City Council   9/17/2018

and as I said it will be presented tomorrow and during the 11 to 1 30 p.m. luncheon.

Ms. Holly Lee is the Chief of Workforce Development Strategies with the City of Charlottesville's Office of Economic Development.

and she was nominated by Kay Monroe.

According to Kay, Holly has played an integral part in creating community within our ranks and professions.

From grassroots to governments, she continues to create and leverage collective conversations among a diverse citizenry, educational entities and agencies that bring favorable and lasting results to the economic vitality of this locality.

The CBDC Vanguard Award is named in honor of John F. Bell Sr., a respected business leader who established successful businesses during a time when society was not welcoming of people of different cultural backgrounds.

Past award recipients include Eugene and Lorraine Williams,

Ford, Addiente, Business Alliance, and Kay Monroe.

Award criteria includes someone who displays high business and personal integrity, makes significant contributions in the area of business diversity, is civically engaged, and develops other business leaders.

And the luncheon itself gives attendees an opportunity to connect with the diversity of business professionals.

So again, I think it's really wonderful that one of our own, Ms. Hailey, has been given the award.

She's a tireless worker.

She set up the growing opportunity programs.

Mr. Matt Murphy is in the room.

He was also a colleague.

He is now in a different position right now with the city council.

Thank you.

Just briefly, this morning I read a proclamation that was signed by the mayor led by Mr. Alexander where today we, I won't read the full proclamation, but today will be known and Mr. Alexander is recognized for creating Close Your Mouth and Listen Day, aka his SIM day for all citizens of Charlottesville and his intention is for it to serve as a positive reminder for all citizens to become better communicators and effective listeners.

helped create a wholesome environment that encourages citizens to be respectful of other opinions, ideas, and thoughts, understand and accept individual differences, and through closing one's mouth and listening, all citizens can make positive life choices and become productive citizens.

So he was joined by 100 students earlier this morning, and this is his little character, the sim character that he asked me just to show.

That was a proclamation from earlier today.

With a heavy heart that I present this plaque to Page Rice.

We've been our clerk for eight years, so I am chief of staff presently, so I'll read it.

and then give it to you.

So this is on behalf of City Council.

In recognition of Page Rice, thank you for your selfless dedication to the often thankless work of municipal government, including both high visibility projects and, equally important, fostering collegiality and effectiveness among our professional staff.

Our municipality is better as a result of your deep commitment to making Charlottesville the world-class city we strive to be.

Charlottesville City Council, September 2018.

We're sorry to see you go.

I have a proclamation here for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

and whereas September is known throughout the United States as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and is intended to help promote awareness surrounding suicide and whereas the health and well-being of our citizens is of the utmost importance and whereas suicidal thoughts can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, race,

and

and the second leading cause of death among people ages 15 to 24.

And whereas suicide has an everlasting impact on families who are left to process the loss of their loved ones and may increase the risk of suicide within the family unit, suicide prevention efforts should be encouraged, developed and supported within the Charlottesville community.

And whereas public awareness of suicide is the key to preventing further suffering and loss of life and the risk of suicide can be reduced through awareness, education and mental health treatment,

All citizens are encouraged to take time to inquire about the well-being of family members, families and neighbors, and every member of our community should be made aware that many individuals are silently fighting internal battles.

Whereas kindness, compassion, empathy, understanding, a phone call, text message or a hug can help an individual realize suicide is not the answer.

Now, therefore, we do hereby proclaim September 2018 as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in Charlottesville, Virginia, and urge all citizens, businesses, health organizations, faith communities, mental health advocacy groups, and all others to work towards prevention by raising awareness, as signed by our mayor, Nikuyah Walker, for the city of Charlottesville.

Okay, so we will make sure we handle that.

I had a couple other quick things, Vice Mayor Rice.

One being, wanted to give some kudos to Mr. Murphy, as well as everyone who was involved with the Charlottesville Back to School Bash that took place in September.

We didn't get a chance to fully acknowledge that, but we had close to 1,000 book bags and school supplies that were provided to the community.

on behalf of the City of Charlottesville, African American Pastors Alliance and several other community groups.

It filled a huge need here within the community, so thank you for your service for that, sir.

In addition to you, there were another group of brothers and sisters from a group called Dream Diamonds and Dream Clothing who also had a back to school bash at Tonsil Park in which they gave away about 300 book bags and school supplies.

and there was another one at Forest Hills from a few community groups, which we also want to make sure that we're showing in the proper love and respect.

So it's definitely a community effort in terms of making sure that our youngsters have what they need in regards to going back to school.

So much appreciation and respect there.

And then secondly, the last thing, Ms. Hill, I did want to say something to some of our students at our last council meeting.

I said something in regards to

Young sister over there in regards to her wearing a beret on her head, which was completely inappropriate.

So I want to look to you and let you know I sincerely apologize.

There is a great level of respect that should be shown from this dais.

And I think it's important for me to let you know that I have three daughters and I never want them to think that a man should discredit them in the movement in which they're doing just because they may not like what they're saying.

So I don't want you to ever think that that's what I'm trying to do and that looks apparently that's what I did.

So to you, I sincerely apologize, not only to you, but everyone who was watching.

So I hope you can accept my apology and I appreciate the critiques.

We may not always agree, but I think you all are pushing us to do things in which we don't normally think about.

And I was at CBC this weekend and I was like, we were pushing the elders from the federal level to do certain things and it really made me think about y'all.

Y'all are just pushing us to be better.

We don't have to have the same tactics or agree on every method, but we got the same goal.

So to you, well that's cool too, but I appreciate you.

That's cool, but I apologize to you and much respect to you and yours.

Mayor Hill, I do have one more announcement or acknowledgement if I may.

Many of you may know that this past weekend we celebrated the Pride Festival and it was extremely well attended.

It was full of great fun and the only thing I can say is love.

The emcee of the event

walked down the boardwalk and said, I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

and it was pretty darn amazing.

It was a wonderful feeling.

So thank you Pride Festival, thank you to everyone who organized that event because it demonstrated, yes, there is strength and diversity and it was also a heck of a lot of fun.

I have four notes here for follow up from our last meeting.

I have Mr. Signer asked is it legal in Virginia to directly elect the city manager position as they do in the state of Maryland.

City Attorney Blair investigated and that is not currently legal in the state of Virginia.

Mr. Mark Cavett asked a question about how many days notice was required for a public meeting like the ones on Belmont Bridge and had a complaint that six days was too short of notice.

Actually the requirement is three days and of course we want to exceed that whenever possible.

I have an issue here that I'm still holding that council would like to revisit what the August 4 changes were in CAT routes but we don't have that on for tonight and I'm pretty sure since it was brought to me by Mayor Walker that you want to do that at a meeting where she's here and did some further investigation.

Ms. Parker has asked us a couple times about was every space blocked off on the four sides of Friendship Court and I have found that

that there were some cars parked there that day.

And so I do want to acknowledge that here since we've had a lot of public discussion.

So it does seem that we had signed a lot of spaces, but not in a way that every single space was not parked in.

Vice Mayor Hill, may I make a comment relative to Mr. Murphy's remarks?

So thank you for that, because I want to underscore the CAT question, because I did attend a Fifeville-Nebid Association meeting this past week, and that was a very big concern as to what was happening.

I believe it was Route 4 on Cherry Avenue.

And if you could also make sure that Ms. Carmelita Wood

gets a follow-up on when we were talking about that.

Thank you very much.

So just for the public's knowledge and information, for the city of Charlottesville, we have an opening for our Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail Board Authority.

So the city appointed position is open on the city of Charlottesville website.

You can visit the boards and commissions webpage on the city website.

Make sure you fill out an application.

Okay, next we move on to community matters.

This evening we have nine who signed up for matters for this time slot.

We have East Perkin speak for three minutes and it'll be optional two minutes available for council to respond.

Elliott Harding, newly moved to the city limits, so I'm in Woodhaven neighborhood.

I want to address two things today.

The first coming from the comments of Dr. Rick Turner at the last meeting regarding the lack of diversity within the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office here.

I want the council to consider doing something that the private sector does for law students before they go into a legal career, and that is developing a summer associate diversity program, having a specific grant to the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office to help find racial minorities or other members who are not fully represented among the bar.

I think it would

doesn't come as much of a surprise that 95% of elected prosecutors are white throughout the country.

So this is not a just a city issue.

This is a national issue.

And for some perspective, summer programs are the most important for finding employment in the legal career, whether it's your first summer or your second summer.

By creating this type of a program, it would increase the likelihood of employment in Charlottesville or surrounding localities and even if they are able to find employment in Charlottesville and the surrounding localities, you could keep the program going in order to increase the pipeline to criminal law, whether that be in prosecution or defense.

down the road that would probably lead to increased likelihood of folks running to become commonwealth's attorneys and then hopefully become judges and that's something that most people should realize is members who find the way to the bench, a significant amount of them have prosecution experience and that's because it exposes them to more trial experience and that's necessary in litigation whether you're in the private or the public sector.

With that being said, I would ask the council to consider that.

Consider what Dr. Turner mentioned at the last meeting.

It would be a relatively cheap grant given that you're probably just looking at one summer associate for two or three months.

They don't have to come from UVA.

There are a lot of other great law schools in the area that would be more than willing to send folks.

A second thing I want to mention is affordable housing and that is not only does the city need it, and I hope that y'all can consider radically changing the zoning laws to allow for up-zoning, but I would hope that this body and the other body that handles affordable housing can also consider the plight on affordable housing for members of our community like our teachers and our law enforcement.

I would hope that the council could consider some type of a tax credit to relieve those burdens because you want law enforcement and you want teachers to be a part of your community so that they know what's going on.

I know that there are folks working in both systems that live one to two, possibly three counties away.

And at that point you're no longer serving the community of interest.

Mr. Harding, just really briefly, Attorney Blair and I,

had a conversation today or there's been ongoing conversations in regards to different things that the city can do as a whole to attract more diverse candidates and whatnot.

This weekend I had some conversations with folks from BOSA, which is the Black Law School Student Association, and they're very interested in working with us as a city as a whole.

to try and diversify our pool, so we're moving in that direction, but I do think your recommendations are definitely well taken.

Joshua Humphreys, and I live over in the Shamrock Road area, and I had a seizure back in August, and while I

basically moving some things around on the way home with some groceries.

And then as part of what the seizure had caused and part of what had happened was I began to run toward one of the doors of the bus and began to bang on the door according to the Charlottesville Transit.

And what had happened with a lot of

Epilepsy and a lot of types of epilepsy, they can look like intoxication, they can look like mental illness.

In fact, a lot of very famous cases of epilepsy have people who have been previously diagnosed with mental illnesses who then become diagnosed with epilepsy as the symptoms worsen or other things happen.

and so I'm very grateful that the Charlottesville Transit has actually responded very well about this and we're actually working on getting training for drivers and other folks like that but another concern that kind of connects with that is to make sure that people do understand that epilepsy does have a lot of manifestations that does not look like the stereotypical

tonic-clonic seizure, what used to be called in the old days the grand mal seizure.

Most of them, 75 to 80 percent of them actually can be things like where a person has what may feel like a mystical experience or a person will begin to stagger and look rather drunk and fall down and start to drool and that sort of thing.

In fact, those two in particular types are the two types that I have and I've repeatedly been accused of mental illness or accused of intoxication and a variety of other things, but we've worked a lot with training and that sort of thing.

and it would be very helpful to try to get police and other folks to have advisors when we have advisory commissions to always have people who deal with disability issues who are briefed on these sorts of things like epilepsy and a whole variety of other disorders including Tourette's syndrome and other things of that ilk because unfortunately that lack of understanding is very dangerous because when we don't understand those things

A couple comments and thank you for coming in, Mr. Humphreys.

Our CAT staff has been speaking with Mr. Humphreys.

Our first training session for staff is actually tomorrow at 10 a.m. about this particular

disorder, and again Thursday at 2, and it will be ongoing until all active drivers in CAT have received the training.

It'll be part of our onboarding.

Also, we'll be changing our response from supervisory staff.

Usually a supervisor responds only to accidents and incidents like that, but we're going to change our policy anytime we have an EMS call, CPD, CFD call,

Thank you very, very much.

Hey, good evening.

I know it's been a while.

It has been a while, and I know there have been a couple of news items, one of which is the announcement of the failure of the West 2nd project due to financial concerns.

Apparently, the developer wanted three summer homes.

He can only get two, maybe?

I don't know.

But I think that is a

Interesting example of how we cannot rely on developers to provide or fix our affordable housing crisis as most of these units were going to high-end ultra wealthy people with only a pittance of affordable housing off-site.

And I know in a lot of these discussions of affordable housing, one of the main issues is that we need land, we need parcels, we need somewhere to develop these housing units.

So I'm here asking council, huh, maybe we can use this land for affordable housing in some way.

Maybe not use it as a rich person's development for luxury apartments.

And while we're on the subject of empty parcels or places that can be developed, I also want to bring your attention back to the Landmark Hotel.

So as we all know, Landmark Hotel has been sitting there for, I don't know, 10, almost 10 years now?

It's been there for a long time.

And the current owner, Mr. Dewberry, has, seems like he has no intention of actually developing or completing this project any time in the near future.

So I would ask the council to direct the director of neighborhood services to start the spotlight abatement process and for those who don't know a blighted property means that the property is

For any reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities, deleterious land use, or any combination of these or other factors are detrimental to the safety, health, or welfare of the community.

I would propose that the currently undeveloped landmark hotel fits these criteria.

especially in terms of health given that almost any time downtown at night I can see rats scurrying to and from the Landmark Hotel.

Obviously it's a health concern.

Obviously it's a safety concern given that in the past debris has fallen from this undeveloped property.

So I would ask the city to essentially kick Dewberry to actually do something with this.

or start this spotlight abatement process in which if Dewberry does not fix this blight, which is the looming tower of steel there, then the city, at least by my understanding, has the ability to potentially acquire that property in order to fix this blight and recoup their costs when they resell the property.

I could be wrong, but please correct me if I am.

But this goes back to my original thought that we have these huge, we have these significant parcels of land that are currently owned by wealthy developers

who either realize that they are not worth their investment for whatever reason, or just waiting for things to get a little cheaper before they develop.

Well, in the meantime, we are in a crisis of needing affordable housing.

So I'd really ask council to actually do something and think creatively about these particular plots of land.

Thank you.

Sure, we can take a look at that again as to what is legally permitted.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Myra Anderson.

I live at 2517 Hajalic Road.

I wanted to take a few minutes to speak about accountability, but before I get there, I want to talk about mental health for a minute, and particularly how it's prevalent in the African American community.

African Americans are more prevalent to experience mental health problems but they're also less likely to seek help and a lot of that has to do with internal stigma within the African American community but it also has to do with external stigma in that particularly African Americans feel more comfortable seeking services from people of color, people that they can relate to culturally

That is a fact, and I'm sure if you were able to survey any African American physicians in town, you would find that a great number of the patients that they see are African Americans.

Now, how does this tie into accountability?

Well, I'm speaking on mental health particularly because I was just at a board meeting for the board of directors at Region 10 speaking to the fact that they do not have any African American therapists there.

at all.

This is a very, very, very serious problem.

It's a problem because people of color are not seeking help because they don't have anyone they can culturally relate to.

It's also a problem because if you are not a person of color,

Sometimes the perception and how you see certain things is different than someone telling the story as a person of color.

After everything that happened last year, there are people who are suffering from racial trauma, okay?

And it's very hard when you want to go speak to someone and the person you speak to is the exact same color as the person you were traumatized.

And that's the only choice that you have in public mental health.

Now, why am I talking about this here?

in addition to talking about it at Regents Inn is because you give Regents Inn money every year.

Every year they come and seek money from you and it seems like there's not too many questions asked about giving them an amount of money.

They're not serving the diverse needs of the city, obviously, if they're comfortable with the fact that there's not one single therapist there.

of Color.

So you have absolutely no choice.

So what I propose to you the next time that you have to allot money to Region 10 or how it goes is to perhaps put some stipulations in there or even ask more questions.

How many people of color are you serving?

And it's not just African Americans.

Broaden that to see any minority group.

Are their needs being met?

You're giving them money for the residents of the city, but yet some of them are not being able to have their needs met in a way that they feel comfortable.

One of my friends, who is a client at Region 10, was the neighbor of Jason Kessler, and she has been greatly traumatized, and the only person she can talk to is her peers.

My time is up.

I hope that you will seriously consider the words that I've said.

Vice Mayor Hope, I may say something, and I'm not sure how we can begin that, but I think if Mr. Murphy could begin a conversation with the relatively new director of Region 10, I think that would be extremely valuable.

Absolutely.

Many, many years ago I served on that board and I believe that the council appoints four of the members, as I recall, but certainly Ms. Rice can probably pull that up pretty quickly.

Ms. Anderson is certainly striking on a very important issue.

I can say what

15 to 20 years ago when I was on that board.

Region 10 funded the Sankofa Center specifically for this purpose in partnership with MACA.

And as Ms. Anderson said, because of stigma in the African American community, despite hiring African American therapists, people didn't come out and it eventually folded.

I know this was a big

Passion Project for Dr. Holly Edwards.

And she did a lot to bring attention to this issue.

So, Mr. Murphy, were you saying Ms. Rice?

The board from us.

So, as you alluded to, Dr. Edwards, the Sankofa Center meant a whole lot to us.

I wonder, is it possible, similar to how we have meetings with other boards and commissioners like we've been talking about, housing authority and so forth, because this has been such a passionate topic for a while now, could we get an update from the Regent's End Board or even have

a joint session of some sort, maybe a small one, it doesn't have to be a session, but we'd like to hear from them what are their efforts in regards to retaining or obtaining and recruitment of minority counselors, specifically African American mental therapists, and is there some way in which we can assist with that, whether that be through advertising, whether that be from monetary assistance, or whatever the case may be.

So I think Ms. Anderson's point is well taken, and it seems like sometimes we just

running a circle that's similar to the issue of black teachers.

It's like we say, well, we need this population.

And the answer is, well, we can't find them.

And then that just seems to be that's it.

But if we're creative in the way in which we go about recruiting them, we may be able to find a path to get more in.

So I think if Ms. Anderson would be willing to assist us in some capacity with different ideas, which she's shaking her head, she may be.

Yeah, I mean, if you might entertain a friendly amendment for augmentation from the manager.

I would say that maybe if I ask Ms. Dimock to bring you all a work session on the work of the Community Mental Health and Wellness Coalition, of which Region 10 is a member, and talk about their work plan,

and you know maybe you know the health department is there and so it'll tie back into MAP because one of the primary goals of MAP is about accessibility for low-income and minority populations to both health and behavioral health services.

I would be fine with that.

I just don't want us to get away from the point.

I think this is something, I mean, even these ladies in the front have bought up.

We've heard this on several occasions, like people, the only place they can afford to go is Region 10 and there's no one who looks like them.

So in that works, I'm not saying this is what you're saying.

I'm just requesting that in that session, if that was to be, we need to make sure that we have an emphasis on whatever Region 10 needs to do and however we can assist to attract

and recruit and then hire more African Americans, specifically mental health professionals.

I'm not losing the importance of that thread.

I think if we bring in that group, we also get a chance to highlight for you work of other groups like the Women's Initiative, who are embedded in West Haven with free counseling every Monday, who have culturally competent therapists and minority therapists.

members representing different areas.

And their next board meeting is October 8th.

So I think in terms of advertising, I mean, were you aware of that, Ms. Anderson, the ad hoc group?

Were you aware of the ad hoc diversity meeting that Ms. Rice just—

Yeah, I saw the news clips.

Or the meeting time.

I mean, in the middle of the day, most people are at work.

But that's another conversation I think we can have with them.

All right, next we have Larry Scott.

Mr. Scott.

Ms. Marsha is coming.

Mayor Walker says hello to everyone.

She's watching remotely from France.

Good evening, Councillors.

I'm Marsha Guyer.

I live in Charlotte's Hill on Pear Tree Lane.

I was looking into affordable housing, the crisis for lower-wealth Charlottesville families using 2016 government statistics to get at the demographics of income distribution and household makeup in Charlottesville.

I was astonished, by the way, at how high the average is and how high it goes up.

This is a much wealthier community than I had realized.

I found that there's a factor that's unfair about eligibility for property tracks relief for elderly and disabled homeowners and the rental relief program for the elderly and permanently disabled.

And I'm bringing that to your attention tonight.

It surprised me to find out that a smaller percent of Charlottesville residents age 65 and over, like myself, have incomes below the poverty level, 10%, compared to 12.4% for all families.

In households where there are children under age five, that is non-schoolage, the poverty rate is almost 22%.

The poverty rate is the highest for women-headed households with children under age 5.

That's 48.5%, nearly as high for women-headed households with children under 18.

There's a huge difference between the low end of impoverished households, 10% for seniors,

and on the high end, 40 something percent for women headed households, headed mostly by women in their early and middle years of adulthood.

But the tax relief and rental subsidy, rental relief subsidies target the age group with the lowest number of households that need these subsidies.

A little more detail on that.

The American Fact Finders selected households

Housing Characteristics Report for 2016.

And I know you've got more up-to-date stats than this.

This is just what I found when I went out online.

That report lists housing as about 58% renter occupied, 42% owner occupied.

And part of that renter occupancy is student housing.

And I didn't find out how much of the total

is the students.

Within owner-occupied housing, two-thirds have a mortgage and one-third have no mortgage.

The median cost of housing for those one-third of homeowners with no mortgage was $454 a month in 2016.

The age distribution of homeowners with no mortgage

is not listed, but it's obvious that older homeowners are much more likely to have paid off their 20 or 30 year mortgage than younger homeowners.

So about 10% of homeowners with no mortgage pay 35% or more of their household income for housing costs.

This does not mean that they're necessarily in poverty.

They may just have huge houses.

So this is the least housing affordability burden category in our city.

The median cost was $15,076 a month for the two-thirds of homeowners with a mortgage.

Thank you.

May I continue?

About another minute or so, I don't know.

So the median cost for renters was listed as $1,030 and almost 45% paid more than 35% of their household income for housing costs.

Now, not all of those 10, 20 or 45 percent of Charlottesville households that paid 35 percent or more for their housing costs have the level of low wealth that could qualify them for financial relief.

Many, but not all.

Bottom line.

Eligibility for the existing relief programs is restricted to low wealth seniors and totally disabled households.

But the biggest part of Charlottesville's low wealth household who are burdened by housing costs, about 35% of their income, is families with children under 18.

Most especially women-handed households with children.

Mothers are mostly in their early and middle adult years, not the grandparent generation.

Poverty is to a great extent the result of only the husband, or if there is no husband, nobody being able to work due to the lack of reliable and affordable childcare.

The amount of subsidies is quite substantial.

It could make a big difference for meeting household basic needs.

As the regulations are written now, they appear to be infected by AIDS discrimination.

In the 1960s, seniors were a financially lagging group.

In Charlottesville, 50 years later,

that situation has reversed.

These rules for both programs are at the state level of regulation.

Charlottesville would need to either get waivers to drop the over 65 age restriction or go to court arguing for the elimination of age discrimination.

I would seriously like to consider that for our next submittal for a legislative packet in November to do research to find out what is

Permissible at the local level in terms of adjusting those age brackets.

I do know, and when I sent everybody before a housing work session a memo that included certain government programs and initiatives that we could look into, and one of them was a tax freeze district, which is, I understand, is allowed by Virginia law.

and that would be something that we could apply to our lower income census tracts.

And then there's the property tax circuit breaker program that New York City has.

that once a homeowner's property tax exceeds a certain percentage of gross income, the homeowner is entitled to tax relief.

So in a way, it's like a graduated tax based on income, not based on age.

So they are both items that I had included in this memo.

I don't know when we will talk about that memo since we did not get to it at the last work session.

But it is extremely, extremely important.

And I think Ms. Mercer, did I get your last name right?

Good afternoon, Rosea Parker, City of Charlottesville.

Wes, you remember you congratulated me on the neighborhood leadership.

They did not take care of what they were supposed to take care of, which is supposed to be lighting at the bottom of 8th Street and Main Street.

That still has not been taken care of.

And Mr. Mike, you're over the Chief of Police.

I am so tired of her telling lies, saying that they have protected us, which they did not.

We had a community meeting with her in West Haven.

Our response to the last thing was we had to have a safety plan.

We was worried about somebody coming through there, antagonizing our community and shooting at our children.

For us to say, for her to say we don't have a safety plan, she might have increased the police riding around.

But she told us that the police was going to be walking and on bicycles.

That never took place.

So I am so tired of her saying that she's doing something.

So I need her to take the accountability of what she's not doing.

And I thank you for saying that I was right.

But that goes to show you she's not doing her job.

A note.

Mr. Murphy, in regards to the lighting situation, I thought that we had it squared away.

Is that not?

Because she's Mr. Farquharson.

I wasn't aware that the lighting wasn't in place.

I'm aware that the crosswalk that we had talked about has been installed.

So I need to go double check on the lighting piece.

I really don't know.

And he said that was supposed to have been done.

I mean he said it was two weeks for the standards to have a crosswalk.

Yeah.

So he was supposed to have did that within what, a week or so?

Two weeks.

So reflectors on cones at 8th and Main is what you mean by that?

Got it.

Thank you.

But the crosswalk was going to put in.

The crosswalk, the standards are already in.

That's the end of those who have signed up.

Is there anyone else who would wish to speak?

I have a two-part question for you guys.

I actually sent the email to you.

You probably haven't gotten it yet, but this is a two-part question that I would like for you guys to do a little bit of research on.

During the years that blacks occupied Vinegar Hill, I would like to know the real estate and property tax revenue that was received by them.

Like how much money did the city receive in taxes from the black businesses and the black residential area when Vinegar Hill was occupied by blacks before demolition.

I would also like to know how much of that money went back into that community before demolition.

And then I would also like to know the amount of tax revenue received

in that same area today from residential property and property taxes today.

I'll do a little compare and contrast and then I hope you all get a little history lesson here.

As soon as possible.

I would like to discuss it at a council meeting.

I think that's the information the world needs to know.

Let's put it on the record.

ten years prior to urban renewal and I mean what's the, just help me frame your question Miss Hudson.

I promise you, a lot of this information, you're probably not going to be able to find it because y'all didn't keep record of it because it's pertaining to black people.

But I want to know what's being received today from that same area and how much money is going into the city so we can start some type of something for y'all to do something more for black people in this town whether it be

You taking money creating or building some type of land bond to fix these houses in Hardy Drive.

You got a house in Hardy Drive that got a hoe in the roof.

So why not move everybody out that one road and start redeveloping that one road.

And then you can just keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

You keep talking about a design plan for affordable housing or how you're going to redevelop Hardy Drive.

Forget a design plan, design is just like the standard in the flags.

Make it all one floor living, one, two, three bedrooms.

It's a bunch of designs you guys could copy to accommodate the people on Hardy Drive.

It makes no sense how those people are living over there.

I just want y'all to walk, you know, it's enough empty apartments, y'all can spend a night over there.

Go on and spend a night and see what it's like to live in there.

And go in the summertime and spend a night with no air conditioner.

Like it's just ridiculous how y'all disrespect us in this town.

Like seriously, and I'm not saying that just to say that.

Like I'm saying it from a research standpoint that I have done, I don't need nobody.

I've done tons of research, going to the library, going to the UVA library, going to the historical society, calling different people that's up 90 years and above.

Like the way y'all disrespect people of color in this town, it makes no sense.

you got three councils sitting up there with a hidden agenda and you know I'm saying this with a lot of passion because I feel like you might do a good job these next couple months I hope that you would do a good job and make these people do something because all these people that come here to make money and then they run out and leave once they make enough money we tired of that like you have to give black people some damn space we contributed to

to every bit of penny that the city has made, and we have nowhere to go.

We have nowhere to go.

And everywhere that we do have to go, we gotta face police everywhere we go somewhere.

Five cops riding through Hardy Drive in 30 minutes is absolutely disturbing.

You don't even got five cups riding through UVA all the time.

Like yo, we deal with so much.

And then y'all wonder why we come down here yelling and fussing and I'm tired of cussing y'all out.

I'm sick of it.

Like I am absolutely sick of it.

If you want to do something about the affordable housing problem, then do it.

Because every last one of y'all campaign was on affordable housing.

If you can't tackle a problem, get the hell out of council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Stop it.

Stop it.

Give black people some money.

I would like the same amount of money for black businesses to the very few that we got.

Can we get that?

Can we get that?

I mean the birds traveling around here.

How about that?

Y'all gotta start showing that y'all really care.

Cause like y'all three, that's why y'all sitting there looking crazy in the face.

Cause y'all know that y'all don't give a damn.

Y'all don't care.

Y'all really don't care.

Ain't no thank you.

I'm not done.

Y'all don't care.

Start caring.

Start caring.

Start caring.

This is why this stuff needs to be recorded, because everybody needs to know how y'all sit up here and lie.

Y'all lie too much.

Now you can continue.

You got your time.

Sorry, Mike.

I didn't mean to get that out.

Hi, I just wanted to ask a question regarding- Can I just bear a record to your name and- Angeline, resident of the city of Charlottesville.

I just want to ask a question actually regarding sanctuary cities.

I know that there is not a single sanctuary city in the state of Virginia, right?

There's these, oh, we're friendly to immigrant cities, Alexandria, Chesterfield, and Fairfax.

But there's not a single sanctuary city in Virginia.

And I would like to know how to start that process.

I know because of the Dillon law requires that it go to the Senate first.

Is that correct?

The General Assembly, yes.

Right.

And since we're supposed to be so inclusive,

So, we discussed that, I'm not going to say at least, well yeah I would say at least last year.

Right, it's too fast.

A sanctuary city.

Here's one of the issues with us being that.

So with the potential threat- Funding.

Yeah, so- Yes, I know that.

Being a city of our size, well, just so everyone knows.

Oh, okay.

So, as you alluded to, the federal funding plays a huge role, or it plays a role in our budget.

In a city like, a city of our size, we're a lot different from like Seattle, Atlanta, things of that nature, because their budget is so much larger than ours.

were to lose our federal funding.

I think it's like $26 million.

It's not very much considering that we have all of these wealthy developers here in Charlottesville.

We can find the money, right?

We can find the money because I'll let you speak in just a second because I will let you speak, but just give me one second.

You know I'm passionate.

So what I am with ICE and this jail board meeting thing taking place and

You know, you guys are going back in to discuss it on November 8th.

Is that the date?

Okay, great.

So November 8th, everybody come out to the Albemarle County Regional Jail to the board meeting.

And very early because it's hot outside, but hopefully not in November.

12 o'clock, please.

So with that, so in speaking with people who were there,

It was discovered that what the jail does is say they have an immigrant, a human being, who's being held there at the jail and they're released.

They're ready to go call their family member.

ICE is contacted 48 hours before their release date.

Right, so my issue is you're having, so that's an issue.

That's just an issue in general.

ICE is a federal agency.

You have no obligation to deal with them.

You have no obligation under, you don't.

You don't.

A city like Atlanta can stop informing ICE of immigration status, Charlottesville can stop

informing ICE of people's immigration status for traffic tickets, for child support or anything like that.

Come on, seriously?

But yet, we have sister cities in other countries.

How does that look?

Right?

We have sister cities, right?

Yeah, of course.

But what I'm saying is this needs to be revisited sooner rather than later.

Mr. Blair, did you have anything else?

Just obviously, as the Speaker and Dr. Bellamy have acknowledged, there is a federal component as well to funding, but obviously the Council is within its parameters to place that on its legislative agenda for the General Assembly.

No, we're not saying no.

It's not complicated.

It's not like something you cannot do.

It's not like, oh, we're a commonwealth, we can't do that.

It doesn't matter if they're going to or not.

The point is to have the initiative to at least try.

If you don't have the initiative to at least try, ICE detention centers are inhumane.

What they are doing to human beings is unnecessary.

It is white supremacy.

There are children, over 500 and something odd children, I think it's now 1,300 children in ICE detention centers without their parents because they were seeking asylum from countries where they could be murdered, put into drug trafficking, all of those situations.

And now they're being molested in these detention centers.

Thank you.

Because I was getting to that.

But this, it needs to be done.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Hill, if I may add something.

It is my understanding that Legal Aid has filed a suit against, I'm not sure which level of government or which court level, but in support of, well, against the detention

passed the legal requirement of jail time.

And I was wondering if this council would be interested in exploring, I'm not sure if the right phrase is an amicus brief, to join in with the Legal Aid Society on that score.

I'm just going to add one other piece to the legal aid.

When this came up after the Muslim ban, the attempt was first announced, one of the things that City Council did was we made a contribution from our strategic fund to legal aid after we were briefed about these legal difficulties in Virginia.

And I think it was $10,000.

I would really like to know

you had to report what they did because it was going to be for helping refugees and immigrants with their legal cases.

And that was something we thought we could do is to help finance the legal work that was being done for the population in Virginia and in our locality.

So we should, I don't think we ever got a report from them about that investment in what they were doing.

So then the issue becomes

After they're released, say you have that whole Legal Aid package, it's fine.

It's great.

But what are we doing about it now when they're at the jail, ICE is being called right there.

They get taken away.

Three specific pieces in regards to what you said.

Mr. Murphy and myself are the, what were two of the four city representatives on the jail board.

We literally have been fighting for this since January.

So our initial meeting in January, we requested that we put ICE detentions and excuse me, ICE notifications on the agenda.

So we had to go through that process.

We were working with legal aid members and members of Semberez and others.

We got that on the agenda to review the policy.

The current policy that is on place for the Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail Board, which includes Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Nelson County.

The current policy is that, one, by federal mandate, ICE is notified as soon as an undocumented individual is brought into the facility.

All right, so the federal policy states that they have to be notified at least once, right?

So they're notified on the front end.

The follow-up policy that the jail board has is that ICE will also be notified upon the person being released or once it's known when their release date is going to be.

So that can be by phone, by email.

More times than not, it's by phone.

The policy that we were fighting for since January is to have that changed.

Now the issue is that we're one jurisdiction fighting, not fighting, but we're debating amongst a group that's with us, Albemarle and Nelson.

What we've brought up, not only in January, but literally every meeting since January, is for us to have the policy change in which ICE isn't notified after an individual, an undocumented individual is released.

That was initially voted down, well we had one meeting, the meeting in January,

It was then put off so that we could have more information come in.

We had representation from ICE.

Mr. Murphy and myself and Law & Tufts, we presented all this information as well as the individuals from Legal Aid about why ICE isn't needed.

They took a vote then.

We were outvoted.

We lost the vote 6-4.

Have another second?

Mr. Murphy?

So the vote was-

somewhat.

But we lost the vote the first time.

Then we were able to get it back on the agenda again for us to have more information because there were some things that were left out.

Mr. Murphy brought up the fact that ICE wasn't using a proper measuring tool in terms of how they're analyzing the individuals who they're saying may be

and Dr.

Joe Piteña said he's fine with he making the call to ICE if need be which means that we won't have to follow the policy so we were advocating locally as a city that we wouldn't follow the policy but we have to get full agreement from the board and during the meeting on Thursday because we saw we couldn't even get the votes to be able to change the policy at all nor for us to be able to just do it our way at Charlottesville

We were trying to talk about a compromise of sorts, just to try to get some kind of way for ICE to not be notified.

That compromise included four different things.

We got a briefing, or a memo, rather, from Joe Patania that stated he saw that the

Most undocumented individuals get picked up for four main things.

One, loitering, driving with suspended license, or driving without a license.

Excuse me, Mr. Murphy had to correct me on that.

So loitering, driving without a license, public intoxication, and then a civil matter of child support.

So what we were asking for a compromise is if, well what about for these four misdemeanor, or these three misdemeanors in this civil matter, you don't notify ICE.

just those are first offenses those are misdemeanors or whatnot don't notify them we were seeing that even with that the remaining members of the board who are I have no qualms with saying very conservative in nature the remaining members of the board didn't even want to go with that so we were able to have the vote put off until November

in which we are going to then have to subsequently have another conversation about it.

So when you bring up the fact that we need to be doing things to fight ice, I promise you, literally we are doing everything and trying to use every tactic that we can to get the policy changed, to prolong the point so that we can try to get more information to convince our other board members, but it's difficult.

Charlottesville, we have four members, Albemarle has four members, and Nelson has three members.

if the four of us, well, not even all four of our members at the time were in agreeance, three of our four members from the city were in agreeance.

At the meeting Thursday, it seems like we may have had one or two more, but we still would have lost, which is why we said, let's hold this off until the next meeting so that we could try to figure out how to get more information.

So believe you me, that's a long story and that's all of it, but we are trying our hardest to stop ICE.

So even to apply for, you know, going through the steps which you said that you would be willing to take, and that you would place that on an agenda of such,

The question in hand is if we choose to do that because ICE pretty much knows.

The head of the state ICE person was at the meeting.

the representatives are there.

They're very clear that Charlottesville, we don't rockwise.

We don't want you here.

We don't want anything to do with you.

However, the issue becomes is that I think for last year from the city there were only eight individuals picked up from Not Mistaken.

The large majority of them come from Albemarle County, the undocumented people who picked up.

So one of the things that we fear

is that, well I can't say we, I can only speak for myself.

One of the things I fear is if we take an even bolder stance in saying, because we've already told them, we don't rock with you at all.

If we tell them again, look, we're gonna be a sanctuary city and completely to hell with y'all, is that gonna have an unintended consequence on our neighbors in the county?

And specifically in Southwood?

Okay, good.

Alright, and you may not want to hear it, but I'm going to go right back on the sister's back and piggyback what she was just saying.

You mentioned that there's a slot available right now on the board, on the ACRJ board.

Yes.

I think it's important that the citizens of Charlottesville know first of all where the council stands on this issue and also that you will go through an incredible vetting process before making that appointment to bring on who I assume will be a voting member to go on the board, on the jail board, correct?

Yes.

That you go through an incredible vetting process to make sure that we're putting someone in place in that position that will indeed uphold what it is that the city

My name is Gloria Beard and I'm a resident of the city.

And the last time we had a meeting, I signed up on the wrong sheets so I didn't get to speak.

So

The first thing I have on my agenda has been talked about so many times is affordable housing.

Now I'm very concerned about the people in Hardy Drive.

I've been here 44 years.

This problem with Hardy Drive has been ongoing ever since I've been a resident of Charlottesville.

I'm not understanding why they don't even have central air after all these years, you all.

They're building big houses, apartments, causing a thousand dollars for one bedroom.

Why do these people have to live like this?

One woman I know for a fact, she has a mold detector in her apartment.

It's always high.

This woman go foul her, she's shot.

I'm retired from the hospital so I have some kind of medical background.

Mold can get in your lungs and kill you.

Do people not understand this?

And then people down in Crescent Hall.

That's another story.

Those people, honey, you wouldn't like to live like that if it was you.

None of you.

You wouldn't want to live that way.

I came up poor.

So I know what any, you know, old, lapidated house look like.

So there's something.

Come on, people.

I know good and well you all can do something about these people.

Don't let people suffer.

This is childless fear.

Most of these people, just because they live at low income, doesn't mean they wouldn't work.

I worked all my life.

I lived in Gash Square for 11 years.

I worked.

to kill three, raise three sons with the grace of God.

Got eight grandkids and two great-grandchildren.

But our work, so don't, you can't say, well, these people ain't worth it, because they, you don't see nothing.

People down there are all, I'm not, some of them work.

Believe me, I know them.

Now, another problem I have is gentrification.

And I think I put the, I stated this the last time I came, excuse me, I talk so fast because I get excited when I'm speaking about it.

So, gentrification.

I spoke at the last housing meeting.

Now, if I left my neighborhood today or tomorrow, I couldn't afford to come back.

Do you know what prices they put on those houses once they sell them?

It don't make sense.

And I know for a fact, I investigate and everything.

I mean, I just keep on top of stuff.

I might sit here and be quiet, but you don't think?

I'm not thinking the whole time I'm listening.

So where are the people going when they move out the neighborhood?

I don't see some of those people that I knew 44 years ago.

Granted, some of them are dead.

But where are they going?

OK, if they do go to Albemarle County, some don't even drive.

If they're as old as I am, I can't see at night.

And one last thing, because the bell's getting ready to ring, is the disrespect amongst the city council.

The last meeting I was at, they made Nikuyah feel so bad.

And I was like, this stuff shouldn't be aired with us.

It should be with you all.

It made me feel like it's always voting two against three all the time.

To the public, it looked gracious to me, because it's always Wes and Nikuyah and y'all three.

So if I'm at home on TV watching this, the first thing I'm going to say, they are against the black ones that's on the City Council.

It bothers me.

It looks racist, y'all.

It looks that way to us.

I don't want y'all to watch it on TV sometimes if y'all not agreeing with Winston Nakai.

Nakai is not a dumb person.

I remember Nakai when I first came here.

She's an activist and she speaks.

She has discernment.

She's got sense.

She's not a dumb black woman.

Don't set her in the background like she don't count.

Everybody in this room mostly wanted her on the council.

Y'all even started it to pick her as mayor.

All she wanted to become was a city council person.

She didn't ask to become the mayor.

They asked her to.

You all did too.

Give her a break, you all.

Respect this woman.

She's not a dummy.

Don't set her on the shelf, please.

It bothers me.

I might have a granddaughter that'll run for city council or president or whatever, but you gotta respect us, honey.

This has to stop.

Yes, so we'll be awarding, officially awarding an RFP, we being the Housing Authority, officially awarding a request for proposal next Monday, correct Mr. President?

So for those listening, yeah.

Looking at developers to be able to redevelop on a site, I don't know if I'm at liberty to say what site.

So I'm being told I can't say which site.

The priority is removing those.

It's a phased approach.

you

you

and Michael Kochis

and Michael Kochis

All right, thank you.

We'll now move on to the consent agenda.

It's lengthy.

Item A, minutes for July 18th through September 10th.

Item B, appropriation, Charlottesville, Albemarle, Adult Drug Treatment Court Grant Award, $205,000, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation, Office of Emergency Medical Services Rescue Squad Assistance Fund Grant, $499,703.55, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation, Supplemental Local Emergency Management Performance Grant, Fire Department, $13,143.29.

Second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation Check and Connect Student Engagement Continuation Grant, $137,000, second of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation Virginia Juvenile Community Crime Control Act Grant, $452,704, second of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation of VML Insurance Programs Grant, $2,000, first of two readings.

Item H, an appropriation 2017 Edward Byron Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, $25,033, first of two readings.

Item I, an appropriation Victim Witness Assistance Program Grant, $257,024, first of two readings.

Item J, an appropriation FY19 Transit Grant Fund, $707,657.64, first of two readings.

Item K, an appropriation Virginia Housing Solutions Program Grant Award, $484,785, first of two readings.

Item L, a resolution Memorandum of Understanding for Joint Transportation Planning, first of one reading.

Item M, a resolution revising council procedures, first of one reading.

Item N, an ordinance easement to Dominion Power at McIntire Park, Skate Park, second of two readings.

Item O, an ordinance release of portion of sewer easement at Belmont Station subdivision, second of two readings.

Item P, an ordinance release of sewer easement at Beta Apartments on 17th Street, second of two readings.

Item Q, an ordinance quick claim gas easement in Cascadia subdivision Albemarle County to VDOT, second of two readings.

There's a lot in here and a lot of note.

I just wanted to call attention.

A lot of this good stuff that's in consent agendas gets missed sometimes and especially for the press or the people watching the drug court is the result of several years of

Hard work, this is a best practice, a kind of cutting edge idea to try to divert people out of treatment, to be very innovative and compassionate and equity focused in addressing flaws of the modern day criminal justice system and ideas of fault and ideas of blame and understanding that a lot of people who have drug or addiction problems deserve a different modality of treatment and that then they can be diverted out of very conventional

and so on and so on.

And Vice Mayor Hill, may I say something?

And this is also to point out that we've received some substantial grants.

And one of them in particular is the Virginia Housing Solutions Program grant award of $484,785.

and I want to thank Kathy Dimmick, Director of Human Services for working closely with the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless and they worked and secured this grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.

It is to work towards housing solutions that is on everyone's mind.

And a lot of what we are able to do with our local government is secure grants that actually further our efforts.

So I just wanted to point that out as one example.

Then we had another one with Charlottesville Area Transit got over $780,000 worth of matching grants also.

to extend the dollars that we are already investing.

All right, next on our agenda is a public hearing for a program performance and priorities for the Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership funds for program year 2019-20.

And then the second thing we're going to be doing today is aiding council, or council will be setting priorities for CDBG and HOME funds for fiscal year 19-20.

Goals and priorities determined as a result of this public hearing will be the framework for funding recommendations made by the CDBG and HOME task force for funding available after July 2019.

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

However, we will estimate based on prior year funding.

Given this, the city can expect to receive about $408,000 in CDBG and about $78,000 in HOME for the city and $624,000 for the HOME consortium.

So program performance highlights from fiscal year 17-18.

Last year, there were 147 beneficiaries as a result of CDBG projects.

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

I will note that infrastructure improvements occurred in the 10th and Page neighborhood and the way that we calculate the beneficiaries, it's by low to moderate income area, so it's a total area, so 3,700 people benefited from that activity.

Of the 147 beneficiaries, 84% were extremely low income, 11% were low income, and 5% were moderate income, and 78% were minorities.

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

For home and fiscal year, the city completed one down payment assistance project,

and currently have two affordable rental unit projects underway.

The city did not meet its program year 17 home goals for down payment assistance activities and some of the challenges that the sub-recipients reported included sale price limitations, barring capacity of clients, issues with clients being outbid in the market and new construction project delays.

So basically what happens with those outcomes, they get reported the following year, next year.

The home consortium completed a total of 14 projects, including first time home buyer assistance and homeowner rehab.

And of the 14 beneficiaries, 7% were extremely low income, 36% were low income, and 43% were minorities.

All comments provided during the public hearing will be captured and reported in the city's KPERS submission.

And the full document is located on the city's website, and there's also a link in the council agenda materials.

Next, we will discuss CDBG and home priorities for fiscal year 1920.

Given this, Council will be asked to determine what the priorities will be for fiscal year 1920.

Council will also be asked to confirm the priority neighborhood, determine if funds should be set aside for economic development and housing, determine the percentage for public service projects and admin and planning, and then add any additional guidelines.

So overall,

Staff recommends that council move forward with the following priorities.

Affordable housing, prioritizing persons who are zero to 50% AMI, support for the homeless and those at risk of homelessness, workforce development, support for programs that aid in self-sufficiency, including but not limited to quality childcare, microenterprise assistance, and mental health and substance abuse services.

And these priorities are consistent with the new 2018 to 2022 consolidated plan.

Staff recommends approving the 15% maximum allocation allowed for public service projects and approving the 20% maximum allocation allowed for admin and planning.

Public service funds remain citywide, but that nonprofit partners are made aware of the priority neighborhood and are encouraged to recruit beneficiaries from that area.

$20,000 to be set aside for economic development activities, $45,500 to be set aside for housing activities, the remaining estimated

CDBG budget 200,000 goes towards the priority neighborhood, which council agreed in the last May meeting that Ridge Street would be the next priority neighborhood for fiscal year 1920.

And then any public service, housing, or economic development activities meet the goals and recommendations of the growing opportunities report in addition to the consolidated plan.

As far as community engagement, the CDBG task force will meet over the winter to review housing and public service projects and make recommendations for funding the council.

The city's strategic action team will review economic development applications and then a Ridge Street priority neighborhood task force will be formed to make recommendations that will be used for priority neighborhood funding.

A public notice

and went into the paper.

We had a public comment period for the caper and it was open from August 31st through September 14th.

Approval of this agenda item aligns directly with economic sustainability, quality housing opportunities for all.

And home funds will require, as far as a budgetary impact, will require a 25% local match.

And in previous years, this match came from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.

There will be no impact to the general fund.

So overall, those are the recommendations.

And on the last page, I basically outlined them.

Not the last page, but the resolution.

Yes, I do.

So thank you very much for the nice presentation.

just overhand like I know it's predominantly has to be the residents of the neighborhood that's the priority neighborhood that's the priority neighborhood so made up of residents of the percentage priority neighborhood there's no percentage it's actually in the code the code outlines the criteria for both task force but for the priority neighborhood I'm thinking off the top of my head you could be a resident a business owner okay yes they're different within the neighborhood okay

So the task force is a different membership than the priority neighborhood task force.

Correct.

So the task force reviews the public service and economic development activities, actually the public service activities and the housing activities.

And they make recommendations to planning commission who then makes recommendations to council based upon the priorities that you will be setting today.

And then the priority neighborhood makes funding recommendations

for use of the priority neighborhood funds for issues in their neighborhood.

It's a little bit like participatory budgeting.

You can say so.

Thank you.

Do it at the same time.

I know that's been raised by Matthew.

I had a question.

So around the one where the 29 was the goal versus the actual.

So are you talking about the home funds?

Yes.

So 29 was the goal for fiscal year 17, and then 14 projects were completed.

So the projects that didn't meet that goal just will be recycled during the year.

So basically, next year, they're still working on the project.

Correct.

Any other questions before we open up the public hearing?

All right, we'll open that up.

Do we have any signed up?

Ms. Rice, do we have a list for that?

I hadn't really planned on talking about this, but

Nancy Carpenter, I live in the Rose Hill Neighborhood Association, which I hope will be the 2021 neighborhood based on the comprehensive plan and the amount of commercial development that's being called for on Rose Hill and perhaps the change, who knows, in some zoning classifications on residential areas.

It'd probably be nice to be considered.

It's still, I guess, one of the, I would like that neighborhood and would like to see some of that.

But that being said, I'm a CDBG

issues and perhaps initiatives or programs that might come forward.

I know that you talked about the consolidated plan that's there.

I would really like to see hopefully some concern come forward that will help to promote funding for permanent supportive housing units here in the city.

One of the biggest things we need for folks who are trying to, um,

get out of the day to day challenges of being homeless but who also have issues of mental health issues and substance abuse issues is housing that also comes with support services is one of the biggest things that

We are lacking, I think, in this community when it comes to the area of affordable housing is having landlord engagement who would buy into a program like that to understand the benefits of renting to folks like that, hopefully finding, you know, like your two year

A housing voucher that you so boldly funded that this could also be a program that could then reach folks who desperately need housing or more stable housing, but they also need some support services that help them to mitigate some of those issues that create instability in their housing.

And that's all I wanted to say on that.

Hi again Evan, city resident.

I'd like to echo Nancy's comments and I also want to add another comment in regards to the micro enterprise assistance part of this grant as well as one of the priorities number three, determine if CDBG funds should be set aside for economic development.

So it looks like this grant at least some part of this grant is setting some setting aside funds To help qualified entrepreneurs to start a business.

I'm wondering if this in the review process for awarding money if there could be given some sort of priority or extra weight given to people who want to start up worker cooperatives in the city just given that

you would say for example you have a landscaping company that someone wants to start and it has a traditional business model versus another landscaping company that comes to this for this grant as a worker cooperative business model.

I feel like that could actually make a bigger difference if you have say like you know five workers and the owner in which the owner is making a lot more money compared to the workers who may be making minimum wage versus a worker co-op situation in which any profits from this business and

Hence this grant would be more evenly distributed amongst people who are starting this business.

So just a thought, if that could be considered extra weight in the review process or something that could be advertised as you all may be looking for more co-ops in the city, I think that would be kind of cool.

All right.

If I could close the hearing.

To the point about the cooperative arrangements, I do remember that Rich Schuyler with Charlottesville Works had been working with someone in the community to do a flash freeze manufacturing firm that was going to be cooperatively based.

I don't know where that is right now.

And I think they were looking at a site that was near the Carlton Road area.

There's like a manufacturing-zoned area, industrial-zoned area.

But about four years ago, there was a really big thrust to get that off the ground.

And then we seemed to have gotten really crushed with the affordable housing crisis.

And I do believe we need to do both.

it can't be all one thing or another.

So I will, if, I don't know if Mr. Murphy, if somebody could follow up with Mr. Schuyler and see where are they on that because I know there's nothing precluding or preventing anybody from doing this.

I like the idea of encouraging it with some sort of a weighted measurement, but I do also want to know where we are on that because I know Holly Lee worked on it, Chris Angle worked on it.

We'll provide an update.

I'm confident Mr.

Angle will have that.

I'm not aware of any

active work on that at this time.

I think that that project opportunity has passed.

I do know that there have been a lot of folks who have worked on co-op ideas.

You'll remember probably at the launch of the CIC.

Well, thank you.

If you could just follow up on that.

And I know Rich Schuyler would be a good contact as well.

Yeah, I remember that because we all made a field trip up to DC Central Kitchen as another model.

And then we got bogged down with the discussion about having a community commercial kitchen.

And then we wound up realizing how many there were in town, and we didn't need another one.

For how long is that again?

Six years.

So at this point, you need us to approve a resolution for the council priorities in one.

Just one piece.

So it's just that.

OK.

The other part was just a report.

OK. All right.

Dr. Bellamy?

I move that we adopt, approve the resolution

That works too.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next on our agenda is the first reading of two in consideration of an ordinance for providing an easement to Albemarle County for Penn Park stream restoration.

Vice Mayor and Councillors, the City and Almar County have a history of collaboration on environmental topics as supported by the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding for collaboration between the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle regarding the environment.

In the summary table of collaboration on programs and initiatives associated with the Memorandum of Agreement, understanding collaboration on water quality compliance

through joint pursuit of cost effective capital projects that generate pollution reduction credits needed by each locality to meet compliance requirements is called out as an opportunity.

The city and county have recently identified a 560 linear foot section of degraded urban stream which could benefit from restoration.

Restoration of this stream will provide pollution reduction credits needed by both localities to meet compliance requirements.

Portions of that streams lie within the city's Penn Park and the county's River Run subdivision.

The county has agreed to manage the design and construction of this project and incur all maintenance related costs for the project for 10 years following the completion of the project's construction.

The county has secured funding for design and construction of the stream restoration and the city is contributing funding for a portion of the project through its stormwater capital improvement plan.

The city, as the owner of Penn Park, has been requested to approve an easement to the county to allow the county's contractors to enter Penn Park for the purpose of construction of the stream restoration project and the maintenance on the project for 10 years.

After the 10 years, the easement will terminate and the city will take over maintenance responsibility of the city-owned portion of the project.

The stream restoration project will achieve nutrient credit reductions required by the municipal separate storm sewer systems, MS4 permits, and the associated total maximum daily load action plan for both equalities.

The stream restoration project will provide approximately 247 pounds of nitrogen nutrient credit reductions, which are needed by the city for compliance with its TMDL action plan.

The stream restoration project will also improve water quality and the aesthetic of the River Run stream channel.

The total project cost for stream restoration is estimated to be almost $533,000 with the city's portion being $125,000 equating to a cost of approximately $506 per pound of nitrogen removal.

And typically if you look at average cost for stream restoration projects around the country,

The average cost for nitrogen removal is almost $1950 per pound.

So this is a pretty good deal for the city if we're looking for nitrogen credits, which is exactly what we're looking for.

The county is receiving grant funding to make the project viable.

This project aligns with the City Council's vision of Charlottesville as a leader in environmental sustainability and the Green City vision.

The project also aligns with goal

3.4, which is the responsible stewards of natural resources.

The funding for this project has been allocated from the fiscal year 19 stormwater CIP fund.

Charlottesville utility staff and the city attorney have reviewed the proposed easement and plat and have no concerns.

Therefore, staff recommends approval of the Penn Park stream restoration project easement to Albemarle County with a requested wave second reading.

The waived second reading is requested so Albemarle County can meet a deadline.

The county cannot award the project without having all the easements, so waiving the second reading would help meet their deadline.

I just want to echo, you and I had a moment there to think about the MOU for 2016 because this was, just to go back to ancient history, it took a lot of time and a lot of work to get those four memorandums of understanding done.

Councilor Galvin and I had a meeting with an expert in regionalism from Portland.

I think, Wes, you came in and out of that also.

We kind of learned that one of the ways you get toward better regional cooperation between different entities is that you start small and you start with real things you can work on.

I really appreciate the narrative here because it shows that but for that kind of directive from council and the board as a policy matter, this could be perceived as a zero sum.

So the two parties would both be pursuing their interests as opposed to trying to find what the

Policy bodies directed them to, which is areas of cooperation.

And this is really good policy.

And it sounds like a ton of work.

I'm sure that it's very unsung, went into making this work on all these different fronts.

Right.

I guess we could make comments.

We don't need to wait.

Typically, we make the motion to approve, and then we make comments.

Because originally, I wasn't here voting, but I was forgetting their waiving.

Well, let's also be a public hearing.

We do need to.

Oh.

OK.

Yeah.

There's an ordinance, right?

So to keep it clean, I'll move to adopt the ordinance.

Well, yes.

First, you need to waive the second reading.

You would need a motion to waive the second reading.

OK. Motion to move the second reading, or to waive the second reading.

So I agree.

So we vote?

So now the motion on the floor is alive.

So I got a second.

So all I'm going to do is make a quick comment that

That is a severely degraded segment of stream.

We do need to make sure that we attend to our total maximum daily load requirements and it's really good to see that we are using the storm water utility fee as it was intended.

And it is really gratifying to see our two staffs, county and city, working so well together.

So I really appreciate all your work, Ms. Hildebrand.

And I appreciate the county's willingness to participate and take care of the project for the first 10 years.

So I think, yeah, this is a win-win.

I appreciate it.

And let's vote.

Next on our agenda is the first reading in consideration of an ordinance for creating a permit parking zone in Belmont.

Brennan Duncan, the city traffic engineer, will be presenting.

Good evening vice mayor and councilors.

So this is I guess the first step in two.

This last year we got one for Belmont and unknowing to myself and didn't realize it until we had got to that point we don't actually have a parking zone for Belmont.

So before we can bring that before you for approval we have to create a zone.

So what you have before you is an amendment to the ordinance, section 15204, which would designate an area, and I believe you have a map in there as well, but essentially it is east of 6th Street, south of the railroad, west of Carlton, and north of Monticello.

to create a Belmont neighborhood permit parking area.

The application we had was for the 600 block of Hinton, which would be just west of Avon, between Avon and Sixth Street.

I know there were some questions before this meeting about

restaurant parking.

So this first application really won't deal with that because it's more downtown commuter parking related.

But if you would like, we can talk about that because this will kind of set that for future applications as well.

So right now, the time frame for the permit parking that's laid out in code

Everything except for university right now is...

5 a.m. till 6 p.m. University has a slightly different one.

Theirs is Sunday 1201 a.m. to 7 a.m. and then Monday through Saturday 1201 a.m. to 7 p.m.

So it does stipulate in the code that if council wants a different time frame or different days of the week then the standard they can can do that but

As for right now, I don't see why that would be needed specifically for Hinton, the 600 block of Hinton, but if we want to look at that either with this one or with future applications, we can do that.

They do not.

They could, I guess.

But then when you go to actually do the test, you call it a test, I guess?

Right, the parking survey.

What's going on during certain periods of time?

Do you get the feedback that this is a period of time?

Correct.

We can, I guess we can create separate zones if that's the will of council right now.

I just have it all as one.

So the time frames are really by zone dependent.

So if you feel like, you know, that one isn't going to apply to the other and they really need to be separate, we can do that.

So our survey results are only by the block that applies.

And to be clear, so this just, I had to, so this allows somebody to do an application for a street within a zone.

Correct.

It would still have to go through the process to establish that as residential permit parking.

I'm just getting at is that it seems like most of the problem in this part of Belmont is evening.

Except for this.

Except for this block.

Senator Black has asked for it during the daytime.

So the, I mean, if we adopted the same, I guess, time frame that's used at the university, that's, you know, basically all day.

So that was Sunday from 12, basically midnight to 7 a.m.

This may be before your time too.

So this system that we have where a zone gets set up and then you do applications within the zone, do you know why that was set up that way?

Is it to create a, is it like a check so that council has, because the alternative would just be any street

and the city got to apply without there having to be

Yeah, that was before my time.

I really don't know the background as to why it was set up that way.

Because it means that anybody who wants to do this, they have to go through two.

It's an extra hurdle, basically.

Other than Belmont, all of the, because this is really, I think the intention of this from the beginning was really a commuter type of mitigation.

It wasn't meant to be, you know, a commercial, you know, business, you know, restaurant, as we have in Belmont.

With the West Main streetscape, there was a lot of concern in Starr Hill, specifically with parking, with some of the residents there, and what was happening on the streets.

And it was like, well, you just try and get permanent parking on your street.

That's one of the ways to be like North Downtown.

This is one of the mechanisms.

But I think that this has helped.

Starr Hill would not be, there's one that's close, yeah, 10th and Page is part of the university.

And really the creation of those zones isn't an impetus of

I guess for me though just looking at this this current shaded area I do think there's two different requirements here I think that the side that's

The west side of Avon slash 9th Street is much more of a daytime option because the 600 block of Hinton is asking about.

My only argument with you there would be, especially when we go into construction of the Belmont Bridge, I think that the immediate residences east of Avon are going to feel that pressure as well.

and when we get to that point I may be coming to you with some temporary trial type things for the duration of the Belmont Bridge construction to kind of alleviate some of those concerns because I don't want them.

The way that our code is set up we can't really address a problem until there is a problem

and I don't want that and we're on a yearly schedule with that and I don't want construction to be going on for a year before we can address it so what do you think is the cleanest way to address this tonight so you're saying 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. is one of the options midnight to 7 but you have to say that for this entire zone we're gonna be adopting those well I think the cleanest I did reach out to the Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association to

to see what their input was and I haven't heard back from them yet as far as the time frames go.

Can you define that general one again?

6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Is that every day of the week?

It's probably similar to everything else around downtown.

Yeah, I mean if other requests come in for you know around the restaurant districts you know we can revisit it at that point we can you know amend the code again it's it's really even a different section of code than what I'm

bringing before you now.

What I'm bringing before you now is really just establishing what that zone is.

I have another question, but it's a point of process, and it's related to a lot of the questions I asked earlier today, which

which did get to a bigger concern about how to solve the problem of parking generated by all the commercial restaurant uses that have been put in place in Belmont Center.

And I have to quote Mr. Rick Seibert here, the entertainment area seems to have been simply sprung up in the midst of a single family neighborhood in a fairly unplanned way.

So we have what we have right now.

So my question is can I have a second motion that's different but related where it would call for and direct Mr. Murphy and his staff to pursue a more comprehensive approach to parking?

Or is that a, I'm using that, this is an opportunity right now.

I think based on your rules of procedure, that would be a new business item.

That's not within the idea of that.

I'll bring that up under other business.

Any other questions?

Do we have a motion?

That's the first reading.

No, we're not voting today.

Yeah.

It's been learned.

OK. Oh, yeah.

We're all in the road.

Well, we know how we stand.

So, I introduced last evening a budget request by the Civilian Review Board to send members to the annual conference for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.

It's their annual meeting.

and so we do have this document that just kind of lays out what they're looking at for this conference, but I know that we've had some discussions.

One off, I know I did with Mr. Murphy and mentioned at least one other counselor.

If we would consider just maybe a flat amount that we can allocate for the CRB knowing that there is other travel.

I know that they're interested in also looking at other jurisdictions within the Commonwealth, so maybe some overnight hotel stays.

And so I think consistent with what's happened for other boards with such charges.

Mr. Murphy and I talked about maybe $10,000.

it's like a lump sum that we would allocate which would obviously a lot of it would come for this specific initiative but I think is important I think it's very timely and the scope of it is exactly what we were kind of charging with them to do and so happens to be coming up in the next few weeks and so as they have interested members wanting to go and then beyond that we know they're gonna want to go and look at some of these other municipalities within the Commonwealth so I just thought just to kind of have it that we're not in a situation where we're having to

discussed this every time they have a need.

And I know at one point we asked for a full budget, and certainly that would be ideal to have that.

I support the idea.

Generally, the one thing would be just, I think the reason we usually would get a budget from anybody who would receive funds is just good practice where you just want to make sure that it's a one-time request, that you're not, that it

that all of the planning that would go toward the funds has been baked into the budget.

I don't want to make it bureaucratic, but that's usually what you do, just so that if some amazing idea comes up in two months, but that costs $12,000, then it kind of puts the decision making for that amount of money, so they're not coming back again.

That said, I wouldn't want to create a huge deal about it, but would it be a hassle to

to give us a budget which would say maybe there's another $7,000 that maybe that's unallocated but would just say we know that we're not getting another request.

I think it was the intention was to have that but it was they weren't quite to that.

But I think to have an answer, we just kind of have, you know, a budget that would kind of reflect the type, you know, the types of things that they're projecting to spend on.

Right, they didn't.

Okay, so we'll have a check and balance when expenditures are incurred.

So in this case, when this final, some of the final numbers are in, I think we kind of have this here, but if you make any major changes to this, if an additional person goes or if one person, instead of sending two days, goes four, it might adjust that.

So it would just be helpful to know going in.

And then as you come across these other opportunities to go

out of this community and want to do those things and you know what those estimates are, just I guess let us know through the city manager's office that those are coming.

Oh, it is.

This is like a travel.

I assume this is coming out of the city council's discretionary fund.

I would also prefer a lack of budget, but I think for this request it's going to be a minimal amount.

So if we could approve it.

I think there's one other issue, though.

They're not aware of how many people are going to be looking to attend the conference.

Why couldn't we just approve this contingent on there being a budget provided that's included and if there's placeholder figures in the budget that's fine it could say that this will change but just means that we approve it but in that

package the city manager must receive

But that's best practice.

I mean, it really should be reviewed by the governing board.

They have all reviewed this portion.

So how about this?

Could we approve this trip since they're sure now that there's only two going?

And then we can also request an additional budget for the supplement.

And then they've invented any supplemental funds.

That sounds fine.

That makes sense.

The only thing I want to just make sure is clear, and you said that there is some flexibility with some of these budgets, like, you know, these are estimates they have, and they've done a lot of work to kind of get the hotels and understand what the flights are going to be, but I want to make sure we have enough flexibility.

Let me just clarify a few things When council decided to create the CRB you already started with a budget of $2,500 So that's already in the account and they just go through staff in order to expend the dollars, right?

the Request about the

Conference did come up recently, but you'll remember that on August 20th, Mr. Gathers had already talked with us about the idea of expanding the budget beyond the $2,500 in order to be able to do the work that the CRB wants to do.

and it's just that this came kind of along with that.

I think it would be great to have a budget to meet Council's request overall and certainly to deal with it in our typical process then we would have the budget and

agenda memo to consider that.

But all that being said, I think that if you're willing to transfer the funds from the priority initiative to the CRB and you're going to have an approval process, whatever that may be, that can govern whether the funds are released.

And if there are travel arrangements that need to be made, you just need to make a decision.

Is staff supposed to make those for the folks?

I don't know that you need to do two separate

considerations of expanding their budget, but certainly want to do what you want.

The only other fine-tuning that I'd like to consider is the City Manager's Office has had no involvement other than to answer a couple questions to date.

It has either been Ms. Rice or her staff since this is a Board of Commission of the Council.

What I just heard is that now the City Manager's Office should be involved in approving expenses

I think we have all agreed in the past that we want to have separate lanes between the city manager and the CRB.

So the question would be then, would this council approve the budget?

Who disperses the funds in a thing like this typically?

If it's going to come as counsel, you know, we've done this a bunch of times.

I would say that, you know, in this case, right, Ms. Brazelton would make all of the arrangements, you know, fly flights, hotels, and then we would probably either

If it was a city staff person, they'd take a city credit card for expenses like taxis and meals and all that.

We wouldn't usually do that with boards and commissions, and so we'd probably deal with that on a reimbursement basis unless somebody didn't have the capacity to put that money out there.

And then we would look for a way to solve that problem.

The only reason I'm asking is that it doesn't, with respect to Dr. Bellamy's concern about whether the board could get together and pass a budget, whatever that would take, or whatever they got to us.

Maybe it could be that they're delegated, they could electronically delegate a couple members to send us a budget, however they work.

It just seems like we could

include a requirement here especially given there's already been a 20, I'm just thinking in terms of precedent what we do for hundreds of nonprofit applicants for funds and we have all these other advisory boards that could also start to want to go to extremely important urgent conferences and we just handle this through a budget so we could say contingent upon a budget that meets city requirements or something like that, funds will be disbursed.

That should not be that.

I would hope that wouldn't be that big of a deal.

And it could be for $10,000, a budget for $10,000.

And this will be part of it.

But at least we would know that's an annual budget.

It's just for one year anyway.

And if it's $10,000, that's the right figure.

This would just be a good practice because of the process we're setting up for anybody else.

And it still, I think, would accomplish the goal.

And we just would say, please include an annual budget for this amount.

with the final communication.

But I don't want to preclude them from being able to call Sara tomorrow and literally because this is like next week.

But we've said that it's approved.

It just means that it has to include a budget.

The budget, we're not setting up any budget to, that's why I was asking who approves it.

It would be administrative.

So it would be Sarah Brazel.

It just means that there has to be a document included with it.

We're not meeting again to look at this.

It is approved.

For the whole year, though.

I think, if I may, right now they have an immediate need for this conference.

That's another, that's a supplement.

I just need to ask a question as a citizen.

When the PRC was established, they were given an operating budget of $10,000.

So why not just expand the operating budget of the CRB?

I'm sure that they can put together a budget that

And we received, I think there was a budget.

That's a great idea.

But with the BRC, we had a budget.

We had line items for, I think, what was

That would solve my concern.

I just wanted to point out as the council is considering this and the CRB is looking to expend the funds, they are a public body per FOIA.

They would need a minimum of three business days to even get a meeting noticed and I know the conference is next week.

just I'm not sure that it's practically possible for the CRB to convene that quickly given the constraints of FOIA.

And I don't think we're asking.

I think Mr.

But I mean in terms of an action that's modifying a duly voted upon resolution,

I think tonight what you can do is that Mr. Murphy, and I had a conversation earlier today, the money, the money in your priorities has already been appropriated.

This would be more of an allocation of that priorities for tonight.

Since the money's, you know, there is the requirement in the city charter of three days.

And that's the $2,500.

If we did $7,500 to get to the full $10,000, then we said please, please provide us with a budget for how you're planning on spending that whole $10,000.

Some of it is already spent, some of it is not.

That would make me happy in terms of what we're talking about.

But they can still get the money they need.

They get the money immediately.

Correct, yeah.

Contact Ms. Brazelton to have those.

We don't typically make those.

Alright, so we don't have to actually take a formal...

No, we do it for allocation.

May I make a friendly addition?

Sure.

within two months.

I accept.

OK.

So that you're seconding with that?

Second.

All right.

Vote.

And I don't want to take up too much time because I think this is wonderful that we're around 9 o'clock and we're about to go home.

So earlier today, I think you all saw the responses that I got from Mr. Rick Seibert, who's our director of parking.

And what I was raising was a lot of the questions revolving around the stress and strain being put upon the residential area immediately around the what we call Belmont Center.

And that is precisely because of all the

restaurant and retail uses that have been growing and thriving in that center.

However, most of the patrons that come into Belmont Center don't live there and so consequently what's happening is a lot of the people that come are parking on neighborhood streets.

and that prevents residents of those streets from having their own parking spaces on the street.

My concern is that tonight, since we've made a permit parking zone, which is desperately needed by this community, that that's going to just kind of remove a source of parking, however, for the patrons in the Belmont Center.

And so I asked a number of questions earlier today of Mr. Seibert and Mr. Duncan

that revolved around different strategies that could be put into play to accommodate the parking needs of people coming to patronize the stores.

And Mr. Seibert said that yes, valet parking is a possibility.

He said yes, shared parking arrangements is good practice, it's a possibility.

There have been challenges in the past with retailers sharing their spaces, however,

What I got from Mr. Seibert was a sense that there is no comprehensive plan for Belmont Center moving forward.

So what I would like to do on a council agenda, before February, when we're gonna start getting applications for permit parking, hopefully well before February, is that we would direct staff through Mr. Murphy

to assign appropriate staff from parking and NDS and the Office of Economic Development, perhaps others, to work with the Belmont neighborhood businesses and residents to develop a comprehensive parking plan and strategy in keeping with best practices that have been identified in two previous studies of the City of Charlottesville Commission dating from 2014 and then 2015.

And that this

Plan would be in place by the time residential parking permits are issued in February 2019.

So I know we need to discuss that further.

It's not something to act on tonight, unless you want to act on it tonight.

But it's not typical that we vote on something without notice.

And I don't like doing that.

But I do think that we can no longer kick this can down the road.

It's only getting worse as the businesses grow.

and there is no solution in sight unless you put intention and you start pulling down some of the good findings that we've had spent good money on in the past for two parking studies.

and Mr. Seibert seemed to know that there was a way to go forward on this, including shuttles from remote parking spaces.

But you can double your spaces in valet parking, in parking garages, as long as you have someone moving the cars around.

And when you have an aerial view of that part of Belmont, you do see between

Draper Aiden and LexisNexis and various other places.

There's an awful lot of parking that's not utilized in the evenings.

I think the Belmont community would appreciate it.

And what expectations do we have for staff coming into that meeting, like they're going to provide?

Well, I think what I just said, it would be good for almost a more formal presentation, perhaps, from Mr. Seibert, because he gave a really good assessment of what was possible.

But it would also take some understanding of what would it mean to identify

the process to make sure you get those shared parking arrangements in place, for example.

I know we have shared parking arrangements in place between Carlton Views and Pace.

So we have precedent for that, and we have other precedents on the 7th Street parking lot that leave it more open and flexible as opposed to identifying and assigning spaces to particular clients like a restaurant.

So it's going to take some research

but the idea is to find out precisely from the residents and the businesses first what is the problem, what do they need as a solution and try to get to the point where it cannot always be a parking garage.

There are other solutions here.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

No other business?

This is what I really wanted to talk about.

Nancy Carpenter again.

I talk about housing stability, but it's also woven into the area of emergency preparedness.

Virginia, I think, was very lucky in some parts of our region with this last hurricane that went a little bit further south.

But we can't always guarantee that.

And HUD and FEMA partnered with the Census Bureau biannually for an American Housing Survey, which just came out today.

They just released it in 2017.

results and this year they also talked about emergency preparedness.

They send this survey out to 121 million households in this country.

And what they found is that 39% of renters that responded to this survey are unprepared

to pay for the cost of emergency evacuation or the results of an emergency situation.

And I'm curious as to what the city's policy is in regards to renters.

Homeowners, they found, are a little bit more well prepared and I would certainly assume that they would be.

because of their ability to access financial streams to be able to address what they might have lost during a situation.

We may not have like the coastal flooding or some of the, you know, necessarily river flooding, but we certainly are prone to earthquakes and tornadoes and also, you know, very strong remnants like Hurricane Camille.

Most of you may not have been around.

Some of you were.

how deadly that was so I'd like to find out what the city does in response or if that is part of an emergency plan for renters in this community that they and they're talking about amounts $2,000 they don't have $2,000 available to them to be able to mitigate the results of an emergency evacuation or an emergency situation that you know torrent like so we do get tornadoes

The other thing I wanted to talk about is that I know that the HAC will be probably formulating or has formulated a housing strategy to go along with the comprehensive plan.

And I hope that one of the, and it's my fault that I haven't read up on it, but one of the areas I hope that they really look at is eviction prevention.

because I'm working with a subcommittee on program services for the campaign to reduce

Evictions here in Virginia since Evict Lab came out with some really horrendous numbers in some of our Tidewater areas with eviction rates that that area also is looked at as part of a housing strategy.

So if you don't have for your renters a strong eviction prevention program then you know you're going to you know people are going to be housing challenged.

They're going to be doubled up which isn't

the best for school age children or people at all.

And then the third thing I wanted to ask about is who's monitoring how many of these housing vouchers that you all appropriated funds for are being turned back in to CRHA because I am hearing quite a bit, well not quite a bit, but I am hearing stories of individuals that are turning those vouchers back in.

I want to know, is anybody keeping track of an outcome of how many of those vouchers are being, are the dates being extended so that people can find housing?

And it's traumatizing to these folks to hear their stories and it's very traumatizing to them to be able to say, at last I've got a chance to find something that's not doubled up.

something that I can afford based on if I'm a contract worker at UVA that I can afford to pay.

And then not having, I know we have a very low vacancy rate here, but I'm also wondering what was the engagement with property management companies and private landlords in this city to buy into that program as well as what areas could they be really flexible on when it comes to background.

which is one of the biggest areas that people have problems with.

What was that strategy?

And I can't find anything, maybe there is some things that were done in the way of community outreach for these folks.

And I think it needs to be an ongoing, I think you're going to be able to fund them for two years, don't know what's gonna happen after that.

But if it hasn't happened, can we make it happen so that these folks who get these vouchers can at least

know that there are some landlords that have bought into this program that you all adopted and can then move their children into their own bedrooms or move themselves into their own bedrooms and they all don't have to have five people to a room or something.

So just in response to that, the last point briefly, the vouchers, we don't, we being the housing authority or just as a board member, it doesn't work in which

No, no, I'm saying that right now they're doubled up five people to a room.

Right, I was getting to that point.

So you made a, before I get to that point, you made a point in regards to who's monitoring the vouchers being returned back in.

So the housing authority, like we're specifically looking at that.

And then there's a family support

Service, Family Support Specialist, to specifically work with the families in regards to finding placement.

Now, one of the issues that we do have is that some landlords have just said that they're not going to rent to people who have vouchers.

And because it's private, we can't make them or force them to do so.

Right.

So I've had some families have to go into the county to be able to try and utilize the vouchers and whatnot.

That's just the reality of where we are because as you alluded to, there's a low vacancy rate.

In regards to the point that I think you and Ms. Galvin was making, Ms. Hill was making, I'm tired and it's only 9 15.

The point that y'all were making about the families utilizing them, we just have to do a better job, right?

And I think that's us as a council, as well as the housing authority and the community as a whole trying to work with private landlords to let them know that it's okay.

I mean, we even have talked about and have a policy in place in which we have funds available in which we'll cover deposits.

We're willing to pay for any event that something happens to your home from the tenants.

to be able to help you out to kind of secure and let the individuals who own the homes, make them feel secure that nothing's going to happen to your house.

And if it does happen to your house, we got you.

But it's difficult.

I mean, if people are saying, hey, you have a voucher and I only can get X amount of dollars in rent from you, but then I can rent it to someone else for an additional 500 bucks.

That's what I've heard some landlords tell me.

And I think that's messed up, but it's their homes.

Yeah, it's a hard job.

It's very challenging.

And I think a lot of ways that the Dillon Rule also prevents some initiatives that the city could adopt.

It's all about how you engage the people, profits.

I think that, you know, the

The two main checkpoints on this are the housing authority staff who are supposed to place folks with the vouchers and Dr. Pethia who has to eventually get the report and understand the expenditure.

I just want to be clear that Rafael's work is with public housing residents in the 376 units.

Correct.

And so a lot of people need a navigation

assistance because they've never leased anything in their name and they don't know what to ask or how to ask it or how to broach those difficult topics like background issues that some landlords still, there are some that might, you know, look at an individual versus just, you know, a printout that comes from a criminal background company that you use to check things.

Thank you.

I have a comment to that or a couple if I may.

I don't see why we couldn't encourage a roundtable with, there's an apartment buildings association, the Blue Ridge apartment buildings association, and really have a candid conversation with them.

And the other thing, and bring in CAR, the Charlottesville-Elmel Realtor Association, because they're all affiliated with housing, I think it's time to do something.

to actually bring in our private sector partners.

I do think because we get notices from some of those groups to let us know when they're having job training programs to get folks into their management training programs.

So why not open it up again?

And the other thing in the Partners for Economic Solutions report in the Housing Needs Assessment pointed out that

The CRHA was using fair market rates for 2017, HUD's fair market rates for 2017, when our rent levels are fair market rates at 2018.

There's a designation that's not working for us.

That means that we have vouchers that are being used.

and can't be applied to rents that are too high for the vouchers that we have because they're subjected to an outdated fair market rate.

So can we please double check that?

It was in the report.

It was in the report.

We can have them, we have as an authority meeting next Monday.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

If not, this concludes meeting of the Charlottesville City Council.