and $950,000 annually in new city taxes and that is driven obviously by the real estate but also by the transient occupancy tax as well as sales, meals and some other items.

Return on investment, sorry.

So as I mentioned in your packet is the resolution you passed back in March.

as well as the full performance agreement that Mr. Brown and I worked to negotiate with the Dewberry Capital folks.

We're happy to try and answer any questions.

Maybe this might be for the Dewberry liaison.

So I remember John Dewberry saying that he was self-financing this.

There will be a construction loan.

There'll be a construction loan.

followed by Permanent Financing, yes sir.

From the bank, it will be a regular?

Mr. Mayor, I do have some kind of questions and I asked several of them earlier.

Mr.

Angle, thank you for answering them.

One of them that I asked about was what would the

What were some other costs associated with an alternative route which would be condemnation and eminent domain?

But that would be predicated on identifying the property as being blighted.

I'll defer to Mr. Brown.

So this would have to be a public park or a public school or something like that.

And so

The other thing that I wanted to get clarified is whether or not there's a distinction to be made when a building is considered blighted and what action can a locality do with that.

We went through this before.

I just wanted to revisit this scenario.

We got actually reports on that.

It did and we have received that report and the performance agreement that you have before you tonight references that report but requires within a certain number of 60 days or so to have that report, any changes updated, sent to the city if there are any.

Thank you.

Mr. Engle or Mr. Jones, can you address this idea about could the property be used for housing?

Or if not, what are the impediments to it being used for people who live there?

If you all are able to answer that.

Yeah, not being an engineer.

I mean, the rooms are small, as I understand them to be, and so using them for living arrangements with a typical, you know, kitchen, bathroom, dining, that type of situation would probably be a challenge.

May I?

My understanding was that it could not be done because it did not meet code for residential use.