City Council Meeting   6/3/2019

Good evening.

Vice Mayor Heather Hill?

Here.

Mayor Nikuyah Walker?

Present.

Counselor Kathy Galvin?

Here.

I have an announcement.

This is from the registrar's office.

This is the last week of absentee voting for the June 11th Democratic primary to decide on the primary's nominees for city council and house of delegates for the fall elections.

Virginia does not have a party registration and any qualified voter may vote in a primary.

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

For example, if they'll be away on election day or have a disability or illness.

Qualified city registered voters may vote absentee in the city voter registration office during office hours between 8 30 a.m. And 4 30 p.m.

Through Friday of this week June 7th and on Saturday 8 30 to 5 p.m. On June 8th The office is in the city hall annex next to the pavilion curbside services available for absentee voters who are disabled or who are 65 or older and have a qualifying absentee voting reason

Voters must show a photo ID when voting in person, just as on election day.

Voters who did not have an acceptable ID may apply for a free photo ID for voting during office hours, including next Saturday in the voter registration office.

On election day, Tuesday, June 11th, all regular polling places will be open from 6 AM until 7 PM.

Curbside voting is available to all polling places for voters who are disabled or age 65 and older.

If you have questions about where you vote or absentee voting or other voting issues, please call the office at 434-970.

3-2-5-0.

I have a couple of announcements.

On behalf of Ms. Maxine, or excuse me, good evening everyone.

On behalf of Mrs. Maxine Holling in the African American Heritage Center.

We've announced this a couple of times before, but as it's coming up, I'd like to say it one more time.

The 19th annual Juneteenth celebration.

known as Reverence will take place on Friday, June 14th as well as Saturday, June 15th which will be next weekend at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

On Friday, June 14th, the events will kick off honoring our local ancestors from 6 to 8 PM.

The guest speaker will be Mr. Calvin Pearson, founder and president of Project 1619, as he tells the true story of where the first Africans arrived in Virginia.

On Saturday, June 15th, there will be a party on the line from 5 PM to 9 PM.

It'll feature several artists, spoken word performers, as well as a slew of other individuals, including fraternities, sororities, civic leaders, social clubs, churches, and community vendors.

Now for those who are not aware,

Dating back to 1865, Juneteenth is a blend of June and 19th is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

It's a great way to remember the struggle that black people waged to free themselves and save the union.

All of these events will again take place on Friday and Saturday, June 14th and 15th at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

One more announcement.

Just for everyone's information on this upcoming Sunday at 9.30 a.m. at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church.

There will be a graduation ceremony for all of the local graduates.

The church will be honoring all those who not only attend their school, but others from throughout the area.

Again, that's at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church at their 9.30 a.m. service.

For anyone who would like to attend, the keynote speaker will be Richmond's mayor, Mayor Levar Stoney.

And then please keep in mind on Saturday, June 28th, we'll have the Run These Streets 4-Miler event in which we get members of the community to run all across different African-American, traditional African-American communities here in Charlottesville.

You have an announcement?

So the second annual Get Your Healthy On with Mayor Walker registration is up.

If you are interested you can email getfitseville at gmail.com.

There's assistance with

Running shoes, walking shoes with Reggae Mountain running shop, the race and registration for the four-mile training program and the race fees will be paid for by Red Light Management if you need that also and it's a 13-week training and

and race day this year for the four miler is August 31st at 8 a.m. at Foxfield, so please consider joining us for the summer.

Are there any other announcements?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, never mind.

All right.

Proclamations.

I believe we have two.

I can go first, but I think before Council was interested in having a moment of silence as we think about the victims of the Virginia Beach

Travis D that took place last Friday obviously is folks that work with close to our municipal partners It certainly hits home here, so we please have a moment of silence

Thank you.

And we had actually already planned to have this proclamation today, recognizing National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

Whereas the National Coalition of Organizations has designated the first Friday in June as National Gun Violence Awareness Day to honor Hadiya Pendleton and remember all victims and survivors of gun violence and to declare that we as a country must do more to reduce gun violence.

And whereas in January 2013, Hadiya Pendleton, a teenager who marched in President Obama's second inaugural parade and was tragically shot and killed just weeks later, should now be celebrating her 22nd birthday.

And whereas the idea was inspired by a group of her friends who asked their classmates to commemorate her life by wearing orange.

Whereas every day, 96 Americans are killed by gun violence and on average there are nearly 13,000 gun homicides every year in America.

Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed with guns than people in other developed countries.

And whereas support for the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens goes hand in hand with keeping guns away from dangerous people.

And whereas we renew our commitment to honor and value human lives, reduce gun violence, and encourage responsible gun ownership to keep our community safe.

Now Therefore Be It Resolved, Mayor Nikuyah Walker of the City of Charlottesville hereby proclaims June 7th, 2019 to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day in the City of Charlottesville and we encourage all members of the community who wish to honor those who have been victimized by gun violence to wear orange on that day, signed and sealed this third day of June 2019 by Mayor Walker.

Let's give these ladies a round of applause, please.

Dr. Bellamy.

I might get in trouble for reading it from my wife, but nonetheless, we're going to read it anyway.

Hope I can stay at one of y'all's house after this.

So it's a proclamation as well as an announcement.

So I will read the announcement first.

Just for FYI, please be aware that we are going to be honoring not only the lovely ladies of Delta Sigma Theta, the Charlottesville Alumni Chapter this evening, but they're also doing a great deal of work

in the community.

In fact, they're going to be rubbing elbows with some folks in the community this Saturday at the Jefferson School, so they're definitely to be commended for that.

And we have a proclamation if we can.

Let's give a round of applause to the lovely ladies in the red in the back for Delta Sigma Theta Incorporated.

Hey Ashley, so whereas Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated was founded on January 13, 1913 on the campus of Howard University in Washington DC by 22 phenomenal collegiate women who saw no limit to their vision for sisterhood, scholarship and service.

and whereas Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated is an organization of predominantly black college educated women committed to using their collective strength to promote academic excellence and provide assistance to those in need with the primary focus on the African American community.

Whereas since its establishment, more than 300,000 women have joined the sorority.

It is a sisterhood that has over 940 collegiate and alumni chapters located in the United States, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, England, Germany, Japan, Tokyo, and Okinawa, Jamaica, Liberia, South Korea, and the Virgin Islands.

and whereas the Charlottesville Alumni Chapter was chartered on June 7th, 1969 by 12 local members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated who were committed to improving the political education and social and economic conditions in Charlottesville City and surrounding areas through the organization's five point pragmatic thrust, economic development, educational development, international awareness and involvement.

physical and mental health and political awareness and involvement.

And whereas the Charlottesville Alumni Chapter has clearly distinguished itself as a public service organization that boldly confronts the challenges of African Americans and hence all Americans and citizens of Charlottesville,

Whereas for 50 years in realizing its mission, the Charlottesville Alumni Chapter has developed and implemented a wide range of programs with special emphasis in the areas of education, health, international development, and the strengthening of the black family.

Recognizing the achievements of African American students, providing tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships to high school students, participating in community cleanups, and presenting cultural enrichment opportunities, which are ongoing activities.

Now therefore, be it resolved that our lovely Mayor, Nikuyah Walker, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, hereby takes great pleasure in recognizing the Charlottesville Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated on its 50 year anniversary celebration, June 7th, June 8th and 9th, 2019.

and paying tribute to his charter members, Ms. Virginia Bell, Fay Benton, Florence Bryant, Rosa Burks, Dorothy Conrad, Zelda DeBarry, Daisy Holmes, Gertrude Mitchell, Nancy Pritchett, Felicia Rowe, Mary Jeanette Scott and Josephine Whitsett for their efforts and foresight in establishing this organization in our city and surrounding communities.

Let's give these lovely ladies a round of applause, please.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

So next we have the consent agenda.

Hey, I'm Rory Stolzenberg.

I live on Water Street between 1st and 2nd.

I'd like to applaud you all on repealing section 17-8 of the city code this evening.

It's an outdated and age discriminatory relic of the 1960s.

I ask you guys to build on this progress by next reexamining the preceding section, 17-7, which criminalizes teenagers for being outside of their homes at certain hours of the day.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else?

All right.

Consent agenda, A minutes, B appropriation.

Appropriation of funding for CPA TV from the Raul Thomas show LLC, $4,247.50, second of two readings.

C appropriation, 2019 to 2020, community development block grant funding.

$395,052.82, second of two readings.

D, appropriation, 2019 to 2020, home investment partnership funding, $120,382.75, second of two readings.

E, appropriation, Virginia Housing Solutions Program Grant Award.

$16,500, second of two readings.

F, appropriation, Greenstone on fifth, corporation sponsorship agreement for enhanced police coverage, $41,092, second of two readings.

All right.

Yes.

No, we're voting on it right after.

OK.

So I move we adopt the consent agenda with items C and D pulled.

Are there any further comments, questions?

OK, that passes, 5-0.

Are there any further questions?

All right, please vote.

All right, so that carries four to one.

Thank you Madam Mayor, members of council and the public.

I have a number of items to report on tonight from our previous meeting.

One is about the trolley route pilot study.

I know that was a concern of many folks in the community, especially those in the business community.

We will be having a discussion pertaining to that pilot project on Tuesday, June 25th from 12 to 1 in the NDS conference room.

Also, two questions.

I know it was from Mr. Johnson and Ms. Conyer pertaining to the Magistrate's office.

The address and name for the Magistrate has been updated on our website, as well as the broken link has been fixed for that.

So that information has been corrected and updated.

Parking on 10th Street, Mr. Johnson, some of the things that were asked was pertaining to the number of permits that you can get for your home.

There's a total of four permits per household and two guest permits that you can have.

The first two are free.

and a $25 fee for each additional permit.

The next question that was raised was pertaining to the number of residents within a particular block that could petition for such a change and that is 75% of the owners or residents within a block.

effective households have to give consent to having parking permits through a petition issued by the city but the petitioner has to actually get that filled out and lastly pertaining to that these petitions should be submitted between May 1st and the last day of February and you can find that within our municipal code in section 15-203 and it's under the title of establishing restricted parking blocks

The next item from Ms. Parker pertaining to 10th and Main, I know there's been a lot of concerns about that in the community and I wanted to do some things that

would be able to show that we are working to make some improvements with that.

One, I had the gentleman go out and paint the crosswalk on Friday.

We'll place new signage at the intersection as well as move some of the signage to make it more visible for those who are driving up and down West Main.

Also, too, just to talk about the speed trailer that we had there.

It captured the speed of vehicles from May 13th through the 27th.

The average speed for vehicles that crossed over that intersection was 23 miles per hour and we have a posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour.

That's just information to have.

Moving on, also to Ms. Parker pertaining to lights under the bridge.

One that we took a little bit further, we went down and looked at the Amtrak parking lot and looked at lights under there and a contractor resolved the issue for the private property owner and that fixture is not a part of the city.

but also too on 8th Street, the tunnel light.

We did notify Dominion and the crew will assess the conditions and they said they'd do that today and then provide us with an update so I'll get back with you with an update as far as the progress that's going to be made there.

The other item listed for tonight is Mr. Evans.

He's talking about the no misconduct definition and the no misconduct definition is administered by the Department of Criminal Justice Services.

and any violation of that the chief of police has to report that to the Department of Criminal Justice Services within 48 hours if the officer is in violation of one of the six categories pertaining to misconduct within a state statute.

One of the questions that Mr. Caleb had is do we have a, I mean Mr. Evans asked was do we have a policy

No, that's a state law which requires the chief to report that in some of the conditions pertaining to felony convictions, domestic assault, and failure to maintain compliance with training requirements.

Moving on to construction permits, Ms. Mary Carey.

Ms. Carey, one of the things that we were able to do is to talk with the contractor who actually is working on that development down on

Main Street within the Whatmall area.

And the work hour that they should be working is from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. at night.

So my understanding and the comments I got back from a few people in the community that it has stopped since our last meeting.

We will periodically check in with the developer for that parcel to ensure that he understands our ordinance and to decrease the probability of that happening again.

Moving on to the next item, Mr. Meyer pertaining to the Airbnbs.

Question was raised pertaining to why not use the Blacksburg Alexandria model to collect taxes for Airbnbs.

What it was said was that the Commissioner of Revenues' office has collected over $1 million in transient occupancy tax since creating a separate licensing category and has received over $360,000 in calendar year 2018.

by using the methodology that they've been basically using since the inception of this.

Correlated commission revenue stated that only two of 189 jurisdictions in the Commonwealth signed tax collection agreements with Airbnb.

and he's asking that if anyone in the community sees any of their neighbors operating in untaxed Airbnb or homestay operators, please contact his office.

One of the things he did want to let the public know is that

The requirements are listed at the top of his city webpage for those who are operating untaxed.

But please let his office know if you know of anybody or any of your neighbors that are operating.

and untaxed Airbnb or homestay operator.

And lastly, I just want the public to know that I've been trying to meet with individuals who came to the meeting who had complaints against the police department.

What I've been trying to do is set up individual meetings so we can discuss that.

I did meet with a couple of residents in the community, but I want to make sure that I am hearing your complaints and making sure that you do have follow up to those complaints.

Mayor Walker, may I just say something?

Dr. Richardson, thank you for acting so quickly on the intersection with 8th and Main.

That was a very basic maintenance issue, and you just took care of it.

Yes, and we're still working through it, and that's why I want to meet with Ms. Parker to talk about any other concerns that she may have in that immediate area.

Just one more thing in regards to West Haven.

There's some concerns about the light under the bridge.

If we can get that looked into as well.

We actually have a work order in to Dominion to get that going.

All right.

OK. All right.

Next, we have Community Matters.

Good evening.

Thank you, David Swanson, Gillespie Avenue.

I basically want to thank the City Council for taking up the resolution that's on the agenda later this evening to divest funds from weapons dealers and fossil fuel companies and thank

The City Treasurer, Jason Vandiver for drafting that.

I very much hope that it passes.

I find it very encouraging that this City Council listens to something that the public brings to it.

It's something I've not seen in Washington, D.C. in my lifetime.

I'm not sure I've seen it in Richmond but to have a government respond to its public is very encouraging and to have a government break out of a disastrous but common habit of thought which says we must focus only on short-term maximization of profit and nothing else and it's our obligation even if it kills us.

I think it's encouraging and it's breaking ground and it's a model that other cities

should follow.

So I hope that this city passes this resolution on divestment and encourages other localities around the world to follow suit.

I think localities with a conscience or even with self-interest that isn't too shortsighted ought to be all taking this up.

And I also

Very much hope that this City Council will commit firmly to moving quickly on the other pot of money, the retirement fund, to divest that money from the same horrible places.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I wanted to also speak briefly about the divestment resolution on tonight's agenda.

The corporations targeted by the divestment resolution profit by making our future and our children's future less secure.

The city should align its investments with its values and invest in a positive future for us and for our children.

Divestment is not just morally, but also financially prudent.

As communities increasingly grapple with the challenges of climate change, fossil fuel companies are more likely to be left holding stranded assets that are going to be dead weight on their asset books, making fossil fuels a problematic investment in an age of climate change.

I'm glad to see this resolution on the city's agenda this evening, and I urge council to support it.

However, there's a disconnect between our stated goals in this resolution and the policies that we pursue here in the city.

In particular, we continue to subsidize fossil fuels by providing natural gas infrastructure to new customers at no charge up to 150 feet from main gas lines.

As a conservative estimate, based on rates charged beyond 150 feet, this is about a $600 subsidy for new customers.

And that doesn't include costs to get the equipment and personnel onto site, nor to tap into the main gas lines.

At roughly 400 new customers per year, that comes out to about a quarter million dollars per year that we're spending to subsidize fossil fuel infrastructure in our city.

Likely twice that once all costs are included.

This subsidy makes it more challenging to meet our proposed climate goals,

and it's more likely that it's our own utility that's gonna be the one left holding stranded assets when our society gets serious about tackling climate change in the future.

I urge council to not only support divestment, the divestment resolution that's on the agenda for this evening, but also consider cease of using city funds to subsidize fossil fuel infrastructure in our city.

Thank you.

My name's Tony Russell.

I live on Gray Street right behind Burnley Moran School.

And I'd like to speak to the issue of divestment as well.

I want to talk about one small atmospheric physics point and not too technical a way to explain why this is such an urgent matter.

When Charles Keeling began taking air samples at Mauna Loa in 1958, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million.

This spring, it hit its highest total in three million years, 415 parts per million.

That's a 48% increase in just 61 years.

Almost all of that extra carbon dioxide came from human burning of fossil fuels.

Most people now understand that we need to move away from fossil fuels and adopt clean, renewable forms of energy.

They may not be aware of how quickly we need to cut greenhouse gases and how deep those cuts must be.

Here's the problem.

Nature can only take up about half of the carbon dioxide humans are producing each year.

The other half goes into the atmosphere.

Of that half, 20% or more will still stay in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years.

That 20% addition on a human scale is near permanent.

So to stabilize CO2 levels in the atmosphere, most of the goals and timelines right now that are being set by governments at all levels don't come close to doing the job.

If we cut emissions by 20%, then 30% will still go into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide levels will keep climbing, and more long-term warming will be locked in.

Cut emissions by 40%, then 10% will still worsen the problem.

Every year we don't cut emissions at least 50% of current levels.

We're making things worse.

That's why the minimum realistic goal is to cut CO2 emissions by 50% and the realistic timeline is as soon as humanly possible, then move to zero emissions.

We can't settle for easy cuts.

Our realism should be rooted in the real life consequences of greenhouse gas buildup.

The deadly heat waves, sea level rise, droughts and drying soils, more violent storms, biodiversity loss, increased flooding, melting of glaciers and ice caps, and all the rest of it.

What we think of as other issues keep pressing themselves on us.

Housing, healthcare, hunger, poverty, immigration, terrorism, all tremendous problems, but the truth is global warming will worsen every one of these dramatically and will do irreparable harm in numerous other ways.

Dealing with it must become the number one priority on our personal

Thank you.

Thank you.

Katrina Turner, Charlottesville.

I was going to talk about complaints and I'm glad Mr. Richardson you spoke about complaints against the police.

Because the same police that's being talked about, this is an officer that I have been complaining about for three years that assaulted my son.

It's a shame that it took a white person to come forward before anybody even did anything to this police officer and this officer only went to a park and scared some people but there's complaints of him putting his hands on people and nothing was done about that but just within that little bit of time

In that complaint, this officer, was he found guilty?

In that little bit of time for just appearing at a park and scaring people in the way he acted.

He's going to be reprimanded for that, but he's not going to be reprimanded for the times that he's put hands on people.

I'm just asking is there any way that there can be an investigation into the complaints filed against this officer?

Because if

If you can find him guilty for scaring people at a park, how come he's not being found guilty for putting his hands on people?

So I would like an open investigation into this police officer and I would like his complaints against him reviewed.

if that's something that you all can do because there's no way we should still be getting complaints on this officer if he's been reprimanded from complaints before and before and before so evidently there's nothing being done so I'm just asking if you all could please open an investigation into this officer look at the complaints that have been filed against him because as I said

If a complaint of him just scaring people and he can be found guilty or whatever it is, but he's not being

reprimanded for putting his hands on people, something needs to be done.

And if a black person complains and nothing is being done, then a white person complains and all of a sudden, what, within two or three weeks, something was done?

That's not showing us that this community is looking out for us.

Thank you.

Kate Fraley Hi Kate Fraley, I'm a resident of Charlottesville and I want to talk about the complaint process in the police department.

Please support a strong CRB with paid staff so that the oversight is thorough.

I want to speak about the complaints process.

The quote internal investigations and citizens complaint

Quote, policy of the police department describes the process.

The CRB should understand and be aware of how it is followed and if it needs changing.

That would be part of the CRB's strong, independent oversight role.

One of the problems now is that complaints are reviewed and the person gets the finding, but the person complaining doesn't know if anything was done about it.

I know someone whose complaint or part of it was sustained."

The policy says that if a complaint is sustained, it means the internal investigation found the complaint, quote, true and officers determined to have acted in violation of applicable procedures, techniques, and regulations.

Disciplinary action follows.

It is in the policy that the person who complained will not know of the disciplinary action taken.

Though a matrix will be provided upon request.

I have not seen the matrix.

The policy also stipulates how many complaints of different types would trigger a corrective interview or an early warning alert.

The person complaining would also not know if either of those actions had been triggered.

A strong CRB would know, and I believe should know.

It would help build trust if somebody outside the police department was following what goes on.

And according to the written policy, it seems the police department would allow that information to be shared because the policy

on page 15, number 7 states, and I quote, the internal affairs investigator will provide the citizen's advisory panel with a quarterly report of complaints, uses of force, pursuits, and stop and frisks.

The report will identify circumstances surrounding each event and findings by the department.

The report will further identify any early intervention alerts and the course of action

by the department, that means the disciplinary action taken.

Although individual officers will not be named in these reports, the department will share this information to illustrate its commitment to both transparency and professional development."

As far as I know, the totality of information listed in the policy was never given to the police advisory panel or to the CRB.

The complaint review process and disciplinary action process has stages.

So as part of the oversight function, the CRB would be following complaints and would know if an individual, not by name,

has had repeated complaints what the process is supposed to do and if it is being carried out as designed.

I hope you will vote for a strong independent CRB so that the information is reviewed thoroughly.

You have the power to change the narrative that has gone on for much too long.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, members of Council.

I'm Cat McHugh.

I live in Charlottesville and I am a volunteer member of the Unity Days Planning Committee.

First of all, I just wanted to say that I think this idea for the Unity Days for the summer and ongoing into future years is a really excellent attempt at addressing the issues here in the community looking forward, not

Looking backwards so much.

I also want to commend the staff that's been working with the planning committee.

Brian is here, Charlene.

Lachine, and I know Joe.

It's been a pleasure to work with all of them.

They've been working really hard and really keeping us all pulled together and moving forward.

So just wanted to encourage you to approve the staff's request this evening for the appropriation for a number of the events that are in the planning stages for that.

Thank you.

I had a question about the Unity Days.

And I know we have a presentation about it later.

So will I just wait there?

Never mind.

It's fine.

All right.

I am John Edward Hall, Fry's Spring.

We, the one people of Charlottesville, need an inexpensive solution to government subsidized affordable housing, which offers comfortable shelter for the homeless and people living in poverty at a bare bones popular price for the taxpayer.

My solution, acronym, is called PACE.

for people in communities engaged in the city parks for overnight campers in tents in resolutions which have now been shared by me with city councilors with the particulars of my program.

I've collected 500 signatures for homeless, low income and other city residents in support of this initiative.

I hope to work out details with Brian Daley, Director of Parks and Recreation, author of appropriate changes to the Charlottesville, Virginia Code of Ordinances under Article I, Parks, Section 18-1 to amend the time, place, and manner of park use from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

and 20 city parks to the time stated in my resolution 10, in the 10 resolutions for ballot inclusion by referendum on election day Tuesday, November 5th, 2019.

I am using this opportunity to announce my candidacy for the city council race

as an independent.

I hope that persons hearing and seeing me speak now will become volunteer circulators of my referendum items.

I think it's everybody's responsibility to do things that need to be done and bring about correction to problems.

Everybody's responsible for the welfare of the public and to better the conditions of the city and people living here.

That's what I'm all about.

Hello, I'm Kay Slaughter from the City, Madam Mayor, Mr. City Manager.

I want to speak about the Drury J.

Brown Bridge, which was intended as a local monument to citizens honored for their dedication to justice and equality.

We appeal to you, the Council, to direct West Main Street consultants to help redesign signage to fulfill this intent.

Here we have three ideas and I think the pictures will help illustrate.

Three small signs identify the bridge, two in the west and one by the steps to Amtrak.

We didn't identify any signs on the east side.

As shown in the pictures,

Amtrak and World of Beer signs far outweigh any perception of the bridge as a monument.

Nothing signals that you are entering a special place honoring Drury Brown and the bridge builders of the last 20 years.

In order to adequately recognize the bridge as a special monument, the light posts should be retrofitted with holders for banners that would illustrate bridge builders portraits and names.

Because our book, The Bridge Builders, will be coming out soon as part of Unity Days, we now have black and white photos of all the men and women named as bridge builders and these could be silk screened on banners.

and we found many images in other cities which we've illustrated for you on this page, on the following pages.

And I'm saying we, Peggy Van Yerries, was going to be with me here tonight, but she had a school event to attend and she didn't make it, so.

Finally, the architect of the 1998 bridge, Warren Bejenstein,

had pointed to the panels beneath the bridge porches on the north side near the playground at West Haven and on the south side facing the Amtrak station.

These were designed to actually hold art or murals and again this could be another opportunity for announcing that the bridge is a special place.

So in summary, we think that this bridge could be a monument and it is the only monument to local citizens honoring these incredible persons and connecting the university and downtown.

So larger monumental signage at each end of the bridge that would be visible to pedestrians, to bicyclists and drivers, using the post banners to

really illustrate who these people were, their names and their images and then on the bridge structure itself artistic photos or artworks and all of these could be accomplished by some types of competition as well.

So we hope you'll consider this request and that you will speak out.

I'm Tony Walsh.

And remind me, just a quick second, Kathy, does it stop right at the bridge, right before the bridge?

The bridge is part of West Main Street and I do have a question... No, I mean in the consultant.

Yeah, in the consultant, yeah.

and Dr. Richardson, I thought, I'm sorry, because it is a follow-up from the previous speaker.

I thought from our most recent report from staff that the input from the bridge builders was actually being incorporated in the design and so I want to make sure that that is the case.

Yeah, that this is a real kind of community participation process and it's not just simply to kind of check a box and say we've met with these people.

Madam Mayor, council members, my name is Tony Wash, I'm the president of Charlottesville.

Dr. Richardson, I know you're brand new, so you won't be that familiar with what I'm going to say.

There's been discussions about street signs around the 5th Street area of Charlottesville.

There's one thing that could be very simply taken care of, and that is a simple yield sign put up in front of the Exxon station.

I can't tell you how many times I almost got clipped

As I am coming down Fifth Street, heading towards 64, turning into Wegmans area, I have the green hour and I'm turning.

These people are coming up Fifth Street and because it's a separate lane, they think they have the right of way and they just keep on turning because there's no yield sign there.

And if you check your records, you'll find there's been many accidents there, many, many accidents.

A simple yield sign for those people coming from 64 on Fifth Street wanting to go to Wegmans will at least alert them to the fact that they do not have the right of way.

turning in there.

Thank you.

Coming from 150, coming from town, you sit there and you have the turn light.

The turn light.

Coming right in front of the Exxon station.

As you're driving along Fifth Street, it's 45 miles an hour, and you have two lanes.

All of a sudden, way back at the Marple House, you get a third lane.

So people think, well, that's a lane for turning.

I don't have to do anything.

Yeah, thank you.

And that's what happens.

Thank you.

I just want to say,

Good evening.

I'm Sarah Landsman and I live in Albemarle County.

But I just would like to ask for your support for the divestment for the operating budget.

But I also want to please remind you that the retirement fund

is a much larger fund and that we hope that you continue to work with that so that also the retirement fund will be divested from fossil fuels and weaponry.

This is something we, one time where we can really do something to stop, to help to stave global warming a little bit and I hope that you do.

Thank you.

Hey, y'all.

I missed me.

Well, I got a few things to talk about.

One about one of the comments made last week about the police department.

I actually was the second party on that complaint.

So yes, I do know that the complaint was actually finalized, but there was a lot of holes in the complaint.

And so that's the whole argument, I think.

And I agree with Katrina 1,000%.

The complaint process is not fully solidified at all, period.

And nothing's being done because the officer that I actually complained on, I was just the witness, he's done more stuff.

So once again we have a problem and I'm gonna take y'all to something that y'all probably haven't even paid attention to yet but

When they see us, it's a firm confirmation of what comes from Charlottesville.

The lady that prosecuted the Central Park Five, she went to UVA.

So this is like racial stuff that has happened for centuries, right, that's being breeding from UVA.

People are coming from Charlottesville.

And people are coming here to Charlottesville because I feel like

People kind of know that we do stand for this type of stuff.

This is the land of Thomas Jefferson.

We have a plantation effect.

Nothing's changed.

What y'all do to black people?

You can cut your ass all you want, boo.

What y'all do to black people is so common.

Like, it's so common here.

Like, it's no blueprint for it.

She talk about Drury Brown Bridge.

That bridge should go in West Haven.

It should serve the community that you ducking away from this city.

That community had from Main Street.

It hides from Main Street.

The apartments that y'all approved, the flats, the standard, they throwing trash in the back of West Haven and people are complaining about it.

Like I just, I don't know what else to really say to city council, the police department, what you do to black people in this city is absolutely insane.

She talk about seeing jewelry, brown signs, any black monument, you can step right over.

You don't even see it.

You don't see it.

It's nowhere.

You don't see it.

And then y'all act like y'all care about black people.

Show black people that you care.

Give black people what you give these white people.

Joan Fenton was just down here at last city council meeting.

If I could have came, I would have came down here so fast.

Talk about a traffic study.

A traffic study.

Y'all didn't do no traffic study for 10th Street when you took away parking on 10th Street and moved the bus stop and moved the covering over the bus stop on 10th Street.

then you put a little extra space for grass or whatever to cut off parking look at what you've done to black people look at what you've done to what 20 years ago you considered a soda zone and now oh it's just all for gentrification let the white people move on and let the white people do this and please

Watch what happened to Chocolate City.

Y'all keep talking about affordable mixed-use income living, mixed-use income apartments.

They did the same thing with the Hope 6 Project in Washington, D.C., and now all black people are gone.

Thank you.

If you could come back.

Excuse me.

I do have one comment in regards to one of the things you said.

I think we can look at in the immediate, in addition to some of the others.

But when she talked about the signage, the plaques, how we commemorate the African American community here in our city, she's absolutely right.

And we've discussed this on several different occasions, and

and I, myself included, we have drug our feet in some regards to actually just doing something.

We know that there's court proceedings that stops us from doing stuff with the park and so forth.

But in the immediate, we could use some of the equity funds to have a much larger designation for the Vinegar Hill plaque.

We could use some of our equity funds or even discretionary funds to put up a larger monument to even acknowledge the Charlottesville 12 or even put up something that commemorates more of the people in a more appropriate way.

And I think that that's something that we need to look at in the immediate.

We know the Blue Ribbon Commission gave us different recommendations, but quite frankly, we've drug our feet on a lot of those for a lot of different reasons.

So I think you're absolutely right, and I think that's something that we can start now, specifically if we just looked at the Vinegar Hill plaque.

Like, we could put a statue, I don't know, we could put something else there that shows people that we care, even when we look at the slave auction block, which we've been talking about for a very long time.

I think she's absolutely right.

How it's currently constructed, people

But you spent millions on Avon Street Bridge.

Why do black people got to cut through 8th Street under a tunnel to get to Main Street?

Why is the Drury Brown Bridge not going into the black community?

I mean, there's so much wrong with this city and this picture, and we fail to accept that.

And then we act like Jason Kesel and them just popped up in Charlottesville.

They've been here.

They've been here.

And they've been up here.

They never left.

And more coming.

And we leaving.

I think to your point, many of your points are valid.

And in the immediate, again, we can begin to use our resources to address these issues.

Some people may say that they're just symbolic, but as we hear, not just from Ms. Hudson, but from others, they truly play a role in how our community is represented.

So I would love for us, at an upcoming agenda, whether that is

over the next two or three, because I know we're off essentially for July.

There's going to be a lot of people here again for August.

And I think before that August 12th meeting, we need to have some kind of discussion and proposals of sorts in regards to how we're going to make amends with, for me specifically, three action items.

One, the Vinegar Hill Plat.

What will we do to address that?

Secondly,

the slave auction block.

And then I think third, some of these other items that Ms. Hudson talked about the bridge going into West Haven, how many of our communities are indeed hidden.

And I'm on the Unity Day Committee and I want to have something to bring black people back downtown.

We don't even feel welcome downtown.

And I met with Charlene.

I met with Kirby.

I met with Ann.

I want to do something to, we have so much local talent here, black, white, whatever.

It don't matter your race, but to make black people, and it's more for black people than anybody.

So that was going to be my comment in regards to earlier from the young lady who talked about Union Day, but I just chose to save it for that portion of the presentation.

So maybe when that comes up, when we have that part of the meeting tonight, we can further elaborate.

I'm currently residing at the Haven.

Psalms 27 of David.

The Lord is the light in my salvation.

Who shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold in my life.

Of whom shall I be afraid?

When the wicked advanced against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.

Though an enemy besiege me, my heart will not fear.

Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

My agenda is simple.

To get my fiancé, Carol Lynn Joyner, here from Turkey.

She is currently a sergeant in the US Army and she has already been paid

or I'm sorry, not paid, sent a text saying I will give you $30,000 not to show up in Charlottesville.

So it's to those that I'm speaking to tonight

It's those who are trying to keep her from getting to me and I am speaking out against that.

In Amway, I'm speaking out against that and I've already outlined my agenda on Facebook.

Hi, how are you?

So Ang Khan, Charlottesville.

I just sent an email to all of you with a letter petition.

30 minutes ago.

Oh.

All right, so the petition reads, while visiting one of the public government buildings, I noticed the single stall bathrooms are still gender segregated.

Throughout the country, cities have developed ordinances requiring single stall bathrooms have gender neutral or gender inclusive signage.

From the city of Denver, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Portland, Oregon, all of those are listed.

in the email.

These are just a few examples of numerous cities where their leaders have taken action to truly create an inclusive environment for all residents and visitors.

In honor of all of those who have been victimized, kidnapped, and or murdered because of their gender and or sex, I am petitioning the city of Charlottesville to establish an ordinance requiring gender segregated single stall bathrooms located in public spaces to be changed to gender

Thank you.

Ms. Conlon, I think that's a great idea.

Would it be possible for us to do some research on this and possibly bring this forth in terms of a future agenda item?

It basically is just changing signage because the stalls are already there.

It costs, I think Minnesota paid $17,000 to change all of theirs.

Yes, I'm not aware of any prohibition in Virginia against this.

I do think the city charter, the council could certainly at a future meeting ask the city manager.

The city manager is in charge of all city properties, so ultimately that decision rests with that office.

Well, if you wanted to be totally inclusive in Charlottesville.

That would be something that is so minor.

We got you.

We got you.

Put that hammer on that nail.

So as Matthew's, as Mr. Christensen's coming up, just formally, Mr. Richardson.

Matthew Christensen, resident of the county of Albemarle.

I'm also in the Unity Days Committee and I want to thank you all for the support you've given.

I think it's a phenomenal change from the past two summers.

I think what we've had, the events we've had in May so far.

have been stellar.

We've had some decent turnout.

We've had some really great educational events.

And looking forward through June, July, and August, the events coming up, I'm genuinely excited about.

We've got screens of films.

We have concerts.

We have more educational events.

We have more community events.

This is a great way to showcase the community.

I think having the community has shown up to provide the programming.

and I hope that you all move forward with completing the funding, especially considering it's such a discount from what was spent last year for what turned out to be a very unfortunate anniversary.

So thank you for that and I hope you continue to fund these types of events because I think it's a good way to

educate the community and bring the community together and and really both I've heard a lot of talk about moving forward and not but we also need to look at the back to the past because we need to understand where we came from and how we got here so that we can move forward.

Thank you.

Mary Curtis City resident.

There's been a lot of stuff going on up in here tonight, and race-wide and stuff, and about the statues and plaques and things like that.

I've been in this town so many years.

When I was a little girl down there where they got that slave auction plaque that's down in the ground, it was up like that on the platform.

Then they put it on the wall, then they decided to stick it down in the ground.

So they go show the disrespect and disrespect they have for people of color in this town.

but we can go out there on Market Street and look at a hundred foot statute of a racist Confederate general that they gotta get a judge before they can take that thing down and I know what they can do with it in an amount of minutes.

But then again, it's only me.

Because when I was a little girl, I couldn't even go up in that park.

I couldn't go nowhere near that park.

still don't want to go up there.

So I like to say that, Ms. Hudson, you write about Ms. Fenton.

Every time she come up in here, something happen.

And they write Ms. Hill.

Because last week, Mr. Signer, you wasn't here.

Ms. Hill didn't want to vote on the pilot because you weren't here.

But Mr. Bellamy, you weren't here when they gave downtown business association to Joan Finn and 75 thousand dollars.

They voted on that.

You see what I'm saying?

That's the difference.

Okay, and case law, you know I love you because you was a mayor when I was raised in here.

But anyway, she's right.

She's right.

Y'all don't recognize anybody in this town of color.

And how did Charlottesville get started?

What's the name of this town?

Charlottesville.

No history.

Black history is American history.

And the most disrespected person in America is the black woman.

That's what I'm getting to.

The most unprotected

Woman in America is the black woman.

The strongest woman in America is the black woman.

And all I got to say, don't mess with us.

And Ms. Galvin, I'd like to say to you, still waiting on your apology to the black community.

for Vinegar Hill and Starr Hill, they're not the same, never have been.

You can sit there, run for whatever you want, dog catcher, road warrior, whatever, doesn't matter.

I'm gonna get my apology from you one way or the other, even if you got to sneak it to me.

Because you do not know black history in this town.

But you done tore this town up, girlfriend.

You haven't given the black people anything in this town.

And Mr. Bellamy, when you promised those black people the bus stop down there on 10th and Page, three white people moved in the neighborhood and took it away.

So we have one more slot.

Good evening, Don Gather, City of Richmond.

I just want to say hello to everybody.

To piggyback some of the previous comments, please recognize this country, if not this town, this community, this city, was built solely on genocide and slavery.

When you have the opportunity, when you have the chance, when it presents itself, honor and recognize those people and those persons of color and those people who are Native Americans who gave so much to this community at every opportunity that you can.

Please go back and revisit the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission and initiate those that you can do so immediately.

I appreciate your thoughts and your concerns Mr. Bellamy and I hope that we are able to do something in the immediate that is tangible and that's immediately recognizable throughout the community.

And also since we won't have another city council meeting before the primary, please everyone remember June 11th get out and vote.

Whereas we can't use this as a campaign platform, I can't tell you who or recommend who to vote for, but I will suggest that everyone please just get out and vote.

All right, thank you.

And Mayor Walker, earlier today we had someone cancel and then we had someone that was added to the confirmed list.

No, it wasn't.

My name is Tamika DeRatt and I am a resident of the city of Charlottesville.

Today I'm here on behalf of my son.

My son is a 10 year old student at Burley Moran Elementary School and he was attacked on a school bus by another student.

The bus driver had a couple more stops before she came to my home.

She never stopped the bus.

She was well aware of the incident, and she didn't do anything.

This was on May 15th.

My son had to go to the ER.

He had a busted lip, a bruised jaw, and an injured shoulder.

My son, of course, is black.

The other student that did this to him is born.

My goddaughter is black, and she

told her teacher to leave her alone and she was doing, excuse my language, too damn much.

The school suspended my goddaughter for the rest of the year.

This little boy who beat my son savagely lied about it on a school bus.

He got four days.

I kept my son at home because of his injuries and his sheer fear of going to school.

I was not going to return him to school.

As a parent, I did exactly what I was supposed to do.

I showed up at the school.

I met with the principals.

I spoke with the assistant superintendent.

I did everything I was supposed to do, keeping in contact with the principal every single day, letting her know that the mental stability of my son since he was attacked on the bus was shot.

He hasn't slept in three weeks since this happened on May 15th and I wasn't going to return him to school.

I was told by the principal, the assistant superintendent, that they had a safety plan in place for my son.

My son returned to school on May the 28th only to have students pick on him because the little boy went around the school telling everyone, excuse my language for lack of a better phrase, that he whipped my son's ass.

So my son came home from his first day back of school, very sad, didn't want to go.

The next morning, I tried to encourage my son again to go to school and he told me, mama, if you didn't make me go here, I wouldn't go.

I regret it to this day.

I took my son to school yet again.

He wasn't back at school a day and a half at a Minds in Motion rehearsal, which is for kids that are good.

It should be a privilege for children that were good.

This same child that beat my son was at mine's emotional rehearsal.

Had I not showed up to the school, he would have done it again.

This same boy, after I told that there was a safety plan in place, came after my son in my presence, not once, but twice.

And no one did anything.

There were several staff members there, all adults, his teachers, that were all made aware of this incident.

And no one did anything.

So when I tell you that, like I said, and I hate to say it,

If my son was black, he would be in jail.

He would be at Blue Ridge.

He would be in trouble.

If my 12-year-old son went and defended him and beat this little boy up for beating his brother up, my 12-year-old would be in jail right now.

But I have filed two police reports in two weeks on the same child and nothing was done.

Now I'm having to look at my son every day and send him back to school where he told I met with some of the staff today and he straight up told him to his face.

He doesn't feel safe.

The teachers that were supposed to protect me didn't do it.

So I'm just wondering, someone needs to be held accountable.

The bus driver still has her job.

when she knew what happened to my son.

She told me what happened to my son.

The principal, she still has her job, but she was the one that called me and relayed to me how savage that her, the child's family, and several other staff had to walk out because my son was beaten that bad on the school bus.

And I just want to let you know that that bullying is here.

It is in our school system.

And I want to let you know my son could be dead.

and I thank God every day that he was strong enough because this boy beat him from the school all the way home and no one did anything and when the officer asked my son what made him stop hitting you the only thing he could say was that we got home so I really would ask you to look into some kind of funding because the staff was there the staff was made aware the bus driver was aware

and no one did nothing for my son.

And then the principal had the audacity, when I told the principal that she made me look bad as a mother, she had the question to ask me why.

Because I listened to you.

I believed in your plan.

I believed in the school system when they said they were going to do what they needed to do to keep my son safe.

And they didn't.

Tanisha Hudson is actually the only person that actually came to my rescue to help me out through any of this.

Because like I said, I met her.

I showed up.

It wasn't that I just let this happen.

I showed up to the schools.

Like I showed up.

I came in the office and I met with her.

I didn't play this off like, oh, he's a black child.

No, mentally my son is broken.

I had a good kid.

Never been in trouble, never, never, never ever been in trouble from the time he was at MACA from kindergarten to now.

Never been in the office, nothing, ever.

Always respect what he's supposed to do.

And he got his ass whipped by a foreigner.

So the email that you sent me, you didn't send your number.

I did talk to the associate superintendent today and Dr. Atkins, Jim Henderson and Dr. Atkins.

Alright, Mayor Walker, can I ask a question of Dr. Richardson too?

We are involved with the bus driving.

All right, so we're gonna have break until... John.

All right, I'll call this meeting back to order.

Mayor, Vice Mayor and Councillors, I'm going to do a little bit of a review of the operations overview for the four utilities that the city operates.

With regard to the water distribution system, the city has over 14,300 customers and we maintain 183 miles of water main that ranges in size from 2 inch to 18 inches in diameter.

We also maintain 1100 fire hydrants and 3400 water valves.

Just to highlight some of the project work that we're doing to replace some of the old-aged infrastructure within the water distribution system.

We do this really to improve fire protection, reduce main breaks, thus reducing emergency repairs that sometimes

This also decreases maintenance costs.

We also do this to improve the overall water quality of the system and address the undersized lines, thus increasing the pressure within the system.

To date, since the inception of this program, we've completed 73 projects.

This program's been where we've had a contractor working diligently to replace old lines, working about 10 years now.

And to date, we've replaced about 15 miles of pipe at a cost of about $16 million.

We also have a water loss prevention program.

This is where we test the meters and replace those meters that need to be replaced.

Years ago we had a testing of our system and we realized a lot of the larger meters greater than one inch in diameter that serves more of our commercial and business community.

We couldn't test because they didn't have the proper test ports.

They were in really small boxes rather than the regular size vault boxes.

And to date we've replaced about 230 of these meters and last year we replaced 84.

So we are well on our way to being able to test our entire system of these large meters.

Annually, we also do a system-wide leak detection survey.

Last year, we detected 10 leaks within our system, and what happens when these leaks are detected, we immediately, with in-house staff, repair the leaks that are occurring, and this reduced about 68,000 gallons per day in our system.

We also are installing new low flow ultrasonic meters within our entire system.

And these low flow meters on the low end of the spectrum actually register.

I'll give you an example.

For a one inch meter, the low flow on a regular meter that we used to use would only go down to one gallon per minute.

but on these low flow ultrasonic meters they go down to 0.25 gallons per minute.

So we're able to detect more of the water that's being utilized through our system and not losing it.

Our water conservation efforts last year were recognized by EPA for the 2018 Water Spence Sustained Excellence Award.

I also want to highlight our backflow cross-connection prevention program that I haven't highlighted previously.

We actually inventory 1,200 backflow prevention devices, and these devices are put in mostly in the commercial community.

Any building that's over three stories in height

Funeral homes, medical facilities also have backflow prevention devices.

Car auto repair shops have backflow prevention devices.

And these are inspected annually, which we monitor to protect water quality within our system.

A little bit about the wastewater system.

We maintain 171 miles of pipe and over 5,700 manholes.

With this system, we are trying to address our aged infrastructure and fix our pipe system.

We have what's called a find and fix approach, where we have a contractor with 200 bid items.

So it's a lot of bid items that we have at our luxury to use.

And we can do a pretty comprehensive rehabilitation replacement of our system.

And to date, we've replaced 25% of our system

or rehabilitated at a cost of 19 million dollars.

and we estimate based on this find and fix approach which a lot of other communities are looking at because we've given some national papers on how we're trying to aggressively approach rehabilitating our aged sewer system and a lot of communities are trying to also look at Charlottesville as a way to look at how they might rehab their systems in the future.

We also maintain an active fats, oils, and grease program.

We try to minimize fats, oils, and greases that get into the sewer system because they can clog the sewer system and create havoc and cause inconvenience to our citizens.

And we inspect over 300 restaurants annually to make sure that they're maintaining their grease traps efficiently.

And we've also got a public awareness program that we've put in place in the last several years to make sure that households try not to dispose of their fat soils and greases down the drain.

We also maintain the stormwater conveyance system.

We've got 130 miles of pipe and over 8,250 structures.

The Water Resources Protection Program, we address rebuilding aging stormwater infrastructure, addressing drainage issues, and pursuing environmental stewardship in order to protect our waterways.

Similarly to the wastewater program where we have a fine and fix program, we have one contractor that does the wastewater as well as the stormwater contract.

And we see efficiencies with that where we can rehabilitate and replace our aging infrastructure.

To date, we've replaced about 10 miles of stormwater pipe and 250 structures totaling $7 million.

and regarding our gas system, we provide safe, efficient, reliable service.

Charlottesville Gas has been in business for over 150 years and we currently have over 20,200 customers, so we have city customers as well as the urban area of Albemarle County that we serve.

We maintain 330 miles of gas lines and 275 miles of gas service lines to the household.

In order to provide a safe system, we have to comply with state and federal regulatory requirements on everything we do from a gas safety standpoint.

And we have an operator qualification plan and program that actually looks at making sure employees that work to install gas infrastructure are competent to perform those tasks.

A typical gas employee may have 30 to 50 tasks that they're tested on and field tested on before they're allowed to do it out, actually allowed to do it in the field.

And they have to make sure, we make sure the records are accurate.

And some of these tests occur bi-annually, some are every three years and some are annually.

So a gas employee has to be competent to install safe, reliable gas service.

Our plan and testing records were audited by the state corporation commission last year on behalf of the PHMSA federal agency and no violations were found last year.

In addition, we also have to have a distribution integrity management plan, or what's called a DIMP.

There's all these acronyms in the utility world.

And this addresses potential threats to our gas system.

And our DIMP plan was audited last year also by the State Corporation Commission, and there were no findings.

An example of a potential threat to our gas system is third party damages.

So if a contractor's out there working,

and he's not paying attention to the gas utility marks in the field, he can hit our lines and that can be a threat to our system.

So we have things in place to make sure that contractors are educated and they call 811 before they start digging and we try to make sure that they don't damage our gas systems.

In addition, the gas utility is working with the local energy alliance program or LEAP to launch a new program July 1st in order to offer energy efficiency upgrades at no cost to income qualified households.

And our primary goal here is to make sure households are more energy efficient by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also reducing living expenses for these residents by reducing their utility bills.

And I'd be remiss in not talking about Flicker of the Flame, the gas mascot that promotes gas safety and awareness.

Last year we had a jingle contest that, you know, I'm not going to try to sing the Flicker of the Flame jingle, but once, because if I do, it'll be in your head all night.

But we had a jingle contest.

People weren't out to change the jingle but do their own version and video it.

So we had kids from schools that sang the flicker song and we had people that did videos and pretty high tech kind of graphics.

and we had some middles and there were 213,000 views on Flickr's Facebook page and we had almost 2,400 people voted for their favorite video and we look at this as a good promotion to promote gas safety and awareness.

We also have some additional operations staffing needs and adjustments.

We are requesting one new position within the wastewater utility.

It's a utility construction inspector.

This person will concentrate on inspecting new development wastewater lines that are installed.

We have to ensure that these lines, when they're installed, meet our criteria as well as state and federal guidelines.

And we also have to make sure that they're being installed properly so that the city can maintain them and we won't have a burden later on.

But we found with all the new development we have this need.

In addition, this position will also concentrate on inspecting our capital improvements program.

In stormwater, we are requesting three new positions for a maintenance crew.

We found now that the utility has six plus years since it was originated, the stormwater utility.

We need to really concentrate on the maintenance of our system to improve our service to our citizens, and so that's the reason for that request.

We're also requesting that

Four existing positions being moved from the General Fund to the Stormwater Utility Enterprise Fund.

And this we're going to be able to do with no increase to the stormwater utility fee.

We saw a way to shift funding from cash funding, some of the capital improvement program, to this effort, and that way there's no increase in the fee.

Thank you, Lauren.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council.

My name is Chris Cullen, and I'm the city's director of finance.

And so to ensure the efficient and orderly maintenance and operations of these essential services that Ms. Hildebrand has been describing, sufficient financial resources are required.

And while the need for this investment is not without cost, our rates must also be balanced with the need for affordability.

But put succinctly, the goal is to provide service in a safe, reliable, responsive and cost-efficient manner.

And so taking just a few minutes to just briefly describe the revenue requirements of each of the utilities in the upcoming fiscal year.

For water, the projected budget totals just a little over $12 million.

The single largest cost of that is the purchase of drinking water from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, or RWSA, which is about, that single item is about $5.9 million, or 48% of the budget, which is a little over a 3.4% increase over the current year.

Debt service for existing and new infrastructure totals about $2.5 million.

And then the city operations and maintenance portion of the revenue requirements for water totals about $4.1 million, an increase of less than 2%.

On the wastewater side, we're looking at about $15.5 million in total to operate the utility.

Again, similar to water, the single largest cost of that is purchasing wastewater treatment from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

approximately 8.9 million or 58% of that budget which very similar to water is just about three and a half percent increase over the current year.

Debt service offer infrastructure improvements so it was about 3 million and the city operations and maintenance portion of that is about 3.6 million which includes the additional utilities construction inspector position that Lauren described.

Moving over to natural gas.

The revenue requirements total $27.2 million in the upcoming fiscal year and again similar to water and wastewater, the single largest purchase of gas from BP, the city's wholesaler totaling about $11 million or 40% of that budget.

The average cost per decatherm has increased over the last year.

I'm going to dive into that just a little more deeply here in a second.

About 12.6% over a year ago today were the base rates that council adopted a year ago.

But as you know, gas is a commodity that's traded on a daily basis.

And so the actual cost to purchase gas may fluctuate during the year.

Due to weather, supply and demand, other political economic influences beyond the city's control.

And to adjust for that, to ensure that we are neither collecting too much nor not enough, we make an adjustment every month to the gas utility rates, which is a little different than water and sewer, which stay the same year round.

And so this PGA, this purchase gas adjustment, you see that on the monthly bill.

and in some months it goes up, in some months it goes down.

There's sort of a seasonal element to that in sort of a normal year.

Typically in winter during the heating months it goes up, higher demand.

In the summer months it goes down somewhat.

Last year was a different year and Miss Hildebrand and I had the opportunity to spend some time with the folks at BP to get a more in-depth understanding of what's been happening

And last year, about this time, gas production in the U.S. was fairly flat.

While there is more gas out there than maybe 10 years ago, the actual production that was occurring a year ago was relatively flat.

As we headed into last summer, a good portion of natural gas is used to produce electricity.

And so heading into the summer cooling months,

Last summer was hotter than normal, so you had low supply in gas, high demand for that gas, and as they move through the summer, typically at the end of summer, beginning of fall, gas producers will actually start storing gas for the winter months, but that gas was not available, and so it further exacerbated the low supply aspect of having gas being available for the heating months.

Fast forward to early December, you might recall early December was quite cold.

And so again, you had a situation of low supply, high demand, which resulted in higher cost purchase gas.

The purchase gas adjustment was quite high in the November and December timeframe.

higher than what we've seen in the last few years.

Since then, that PGA has been going down gradually.

However, we're still, based on our discussions with BP, expecting the cost of gas to still be higher than normal.

But as I mentioned, we do make an adjustment on a monthly basis should that not occur.

And talking a little bit further with folks at BP, I came away with the impression, based on our conversation, and Lauren can certainly chime in if she wants to elaborate on her thoughts, the U.S. is now an exporter of natural gas.

So the prices that we pay as the city of Charlottesville are influenced by things that happen overseas in terms of weather, geopolitics, economics, those sorts of things.

And so I came away with the impression that sort of the increased volatility that we've seen recently may become the norm as opposed to more of the sort of seasonal fluctuations that I described before.

But again we do make that adjustment on a monthly basis depending on what does happen to account for that.

And so that's the gas portion of the gas bill and of the gas rates.

The city operations and maintenance piece costs just a little over $16 million, and that's an increase of less than 2% over the current year.

Finally, stormwater projected budget totals $2.9 million, and this is actually a decrease from FY19.

And as Ms. Hildebrand describes, it reflects a couple of things.

One is a shift towards bond funding for capital projects to better match the pace of the actual work being done.

But it also includes an increase for the additional maintenance crew employees being transferred from the general fund and moving to more of a maintenance approach than necessarily building or constructing new infrastructure.

And so the recommendations for the utility rates for next year.

The first is implementing the second year of the three-year transition plan for the University of Virginia away from the rates in the 1981 water agreement to full city rates for water and sewer.

And then secondly, the proposed changes to utility rates for water, sewer, natural gas, and storm water.

And we'll talk about each of these here in a little more detail, starting with the next slide.

Just as a reminder, we're in year two of this three-year transition plan.

Year one, a year ago, the difference of 25%, the university rates were brought up by 25% of the difference between the rates in the 1901 agreement and the city rates last year.

Year two, that we're heading into right now, it's now going to make up 75% of the difference between the 1901 agreement to the city rates.

And then next year, they'll be at 100%.

They will be paying the full city rates.

So a year from now,

All University of Virginia facilities will be paying the full city rates.

All customers in the city will be paying one rate.

And that was one of the goals coming out of this effort from a year ago.

So the proposed rates that you see for FY 2020, water, a change of about 1%, wastewater, 2%, natural gas, an average of 7%.

For the storm water utility fee, as Ms. Hildebrand mentioned, there's no proposed changes to the current fees.

Also, there are no changes to the monthly service charges for water, wastewater, and natural gas.

One thing to point out with the natural gas, just to be cognizant of, is that come July 1, your gas bill is not going to jump by 7%.

Again, that's comparing a snapshot of a year ago to July 1 of this year.

Again, we make this purchase gas adjustment on a monthly basis, and so a good amount of that increase has already been included in the rates that folks have already been paying us through the course of the fiscal year, but again, in terms of

Comparing one date, July 1 of last year to July 1 of this year, it's actually a 7% increase on average.

and again finally the impact on the average customer for water, wastewater, gas and stormwater.

These are folks, residential customers who use 400 cubic feet of water and about 4,600 cubic feet of natural gas and who own a property with approximately of 2,400 square feet.

You're looking at a total increase of a little less than $4 per month for these four utilities.

You can see that broken up between water, wastewater and gas being the largest of those as I mentioned before.

And so that concludes our presentation.

If you happen to answer any questions you might have, we also have a public hearing on this topic this evening as well.

So I had a couple of questions about just clarifying the 25% increase that came in from UVA starting this year.

If you can explain to the public where that money is going and how is it

So 1981 agreement, obviously a 38-year-old agreement.

The rates set in that for water and sewer were less than the full city rates.

Unfortunately, a lot of the documentation from 1981 does not describe

How those rates were set or what the intent was, although obviously the world was a different place 38 years ago in terms of the water and wastewater industry, the costs, the regulations, certainly the way UVA operates today compared to 38 years ago is very different.

And so we don't really have a good idea of how those rates were established.

However, that being said,

As we went to moving to the university paying full rates as part of the agreement, we initially proposed a two-year phase-in, but landed on a three-year phase-in over that time of 25 to 75 to 100.

And so here as we're heading into year two is the 75%.

It's the big jump of the three years.

And so the additional revenues that are being collected by having the university paying that share of the rates certainly means that they're paying more akin to what their actual costs are.

Again, not knowing how or why the 1981 rates were established, I think it's fair to say that in this time and age, customers were subsidizing the university rates.

I think that's pretty evident.

And so by having the university contributing to its share based on its usage,

of Water and Wastewater.

That certainly adds additional revenue to the utilities which then has a benefit to all customers in terms of everyone paying their proportionate share.

I apologize for that.

Are there any other questions?

OK.

So I'll open the public hearing.

Good evening.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044 Street here in the city.

I'm just going to touch on some things that I covered in an email to council.

The staff memo states, and was reiterated by staff, that the utilities do not operate on a for-profit basis.

As such, utility rates, I'm still quoting, are calculated annually to bring each fund to a break-even point.

Okay.

But as I asked in my email, and I don't believe it was adequately answered really, was what accounts for this very significant increase in the gas rate, three and something percent?

And oh, by the way, I'm sure some of you know better than I do, you know, it takes some people a lot to cover a $4 or $3.50 increase.

Some people have to work an hour to cover that much.

So I also wanted to question, well, I wanted to question or ask if you have seen a breakdown of how much of the average residential bill goes towards various operational costs.

and I believe an older one was distributed to you and will be spoken to by Ms. Smith here shortly.

But look at it carefully.

The gas rate payers pay a significantly disproportionate share, a higher share of five or sometimes 30 times more than the amount of money out of each average bill is taken from the water and the wastewater side.

For example, why is the gas rate payer paying so much more of computer support systems?

Yes, it's as a percentage.

So I have expressed in the past and I remain concerned about another element of our gas bill, and that is the use of what is called payment in lieu of taxes.

It's levied only on the gas bills.

While I understand it is legal in Virginia, I think it is wrong for this city to collect those taxes and deposit a significant portion of those taxes into the general fund.

Okay, remember the taxes are supposed to be collected for a particular purpose for the utility, but they're going into the general fund.

This means those property owners and renters who use gas are paying a disproportionate share

of expenditures that have no relationship to gas.

Not only is that not fair, I think it really means the gas utility isn't operating on a for-profit basis.

And the deposits to the general fund are equivalent to profits because they exceed operating costs.

So think about the impact on those lower income folks in older homes that are heated by gas.

And while LEAP, and I'm glad the city is supporting it,

has programs to help those older homes become more energy efficient.

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Dee Dee Smith.

I live at 2652 Jefferson Park Circle.

I'd like to welcome Dr. Richardson to Charlottesville.

I was on council for 2012 until 2016.

And about every time about this, every year about this time, I would raise the rather uncomfortable question of PILOT, payment in lieu of taxes.

It is an acronym, which

payment in lieu of taxes, which is ironic because the city charges taxes on our utilities.

So I'm not quite sure how you have a tax and a payment in lieu of a tax.

And that's not even considering the monthly charge, which I'm not really sure what you want to call that.

So now we have a utility tax, a payment in lieu of tax, and a monthly charge.

adding up to what is about 36% of actual charges.

So that's really how we're taxing our utilities.

And my concern here really is on the effect on our housing costs, on our residents, particularly our low income residents.

About a few years ago, about 10%, every year, about 10% of our households were having their utilities cut off for non-payment.

which puts families at risk of having their children taken away from them, certainly of losing their homes and it is very expensive to have your utilities put back on.

It's kind of why it's so expensive to be poor.

And so, but what's, you know, the reason I always would have to pilot is what makes it so insidious is that unlike the utility tax and unlike the monthly charge, it is not going back into the enterprise fund.

It's not going back into water.

and Sewer and Gas.

It is going straight to the general fund and it is five to six million dollars a year that is being charged to utility customers and there's only about 20,000 of them that is going directly to something completely unrelated to utilities.

And this has actually happened at a time when, and rumor has it it's because we had so many county residents, county customers.

is that all sorts of things are being tacked on to particularly the gas bill and including like we're funding our whole IT department on the gas bill.

That has since been remedied but we still have this insidious pilot charge that is really makes for unnecessarily high utility bills.

So I reiterate what Ms. Quinn said is that in your package tonight it says utilities do not operate on a for-profit basis and that is absolutely not true.

I don't know how you would take five to six million dollars profit that you make on utilities to put it into the general fund and say you don't operate on a for-profit basis.

So I appreciate your attention to this.

and I hope that you will try your best to make our housing affordable through our utility bills.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Jim Moore.

I live at 1213 Hazel Street.

I also wish to welcome the new city manager.

I rent several homes in Belmont.

I've rented them for about 30 years, and I'm giving you a copy of the letter I'm sending my tenants.

For me, the rate increase that I saw to the gas is sort of the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Now, I've kept my rentals significantly below full market rate, and I try to keep them that way.

Your indirectly, you raised the real estate tax on two of my units over the past two years went up 34%.

And when you raise these utility rates, of course, you're not neutralizing the utility tax on gas that you're charging on top of these rate increases.

So effectively, you're also increasing your income from the tax that's made on these increased rates.

Of course, some of my tenants now are paying the portion of their rent that goes to pay the property tax alone is now more than $200 a month.

So I'm not specifically maybe saying don't raise it, the utility rates or whatever.

I'm just saying since this is all fungible and yes there is some money that flows into the city even though a lot of these customers live in the county.

I'm just trying to convey to you the situation that lower income or lower cost renters are in.

A few questions I had from the presentation.

Our sewer rates are about twice our water rates, so I don't understand why the costs aren't twice the water rates.

The chart up there has the gas at 6.36%, but the legal notice has it for all residential user customers at 8.1%.

So I don't know why I don't understand that discrepancy.

I find that there are other, because traditionally utilities are cash cows for municipalities, I see other expenses that if they were trying to save some money could be done.

First off, how many LEAP programs do we already have in the city?

We have them at the Jefferson area planning level.

We have them at the local level.

We have all three government agent, local governments involved.

And second off, how much do we spend each year advertising a non-renewable fossil fuel source?

And I think that's my list.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else here who would like to speak?

I have a question, Mayor Walker.

In regards to Mr. Cullen, Ms. Smith raises a good point, and one that I would be interested in just getting an answer or a response to in regards to how are we not using, if we're saying that the resources aren't for

Well, just can we answer our question?

Yeah, for profit.

I don't know why I was drawing a blank on profit.

But I mean, there's nearly $5 to $6 million, and it's going into the general fund.

So the payment in lieu of taxes, what it represents is if these utilities were operated by a private firm within the city, they would be paying real estate tax, personal property tax, those sorts of things.

They would owe those to the city as doing their course of business within the city.

Utilities across the country and within Virginia charge those sorts of pilots to their utilities.

It's a commonly established practice.

We at the city have had a number of analyses of this done performed over the last seven, eight years.

We've had our auditors look at it.

In more recent history, we had our water and sewer rate consultants look at that, our natural gas rate consultants look at that, and they've reviewed the particular way that we do it and the practice itself and have affirmed that it's commonplace.

And the way that we do it, they've affirmed that.

Now, from the standpoint of a fiscal perspective, council does have a choice.

You can choose not to charge the pilot, and I should back up and say the pilot is an expense of the utility, and therefore it's included in the revenue requirements for all three utilities, not just gas, maybe it's not called out quite as

Prominently for water and sewer, but it is included in there.

It totals about $6 million a year for the upcoming fiscal year.

It's an expense of the utility.

It's included in the revenue requirements that are then recouped through the rates and charges of the utility.

So from a fiscal perspective though, council does have the option of not including it.

However, then that creates a $6 million gap in the general fund budget, which you could choose to close in other ways.

So that's really sort of the rubber meets the road aspect in terms of dollars and cents.

It's an allowable expense of the utility.

It's charged out to the utility customers on a proportionate basis based on their usage.

It comes back to the general fund.

Is this a, I'm just thinking out loud Mr. Blair, but is this a

Could UVA be taxed and not the rest of the population?

Because you're saying you would close that gap another way.

So the alternative would be for the city not to assess a pilot.

And so we would take that out of each of the utilities.

We would reduce the rates accordingly.

But then in terms of the general fund budget, the budget that you all adopted in April has been balanced, including $6 million.

And all of the utility, the reports that you just gave us, they are funded by the Enterprise Fund versus General, so it wouldn't impact long-term, anything?

Yeah, but instead we had a dedicated, we established an enterprise fund for the natural gas.

Correct, all of the utilities operate as enterprise funds and the water rates pay for water, sewer for sewer, gas for gas, which somewhat speaks to the gentleman's question about why the difference between water

and

Very aware of.

There are some significant costs coming in terms of water production, in terms of the granulated activated carbon infrastructure that was put in years ago and now they're actually in an operating stance with those and those costs are significant and those were known when those decisions were made.

So yes, each enterprise operates separate from the others.

It depends.

We plan, just like with the general fund budget, we prepare a balanced budget.

Okay.

However, every year there's a difference.

In most recent history, it's been a surplus.

In the utilities, they typically are very close, but it's not zero for zero at the end of any particular year.

But it's usually within a few percentage points of actuals to budget.

And those funds stay with, and those fund balances stay within each of those funds.

We do have fiscal policies to maintain working capital.

for each of those.

And to the extent that we do have more than what we need, we do apply those back.

Part of the gas rates, part of the revenue requirements of the gas fund for FY 2020, we didn't call it out in particular in the presentation, but it's in the report, we're going to use about $1.7 million of fund balance to fund some of the one-time capital sorts of things associated with gas, because we do have a fairly healthy fund balance there that's built up over a number of years.

And the only other thought that I have is we have acknowledged the amount of time that the citizens of Charlottesville was carrying the utility rates, paying for themselves, the UVA's rates.

And I just think that some of that money, which

I have brought up in meetings but some of the resources that come in from UVA should go into the gas assistance program, the city's fund of that and if it's a way that we can get some information on what

Staff would recommend for that because the families who would need that assistance would have been the families that over the past 30 plus years would have been hit hardest by having to pay more for rates because the university, they weren't.

Also trying to find this on the website is a little bit challenging too.

We can certainly make the assistance programs more readily evident.

I think it's also important, the toilet rebate programs, the thermostat programs.

The vast majority, I think the number that we calculated this year, 85 percent of a person's utility bill is within their control in terms of their usage.

You know, low flow toilets, leak detection kits, you know, those sorts of things.

You know, while they also aid us in conservation, also help our customers' wallets as well.

And then in terms of the assistance programs, just to touch briefly on those, they are fully funded in this proposed budget for the utilities.

My understanding is that they are fairly fully subscribed to.

We usually have more than adequate resources, financial resources to enroll folks in that and to assist folks.

That being said,

One of the things I'm going to task our utility building manager with in the upcoming year is to look at our assistance programs and say, yes, we've done this for a number of years, but is this all we can do?

Are there things out there that are more best practices, more innovative, those sorts of things?

Are there other programs that we can be looking at or piggyback on?

And then also an analysis of what state code allows us to do as well.

And I would just encourage us to just be careful about use and control because

I grew up in one of the old Ix Mills homes and they had the gas unit in the floor and it didn't travel very far and so while every year the bill was extremely high and was supplemented with other heat

It wasn't very warm in those places and so there are families who I know are still dealing with not being able to upgrade their system so it doesn't matter how much they attempt to not use on those cold December days like you all talked about up there.

It would be very challenging for them to not try to use and hope to feel the heat that they are using which doesn't always work that way.

and actually it's a little confusing for us every year as well because again we do these this this purchase gas adjustment every month and so when we get to every year and we're doing again it's sort of these snapshots in time we want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples that you know that's the way we've presented in the past and so over time we want to make sure we're being consistent so you can you know you can see what's actually happening and that we're not

We have, again, in working with our natural gas consultant, they've offered up some suggestions of a better way to explain that.

This is the cost to purchase gas.

It has its variables.

It fluctuates.

Then the other piece is the city operations and maintenance, which don't.

That stays steady during the course of the fiscal year.

And we've tried to incorporate some of that into the rate report by splitting some of that out and maybe spending a little more time talking about each of those separately, whereas in the past it was somewhat lumped together.

I have a question and I just want to know how much of a dialogue do you have with the Office of Sustainability because just last month we had Susan Elliott give us a presentation about how we're going to be pursuing reduction of our greenhouse gas emissions.

and moving towards the use of a more solar-powered, solar-generated energy.

And you mentioned that gas, natural gas is our main fuel to generate electricity.

Actually the natural gas marketing coordinator that handles various programs for us coordinates with environmental sustainability and Susan Elliott regularly just to make sure that we're in sync with what the programs we are and that's how we originated this LEAP program that we're launching July 1st because we thought it would complement what they're already focused on.

And that's all about conservation but I would be very interested in seeing what kind of steps could be taken to literally start replacing natural gas as our fuel source with solar and how we could do that in a municipal level with our municipal buildings,

And just an investigation.

If no one else is interested, that's one thing, but I'm very interested in seeing how we could move in a different direction of using solar as the fundamental fuel for electricity generation.

And that also sounds to me basically what we've talked about.

We were just saying how volatile the natural gas industry is, and it's going to get worse and worse and worse given the global politics that we're in.

So it seems to me that would actually be in a direction of investigating a more stable source of energy.

I would like to do that.

I know I need another counselor to be interested in doing that.

That's fine.

Thank you so much.

Right.

OK.

No.

But Jesse used to be here.

Kaki Dimmick.

I'm here before you tonight to request an appropriation of $400,000 in human services fund balance to cover unexpected fiscal year 2019 expenses, primarily in the area of foster care.

Expenses foster care family stipend payments which are significantly higher than anticipated this year because there's a significantly higher number of kids in foster care.

Our Foster Family Program, Community Attention Foster Family Program provides foster families to Greene County, Albemarle County, and the City of Charlottesville, so this increase is not

simply reflected in our own local Department of Social Services but in all three municipalities.

These funds are covered 100% by Children's Services Act money.

It goes back into our fund balance.

In fiscal year 20 when the payments are received, they go back into our fund balance.

And this may possibly be a question for future conversation, but the increase in the number of cases, just was there any consistency in the reason why families were, is there something that on a local level we need to be targeting and discussing?

So if that's just something that we can just think about and

It does reflect.

This increase is reflected in a national change as well.

It's not just a local shift in the number of kids in foster care.

Over the last two years, the national number has gone up as well, lots of other kinds of localities.

And so we have looked at that.

And all three municipalities, of course, are interested in reducing the number of kids in foster care.

So does something change?

You know, maybe 10 years or so back when the family reunification, staying with the family, when that happened from the state level and the localities were told to do what you can to keep families together.

I don't know the demographics for the foster kids from all three municipalities, but there are a disproportionate number of kids of color in foster care, and so I would assume that the same applies for kids who are actually placed with our foster families.

Any questions related to the fund balance?

You can put this on the consent agenda.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

No vote.

Thank you.

All right, next we have Unity Days planning and funding transfer.

We're pleased to be here tonight to provide an update to Council and the community about the planning for our Unity Days activities.

You approved Unity Days as a recurring community event to mark the anniversary of August 2017.

And in this first year, staff and a group of citizens who met initially in focus groups came up with a proposal for you to spread this out over four months this year with activities on different themes in each month.

And our goal is to have programs that educate, inspire, and honor people in our community to create movement towards healing and unity on a path for economic and racial justice.

After Council's endorsement of Unity Days, we invited the community to the planning table and I'm pleased to report that we've had 19 members of the Unity Days Action Committee.

Almost half the committee was here tonight at the beginning of the Council meeting, so these are very engaged citizens, many of which you know well.

And I would say also that because of the themes for each month, those subcommittees have also been meeting.

And Charlene has definitely taken charge of the May and June activities.

And the May, as you heard from speakers tonight, the May activities, we had about 20 events on the calendar.

Many of those were lectures and tours.

Some were also events that were already happening in the community, like the Festival of Cultures, but they wanted to come under the umbrella of Unity Days.

And we had a table at that event and were able to help share some information

about our programming.

This Wednesday of this week, the action committee is going to review all the proposals that are in the hopper right now for the rest of the summer.

You've got those in an updated blue sheet in front of you, so a few more came in after we prepared the council packet, so that's the current list.

but the goal is to have them select which of those events they want to endorse and hopefully apply some funding to for some of the ones that require the city's support.

The other thing I would say is that the proposal process, we've been very open with the public and all of our meetings are open.

There's been a lot of media coverage of these events and talking about how proposals can be submitted and the committee's gotten over 40 proposals in total.

So we think we have a good mix of things to choose from and tonight what we're asking for is your input.

Any guidance you want to give us at this point in time, we promised we'd come back to you.

That's the ask from the organizer.

So the action committee will recommend to staff, and at the end of the day, staff will have to make the final recommendation to the city manager about which

So, one, thank you all, even to the members of the Unity Committee.

You guys have been putting in a lot of work.

So there's a couple of things that stick out to me.

And again, this is with the utmost respect, because there's a lot of work that's been put in.

So for me, for individuals who are of my age demographic,

like the events are extremely appealing to like the folks that

I may be at the BCBA games on Sunday.

And one of the things I heard, Tanisha and I were talking before.

And there's been some other folks who've been asking me about this as well.

Sorry.

I'm about to tell you that they are.

Let me get to my point.

Love you.

So in that regard, like,

To attract a certain amount of talent or like a marquee name, I see The Pavilion is on tap.

If we wanted to bring in like a couple of years ago, there was a discussion around bringing Rick Ross down here.

There's been some talk about bringing other hip hop artists like Yo Gotti and others of sorts.

You're going to need a more significant budget to bring these folks in if we want to do this right.

And I think we have the opportunity if we want to bring in some higher profile artists as they would like to come to Charlottesville, I've heard this several times, I think from a council's perspective we're going to need to actually increase the amount of money that we allocate.

Again, if we want to bring in

different caliber artists and include local acts with it because I think that's something that people here in our community have been asking about for a long time.

I would ditto the question that the mayor just asked in terms of, has anyone who's expressed a concern about the offerings not being diverse or inclusive enough submitted a proposal?

Because the proposals, or the events are driven by the community.

So my answer would be yes.

Okay, so then, sorry to interrupt you, so we've got a proposal for an event in July, actually two events, on a Saturday and a Sunday that sound like they're going to be very appropriate for the demographic that you're concerned about.

We have not gotten a proposal

about a hip hop concert or something like that for August.

And so I think to be respectful to our law enforcement folks to fall in line with the policies that are in place about the submission of proposals for the facility usage that we're trying to stick to a timeline to make sure that

Are you going to go through the committee?

Well, the conversation's been going on since the committee has been formed.

I'm talking about the conversation with them, not the conversation with you and the Unity Days community.

That's why I think we're saying two different things.

I'm talking about for my colleagues, I want to make sure that they're aware that that will come forth.

Well, summer's almost over.

Even though it hasn't really started in terms of the planning, we want to make sure that we have adequate time to do what we need to do.

And so I hope we get

One of the largest amounts here, are you all going through to just

Talk about how you are attracting people, like if there was funding for the Seville Culinary Experience, right?

It's a $10,000 ask.

I'm not clear.

With respect to that proposal it's not been submitted yet so it's down in that group that we haven't seen it yet and you know Joan Fenton has been involved in that one and she's been meeting with downtown business owners to talk about their interest and what they want to put on that submission.

Well, it's not representative of the community as a whole.

However, I would say that those lectures, to the ones I've been to, have been very powerful to see presentations about slavery at UVA, eugenics and its connection to UVA.

I mean, I've lived here 35 years, and I've learned a lot in just

A short amount of time here about our history.

And it's not all lectures.

There are a couple of tours that they're the Monticello, the Main Street tours that happen twice a month.

The next one is this Saturday.

And for folks who have no idea about the stores that were owned by blacks on the downtown mall, that's a

That's a tour that everybody should take.

I'm going to do it for the third time because I'm learning something new every time I do it.

I think those things are extremely informative, but are they appealing to this demographic?

Councilor Bellamy, but then the folks who feel like things aren't appealing to them need to come to those meetings and say what is it that is going to be appealing to them.

So the themes

May is history.

May was history.

So we talked about all those ways in which folks have no idea about the racial and ethnic history of Charlottesville.

And so that, like Brian said, that was very informative for folks.

This month is a focus on addressing institutions of oppression.

And so we've got some events scheduled.

There might be a couple of more that might be thrown in there.

But again, we've been reaching out to folks to say, if this is something you're interested in being a part of, submit a proposal.

But then we're also trying to get the word out about attending these events.

July will be a focus on honoring community leaders past and present around social justice.

So that's where I think the disconnect is.

We're using a model, a traditional model in the sense of we're going to have these events that we think would be appealing to folks

Which, they're informative, but they're in places in which we don't normally come.

So like, what would it look like if we were to have these events at the barbershop?

What would it look like if we had these events at the hair salon?

What would it look like if we had these kind of talks?

Like, if we partnered with BCBA and said, well, we're going to do some stuff like on a Sunday.

But I have a, I would like to share quickly because I haven't been on the tours because in my mind, and I just had a conversation with one of the leaders of the tours, it's how the tours used to

happened, which you didn't get very factual information.

That's not what's happening, but that is in my head what is happening, what I think is happening.

So I think part of this is just kind of stepping out.

We gave $55,000 for what is happening locally for us to go and visit across state lines to Alabama last year.

and you had to go to those places and when you got to those places there were tours and information was given so I think it's the same thing.

So one of the things, and I'll end the discussion piece with this note, the staff was very clear in that we did not want to control this.

We are support for the ideas coming in from the community.

And so the community folks have been like these folks in all

I think a lot of city council chambers have been submitting proposals, have been coming to meetings and saying this is what we would like to see happen.

This is what we think would be interesting.

So I can just say for me when I had the conversation I had to look at myself

and say what was I thinking was happening at these tours that I wasn't attempting to fit this into my schedule and for me it went back to the tours we were taking on when we were younger and that I didn't feel like I was getting given accurate information so I thought that it was a waste of my time.

I had the conversation about, no, we are trying to dismantle some of those lies that have been told in the past and tell truths that haven't been told.

And so some of this information has been presented at the Jefferson School in other ways.

How do you have a tour, Wes, if you don't go on the tour?

You gonna bring the auction block to the barber shop?

You want pictures?

All I'm saying is y'all got it.

Y'all doing it, y'all doing it.

I'll leave it there.

I want to ask a different question and I brought this up with at least Brian earlier on.

I've heard the university was mentioning some of the earlier things in May.

So early on, Lewis Nelson from UVA and Carolyn Dillard, Community Relations, they've been involved in most of the meetings.

So we've got good communications with the university.

I would say Chief Brackney also has strong communications with the public safety side at UVA.

So we're definitely talking to each other.

And what we want to hear from UVA is anything that they may be planning and figuring out how we can integrate with that work.

Thank you.

Governor Walker, I'd like to make a motion.

Okay.

I move that we adopt a resolution to fund transfer to support Unity Day's marketing and programming for $100,000.

Alright, any further discussion?

So my response to that would be it seems that this has been framed as a very fully developed community and staff-led process that came up with this number and brought it to us.

So I would

say that if there was an increase that was requested that it should come through the process.

No, understood.

My response would be we would consider it on the merits like any agenda item.

And we would hear it.

All right.

Please vote.

Thank you so much for all the work and thank you to the community members.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, members of City Council.

My name is Jason Vandiver.

I serve as treasurer for the City of Charlottesville.

I plan on being pretty brief tonight.

You may remember that I was before this body about a month ago on May 6th to discuss the implications of divestment from fossil fuels and weapons manufacturers, both within the city's core operating fund and the city's retirement plan.

We talked about the differences between those two approaches for each of those funds.

So we do plan on presenting more information from the retirement commission later this fall, but I do have a resolution for your consideration regarding divestment within the city's operating fund investment portfolio.

I've expressed to you all that I'd be open and receptive to such a resolution and that this action can be carried out with minimal financial impact to the city.

While this resolution may not accomplish everything you desire right away regarding the city's current investment portfolio, I believe this is a positive first step that we can take to explore what a sustainable and responsible investment strategy might look like for the city and I'm pleased to partner with you in this effort.

I'd like to make a motion.

Second.

Questions?

So I have a comment.

I've thought a lot about this, done some research in other communities and I appreciate Mr. Swanson's stalwart activism and leadership.

I would support this enthusiastically if it were about Carbon and those companies.

I think this brings two things together and I don't feel comfortable with the part that is about

weapons systems because I mean my grandfather was in the army in World War II.

I have a lot of friends who have been deployed overseas.

This would cover what's a dangerous world.

You have North Korea and China and Russia that are competing with us internationally.

We have a military for lots of reasons that include weapon systems.

If this was about assault weapons manufacturers, maybe if it was more narrowly focused, and I've heard Mr. Swanson, he's very compelling, and it is

It is a certain vision of where the world, I guess, could be, but I don't see why Charlottesville City Council should be opining about whether weapons should be produced through our investment strategy.

So I would be very comfortable and very enthusiastic about joining New York and London and all these other cities that have done the divestment part that is about climate and carbon production.

But I think that this puts to

Any other comments?

All right.

So please vote.

All right.

And it carries four to one.

Thank you.

Good evening again.

Kaki Dimmick and I'm here before you to request permission to transfer already appropriated fiscal year 2020 funds in the amount of $81,837 to Ready Kids, which is serving as the fiscal agent for City of Promise.

City of Promise has been supported as a city council initiative by the city for seven years or so since its inception.

We have funded and supported the salary of the director of that program and also provided some grant funding from the state for staff who are providing Check and Connect services.

A year and a half ago, almost two years ago, the City of Promise Advisory Board determined that the next step for the City of Promise as an organization was to become independent of both Ready Kids, which serves some fiscal agency services for them and from the city, to become an independent 501c3.

We hired Denise Johnson to serve as the program director who successfully shepherded the program to independent 501c3 status recently awarded by the IRS and established a preliminary advisory board that would serve as the sort of backbone for a new board of directors.

Since that time, Ms. Johnson has sadly accepted a position with Charlottesville City Schools and so we're in a position now as City of Promise is in transition of saying do we support, we have appropriated the funds already to support a director for the City of Promise for next year.

Do we do that knowing that they will, that we'll be asking for

some independence at the sort of June of 2020 or do we just make that functional sort of independence now?

City of Promise has decided to continue to benefit from Ready Kids fiscal agency rather than try to transition into full independence all at one time, which I think is a prudent move.

and so what we're requesting is instead of using the funds to hire a director for the City of Promise program for next year as a city employee that we shift those funds to ready kids and allow them to do the hiring of the new interim or permanent director and then

take the next steps in their independence.

I have a question.

So how would the City of Promise raise money?

And cultivate individual donors.

I think they've done really successfully because they've been a little bit sort of hobbled by their connection, supported and hobbled by their connection with Ready Kids and also with the city.

They've actually spent a fair amount of their initial time around development to focus on individual donors, which I think is really prudent for them.

They have and they have a little bit of fund balance going into next year that is already held by Ready Kids and so I feel optimistic about City of Promises

Future, this is an aggressive timeline for independence.

I think there's a little bit of programmatic dollars that we've used historically, but it's not more than $2,000 or $3,000.

We're holding back a portion of $7,600 that has traditionally gone to support the City of Promise building in terms of utilities and maintenance for the building, which continues to be owned by the city.

All right, consent agenda.

Thank you.

Okay.

Alright, thanks.

All right, and hello.

Good evening.

Yes, it's my first time up here.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Thanks.

I'm with NDS.

I'm Joe Glinner.

I'm a city planner.

And so this item before you tonight is a special use permit request for 1617 Emmett Street North.

The applicant is requesting a special use permit to authorize a specific land use, which is a drive-through window for a restaurant.

And their proposal is to convert the existing structure at 1617 Emmett Street, which is a former bank, into a coffee shop with a drive-through window.

Now two pieces of background on this request.

One is that the proposed use of the building, which would be defined in the code as a restaurant, is a buy-write use in the HW zoning district.

So this SUP request is only for the drive-through window for the restaurant.

The second thing I'd like to bring your attention is that

City Council approved an ordinance to authorize restaurants with drive-through windows in the HW zoning district if they have a special use permit that was done on August 20th of 2018.

Prior to that date, drive-through windows for restaurants in this zoning district were not allowed under any circumstance.

The Planning Commission discussed this item at their May 14th meeting.

They voted unanimously to recommend approval of this SUP request with three conditions.

Condition one will ensure that no work modifying existing buildings or structures will take place until entrance corridor review has occurred and this property does lie within an entrance corridor.

Condition two will address concerns from the traffic engineer about two-way vehicle circulation that was proposed at the site.

And condition three will provide for safer pedestrian access to the coffee shop.

In terms of public comment.

on this application.

The required community meeting was held by the applicant on March 21st and the second unofficial community meeting was held on March 28th.

Both those were at this site, 1617 Emmett Street.

No written public comment was received during this application process and no members of the public spoke for or against this proposal on May 14th during the joint public hearing.

So in conclusion, please remember that the factors to consider as you consider this SUP are listed in the staff report and in section 34.157 of city code and staff is available to answer any questions you all may have.

The bank that preceded it had a drive-thru.

It was just a bank.

I do have a question.

How much briefing and review did the Planning Commission receive about the hydraulic small area plan?

Because in August 2018, the Planning Commission

rejected the zoning text amendment to allow for a drive-through in a restaurant and highway commercial.

So I'm just kind of confused by the disconnect there that in the one hand the Planning Commission was opposed to a zoning text amendment and then now unanimously they were for the drive-through in a small area plan.

I'm not talking about the other highway commercial corridor districts.

I understand that that can apply in, say, Fifth Street.

But this is a small air plan that's been appended to the comprehensive plan that emphasized mixed income, mixed use, multimodal orientation, pedestrian orientation.