City Council Meeting   4/1/2019

I call this meeting to order.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Ms. Hill?

Here.

Ms. Walker?

Present.

Mr. Signer?

Here.

Milwaukee, I'd like to make a request today that we have a moment of silence for Mr. Nipsey Hussle, who was an artist who was gunned down yesterday.

There's been a lot of individuals throughout the community have been impacted, not only by his music, but his philanthropy.

And I would just like to request in honor of this young man who lost his life, if we could have a quick moment of silence, please.

I have an announcement.

On behalf of Mr. Alexander, I'm sorry, good evening everyone.

On behalf of Mr. Alexander, there will be a Kuumba showcase, which means youth creativity, on Saturday, April 13th, 2019, from 1 PM to 2.30 PM at Burley Middle School.

It's a family affair, and it's also free.

They'll be highlighting the 2019 National Award winner Kayla Scott's award winning play, Screening, Wild Black.

which was cast by the Monticello High School Drama Department.

Other highlights will include young musicians, vocalists, dancers, spoken word, C4K creative projects and more.

And again, this is hosted by Mr. Alexander.

All right, thank you.

Crime Victims Rights Week is April 17th through the 13th this year, and the Charlottesville Victim Witness Program, as well as other victim advocacy groups will be hosting an event this Sunday to commemorate the week.

The event will be held from 2 PM to 6 PM at X Park, located at 522 Second Street Southeast, and will feature local, state, and federal agencies, interactive activities, food trucks, and promotional giveaways.

It'll be a fun and family friendly event.

The February 25th visit to City Hall by DMV Connect was very successful and they were able to process 47 transactions including issuing 11 real ID driver's licenses.

There are scheduled a number of other DMV Connect visits throughout 2019.

The most recent coming up are Monday, April 29th from 10 AM to 3 PM at City Space.

Tuesday, May 28th from 10 AM to 3 PM in the City Hall lobby.

Monday, August 26th from 10 to 3 in City Space.

Monday, September 30th from 10 to 3 at City Space.

Monday, October 28th from 10 to 3 at City Space.

And the last one of the year will be Monday, November 25th from 10 to 3 at City Space.

And just to note, the DMV Connect is a separate program from the DMV Select that will be coming, or is in the Treasurer's Lobby in the coming months.

I think we are there now.

It was started maybe today, or is that different?

Downstairs, Mr. Murphy?

Yes, okay, that was today.

So DMV Select is limited to a range of vehicle related transactions.

DMV Connect offers the full range of DMV services.

I have another.

This is the McIntyre Botanical Volunteer Work Day, April 20th.

to celebrate Earth Day.

The McIntyre Botanical Garden, MBG, is hosting a volunteer work day, April 20, to do the work of picking up trash and spreading mulch and new trails through the site.

We will also enhance the planting site near the MBG sign with some new plants.

This spring work is an opportunity to see the benefits of our January work day to observe the park in another season and to enjoy a morning with the wildlife and community partners in the park.

So again, it's April 20.

Rain weather date will be April 27.

The time is from 9 o'clock in the morning to 12 noon.

And it'll be at the McIntyre Botanical Garden site.

That's the corner of John Warner Parkway and Melbourne Road.

So items to bring are sturdy boots, work gloves, and dress for the weather, other tools and trash bags provided.

Parking will be along Melbourne Road and overflow in Charlottesville High School lot.

The type of work is picking up trash, hauling mulch in wheelbarrows, raking mulch, and planting.

No experience is necessary.

Anyone under 18 needs to be accompanied by an adult.

Thank you.

Any other?

No?

All right.

So next we have the consent agenda.

Rebecca Quinn, 1044th Street here in the city.

I'd like to comment on the public access television property lease.

I wish I'd looked at it a couple of days ago.

I'm all for a good public-private partnership, but how is it that one entity, the Ryle Thomas show, gets this deal without competition?

Now I'm not really opposed to what I see.

I think it's good for the city.

And I love having it on the mall.

But I do wonder what happens when aspiring broadcasters ask for access to the studio.

The narrative, the phrase, quote, in exchange for priority access is in the narrative.

But does that imply others may have access?

just not priority.

I didn't see anything in the lease about the use of premises that addresses other users and so my question is, is it addressed in some other formal understanding or does Mr. Thomas have the right to deny the city providing access to others?

I was going to talk, I'm on the list for something else, but I do want to say that Charlottesville Public Access TV is constitutionally our right for free speech.

There should be absolutely no reason why somebody couldn't support that

as a public citizen and especially since it's saving taxpayers a lot of money.

So if anybody has the right, Raul has the right because he's been a producer for like 20 years, something like that.

I've been on Charlottesville Public Access for the last almost 10 years and it was because of that that I was able to communicate all the entrepreneurs and businesses and people who were supporting the free clinic.

and there's no other forum for that.

So please, if there's anybody who wants to contribute to a space or something, I don't think there should be any reason why anybody has an affront to that.

And also I want to thank very much Brian Wheeler, David Dillahunt,

and Joe Rice and everybody else who put this together.

It took a lot of effort and there was a lot of technical things that had to be upgraded.

And if it wasn't for Brian Wheeler, especially, I think it would never have gotten done.

And if there's any glitches, please.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor just to address some of the points that were brought to the council's attention by the comment first

I would like to point out that while it does say license it does talk about priority that the regular operating hours are 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Mr. Thomas is given he's guaranteed a three-hour slot that is his

that's what his license agreement provides and he can pick those three hours but that does not in any way mean that during the rest of the facilities operating hours that anyone else who regularly uses and is produced on a public access TV would not be allowed to use the premises for that purpose.

Second as to competition

The Virginia Public Procurement Act does not apply to real estate transactions, whether you're talking leases or selling city real property.

Third, I understand there is some question about the priority, and maybe Mr. Wheeler would want to address this, but it is worth noting that Mr. Thomas has agreed as part of this license agreement to in fact pay the rent for the space at York Place for the next year.

Consent agenda A, minutes.

March 4th, regular meeting March 7th, budget work session March 14th, special meeting March 16th, community budget forum March 18th, special meeting March 19th, budget work session March 27th, budget work session

B, Appropriation, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, SCAP Grant for 2019, $14,086, second of two readings.

C, Appropriation, Domestic Violence Services Coordinator Grant, $49,336, second of two readings.

D, Appropriation, Virginia Health, Virginia Behavioral Health Docket Grant, $50,000, second of two readings.

E, Appropriation, funds from VML Insurance Programs, $11,374, first of one reading.

F, Appropriation, funds from Rider, $7,850, first of one reading.

G, Appropriation, funds from Trinity Steel Erection Incorporated.

$2,856, first of one reading H, appropriation, funds from Penn National Insurance, $12,500, first of one reading I, appropriation, Virginia Fire Equity and Diversity Conference, $50,000, first of two readings

J. Appropriation, Virginia Housing Solutions Program Grant Award, $27,728.46, first of two readings.

K. Appropriation, Virginia Department of Social Services, Employment for Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Participants Grants, second renewal, $58,824, first of two readings.

L, Resolution, Support for Safe Routes to School Non-Infrastructure Grant, first of one reading M, Resolution, Housing Advisory Committee Member Expansion, first of one reading and N, should be removed from the agenda as it was approved with one reading at the March 18th meeting

Resolution CPA TV, York Property Lease Agreement and the Ryle Thomas Show LLC License Agreement, first of two readings.

P, Resolution, Partnership for Bennett's Village, All Abilities Playground at Penn Park, first of one reading, Q, Ordinance, Telecommunications Franchise to MMI Atlantic, LLC, first of two readings, R, Ordinance, Rezone Lyman Street Residences, Tax Map 58, Parcels

Madam Mayor, I would like to, so one of the options when a member disagrees with the item in the consent agenda is to ask for it to be pulled and then talk about it later.

I am opposed to raising the meals tax, but I don't think there's a need to go through that here.

So I just want to explain my reasoning, and I'm going to vote against the consent agenda for that.

I'm very concerned about this element of increasing the cost of living here.

It is a fairly small increase but I do think that it does

and this is what I've heard from restaurateurs and the people who work there.

I'm concerned about it and I'm concerned about the differential with Albemarle County.

It'll still be significantly higher than the county and I would have preferred that we could have gotten increased revenue from the cigarette tax, which I think has a very solid

So would you be willing just to pull it and then we discuss it right after community matters?

I thought it would be more efficient for me to do it this way, but I'm not asking for us to remove it.

I think it's at the council's discretion.

Can we do it consecutively?

Is there a motion?

So I move we adapt the consent agenda.

We're moving for now just about everything with exception to item S. Second.

Please vote.

And so that carries five to zero.

Are you all going to do it?

Is there a second?

Second.

Please vote.

All right, so that carries four to one.

All right, now we have the community matters.

Oh no, sorry.

We have our interim city manager's response to the public comments from the March 4th meeting.

for the March 4th, March 18th.

March 18th.

Although some of these issues come up at more than one meeting.

So a couple of items to follow up on.

Council had discussed the matter of benches returning to the mall.

I did receive some questions, feedback from some folks downtown.

I'm going to review the potential locations for those dozen or so benches with them next Monday morning.

The trolley, as we discussed last time, there's the possibility that we would reroute that down South Street and then turn on 2nd and go directly across the mall.

The first step in that process, because there is some change to parking spaces, is to post those changes for public comment for 14 days and that process should be initiated by the traffic engineer and underway.

A number of things have come up with regard to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

I wanted to let Council know that we're working to fabricate some additional wayfinding signs.

General public parking signs have been installed.

We're looking to install some additional signage that designates

the parking at CARS.

We're looking at the possibility of benches down along the pathway on the way to the memorial.

Some signage for somebody who would want to come from over on the what is the western side of McIntire Park closer to the softball fields through the pathway that is currently under development.

We have a quote for the paving of the lot that is behind the softball field that was originally a construction lay down area that you may have received some comment on that gravel area.

And I've authorized Mr. Daly to move forward with the PO on that.

Service, and there will be some accessible parking at that location.

We have developed a form that could be piloted for reserving a ride to the memorial.

I want to state that that is not in a car because the path was not created for a car, but in a Polaris or large golf cart, something of that nature.

So we'll continue to look at what that means from a staffing perspective and report to council probably at the next meeting.

So all those things are in process right now.

There's been a number of questions both in chambers and via email so I just want to say that the items where we will consider both an update from staff and some letters from environmental groups including the C3

Group will be May 6th.

In addition, I've asked the City Treasurer to make a presentation at that same meeting, May 6th, about the questions about the retirement funds, where we invest the money, and the possibility of divestment.

There was a question in the last meeting about when the changes were made in internal affairs that we had referenced.

Those changes happened at the point of promotions and reassignment of staff on January 14th.

And Ms. Turner had asked for some follow-up

on her complaint about language in her official determination from Chief Brackney.

And I have copies of the last two letters she received from the Chief here along with a letter dated today that corrects the language around video to photo.

We're at the break.

Question, I've been approached by a few people in regards to the bus route on South, what is it?

South Street.

Thank you.

I know we received a couple of emails, but there has been a great deal of discussion that's come my way as of late about folks saying that they adamantly do not

Right now we're collecting feedback just on what would mean the elimination of three to four parking spaces.

The route change is certainly not

instituted yet.

It may behoove us to, I don't know if all of council needs to be there.

Maybe some members of staff could have a meeting with the folks of Midway Manor or even some of the community members in that specific area.

So one thing that was said to me by a few folks is that if you change where the new route is proposed to be, that's going to be like on the back of

I think

I have heard or been approached by a number of people and I would say that it's quite balanced.

There's people who believe that it makes a lot of good sense to have it continue straight down from Main Street and there are a few folks, Midway Manor residents, who question noise and like fumes.

I've heard from some business owners who say that any elimination of parking spaces downtown was something that we should not consider.

I promised some folks that I would bring their point up and

We could certainly make a change and say that it is limited to this time.

I would just note that we're reversing traffic on two streets, we're taking away a couple parking spots if you institute all that, right?

So then there's the reversal of those courses of action to switching parking from one side of the street to the other.

Well I wouldn't mind say like in six months we revisit this issue and find out how it's been working and just leave us ourselves the option of changing it if it's

Automatically.

It's not working very well.

But I do think there is a nice rationale for having a check-in that's on our calendar to find out and get data.

Is it being used?

Are people happy with it?

And it gets us kind of engaged with this whole process.

And that's what pilots are for, to test out an idea.

Whether or not we call it a pilot is actually

That being the case and hearing all of the Councillors what I would suggest is you know based on the time that it takes to you know complete the posting about the parking and to get word out about a route change that should we you know of course we need to hear what that feedback is for the parking process but if we were to institute this that you know the dates of that would be May 1 to November 1 and then you know just ask Miss Thomas to put a placeholder for us to have staff bring it back

Okay.

And Mayor Walker, I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Murphy.

So, and thank you for your report, Mr. Murphy.

And this is with regards to the benches on the mall.

I am very happy that you're going to be meeting with other individuals.

Great, thank you.

Because I've been getting feedback from that about the location of the benches and

And that's, I'm hearing that right?

What I would say is that the intent is that there are numerous pre-approved areas and that they exceed the number of benches that we have that are surfacable.

So there could be some choice about where would be most appropriate.

Okay.

And the second one, and it concerns the Vietnam Memorial.

And I think we all got a very detailed 18 page memo that talked about the various concerns.

And I would like to know in a little bit more detail why we could not put a small parking lot closer to the Vietnam Memorial itself.

Because it does seem like the coordination with shuttle buses and every other parking lot seems to be rather remote, although I don't know how far away the parking lot of the ball field will be.

Is there a possibility just to get a map?

Taking but so long to answer you, I would say that there are multiple complications with that.

First is that the Warner Parkway is a limited access road and so it can't come off the Warner.

Two is that the interchange area where people come over and under is sufficiently complex that it would be too dangerous to do it where the multi-use path is today.

Third, the opening where you would have previously accessed the pool and now the skate park has been closed to the public because it's too close to the merge lane for safe travel according to VEDA.

which means that you'd have to bring in a road either from Melbourne or wherever the Botanical Garden may one day be or you'd have to get approval from the railroad for a second bridge where we've just put the pedestrian bridge and the timeline on railroad approval will outlast you know maybe all of our times working on either council or for the city.

So I think that it would be a complex and costly multi-million dollar enterprise to build a road of that length based on the fact that either way you need bridges.

and you know there's lots of other detail I could give about how it got to be in the location it is you know and that it's in a greatly improved condition we wanted to put it at ground level the veterans wanted it observable from the upper part of the bypass all of the folks who you've been having reach out to you

I appreciate that overview of the difficulty and I think if at all possible communicating that to the, I mean just as you've done in writing because these are very challenging issues that would be cost prohibitive and also destroy other areas of the park so that it could be used for nothing but a road.

but I don't think that that's fully understood and some of the responses I've read, it's like staff is working on it but I don't think people really understand just how difficult it would be to put a parking lot there.

That's all my request, if this is all we can get, if the other Councillors don't agree with me, we certainly don't want to put that burden on you but you articulated that so well, so quickly right now.

Thank you.

And just as you always do, copy counsel and we'll be fine.

Thanks a lot.

All right.

So now we have our community matters section.

Tara Mincer, 1524 Hunters Field Close in the county.

I am here, my partner is Deon Sanders and we are the chapter leaders for Spread the Vote Project ID in Charlottesville and I was just coming to tell you about the program to make sure everyone knows we're a non-profit, non-partisan 501c3 and we assist anyone who is eligible to get an ID

at the DMV in doing so.

We help our clients assess the documents they need.

We help them order any documents that they have to get online, like if you have to get a birth certificate because you were born in another state.

We drive them to the Social Security Administration.

We drive them to the DMV.

We pay the application fees for birth certificates, marriage certificates, or the state ID itself.

and we also assist with restoration of rights.

So right now we have active partnerships with the Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail, OAR, Pacham, the Salvation Army, Java, Loaves and Fishes, the Jefferson Madison Regional Library and

All right, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, members of the council.

My name is Abigail Green.

I've lived in the city for six years.

I currently can only afford to do so because I have two adult roommates.

and I live at 120 Westwood Circle and I would like to speak in favor of any conceivable tax increase that would support public housing.

It is a moral imperative to create more quality public housing in this city for a variety of different income levels and not merely the 80% AMI that a lot of developers are offering.

I would like to congratulate you on keeping the food tax on the agenda.

I was prepared to rail about that one, but we're good to go.

Particularly for housing increases, the way this dialogue has been framed in the media and by certain people in the city as something that's going to make it even harder for low-income people to live in the city when in fact it's going to affect people in certain neighborhoods who have done their damnedest for the last hundred years to keep those people at bay.

I don't understand wanting to live somewhere where actual people never cross your paths, you know?

So I would like to speak in favor of raised taxes across the board at my humble $13.25 an hour with the hopes that maybe I too could afford land in the city someday.

Thank you.

Good evening and thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to City Council and I want to support Ms. Minster with Spread the Vote, the ID program.

I know personally how it has made a difference in a lot of folks that I know having that up to date ID and what doors it can open up to you.

What I wanted to speak about tonight is the commitment that you've made to people who work here every day and live here and who want to live within the 10 miles of the city with an affordable housing program that you're trying to maneuver and adopt and work around state laws and things that we can and cannot do.

These individuals and families

do not have the incomes of 80%, 60%, 50% or even 30% of area median income.

You were going to be bold by investing in a housing package that would bolster the CHAP, the CAF,

and rental assistance.

That has been the discussion over the past few weeks as you go through your budget process to really amp up what the vision for this city will be in the next few decades.

It may affect me, but it will certainly affect a lot of the adults that are sitting in these chambers tonight more so.

But it looks like there's a snag and that you want to renege on boldly funding housing initiatives before you even have a comprehensive housing strategy.

and that speaks to the real estate tax that is still part of the budget process that wasn't on the consent agenda that you'll probably be deciding on very, very soon.

So even as we talk tonight and fill the air with a lot of words, the city is poised

We already know that we're thousands of units behind in what we need to house people who want to live here and work here.

But we also have a pocket of people who have, some of them have been in their housing for over 30 years.

and are now facing a situation where they have to leave in a month.

This is the second.

They've had 60 days, but we're now, you know, because a developer has come in.

It's a private business.

He has a right to do reno if he wants.

But there is a significant impact to a lot of very elderly people, some folks who have challenges with their site.

and you know have lived in a place for a long time and know the spatial layout of that place and now they're having to deal with having to find a new place and what all that brings with having to you know understand where your stuff is.

So I think that

that there needs to be some conversation about that.

Are there any possibilities of some partnering and trying to make this to be as painless as possible or even just keeping it affordable because as it was stated in the paper, the person who's doing the developing will probably raise those rents at least two, three times what people are paying now for their one bedroom or their efficiency or I think there's a three bedroom unit there.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And so everyone who is tired of having to deal with gentrification or excessive assessments that impact their real estate tax rates, let's all stand in support of having a really robust housing initiative plan and not back down from where you all were at.

Please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

repeating a little bit here, but we're here to support the real estate taxes or whatever it takes to continue to deepen the tax relief program as well as fully fund the CAF as well as the rent relief program.

I know that you have made great strides with regard to the tax relief program, but it is really our only chance, you know, we've spoken to some of you about this idea of

There isn't progressive taxation available to us.

Well, the Tax Relief Program is a progressive tax relief avenue for us.

I've actually brought a chart that kind of summarizes some of the suggestions that we had in our letter to you all a while ago about tax relief fixes.

For example, increasing the full relief up higher as well as making past tax debt

also forgivable and I just we just one of our pro bono law students actually made a chart that says you know here is what we asked for here's what you've done and here's what we recommend so I just I'm gonna go ahead and pass that to you but like Nancy said we are facing mass displacement in the city we've already experienced mass displacement in this city

and one of the ways that you all can address that now is to fully fund these three programs.

So we ask that you increase tax relief up to $30,000 for full relief and then have a sliding scale up to $65,000 as well as forgive past debts.

Joanne Robertson.

Hi everyone.

I'm going to also echo what a number of people have said tonight about supporting affordable housing.

So I'm here with the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

Thank you for increasing the lodging tax and the meals tax.

So as you know,

fully supports all allocations to the affordable housing that are already in this budget including public housing and friendship court but we just want to continue to push for fully funding all housing needs across the spectrum fully funding the affordable housing fund and also to continue pushing for finding a permanent long-term source of revenue to fund affordable housing well into the future and of course we do want to push for increased real estate taxes that has been previously discussed and supported by a number of

of Council Members, and I know you're approving this budget in one week, so there is still time to discuss this matter.

And of course along with this increase, as Elaine has just pointed out, we need expanded tax relief for low-income homeowners and even up to lower-middle-income homeowners.

As far as we can get it up there, we need to do that.

We understand real estate taxes are a majorly contingent issue.

Property assessments have increased significantly, but we can use the property tax relief as a way to get around those state issues.

have some more progressive tax policy.

And there are a ton of wealthy people in this city who need to be paying their fair share.

But there are lots of also middle income homeowners who could afford a very small tax increase per month.

You know, if it's the cost of a cup of coffee per month, you know, we can afford that.

It's not just the wealthiest but middle income as well.

I mean, I'm trying to become a homeowner right now.

and I would be happy to increase my budget by a few bucks a month.

And if I know that that money is going towards building housing for my neighbors who I want to stay in this community, we want to create and preserve a just and equitable Charlottesville.

And there should not be anyone in this room who says no to that, to spending a couple extra dollars a month.

I really don't understand how anyone can say no.

So once again, I know

We need to support our neighbors.

So just from the sheet here, we have had an adjustment since this change, where the full relief is up to 25,000.

The $55,000 through $65,000 category has been eliminated, but we did expand the $500 relief to $55,000.

So it's $25,501 to $35,000 would be the $1,000 relief.

35,001 to 45,000 would be the 750 and 45,001 to 55,000 would be the $500 grant.

So that was expanded during the last budget cycle.

So we did get some increase there, but still working on it.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street here in the city.

First, I want to talk about Rivanna water and sewer report that's on your agenda.

I appreciate the executive director adding to the report the water use and wastewater flows.

If you don't know, wastewater flows is the amount of treated sewage.

But I do object to the characterization of the use of water for the first two months of 2019 as somewhat below the five-year average.

It's nearly 12 percent, a million gallons a day less.

Why is this play with words important?

because it's evidence we are using much less water despite our continuing increase in population.

That's about conservation.

Remember, our water rates are guaranteed to go up and up and up.

How else will Rivanna Water and Sewer pay for parts of the water supply plan we don't need for 20, 30, 50, or maybe never?

Remember, right now they're busy bearing about somewhere between two and three million dollars worth of our money in a pipe under Birdwood Golf Course, a pipe that won't be used for 20, 30, 50 years, if ever.

About sewage flow, we know those flows go up with rainy weather because of infiltration.

As rain percolates into the ground, it seeps into our sewer pipes.

and then ends up down at the treatment plant and of course has to be treated.

We want that to happen.

But wow, I think a 30% increase higher than the five-year average is really pretty dramatic and warrants a closer look, not just, well, it was rainy.

It's been rainy the last five years.

Why is it 30% now?

And of course, we end up paying more when there's more water to be treated.

Separate from RWSA, I think it'd be good to ask the City Utilities Department and also Albemarle County Service Authority to update council and the public on what they've been doing to limit infiltration because that's an important part of keeping costs down.

Remember, high utility bills is a factor in the cost of housing.

And lastly, if you're like me, you're frustrated with whatever's happening at the national and international level that has reduced the availability of sources where we can send our plastics for recyclable.

If you don't know it come, I don't know, I'm sure we'll hear from RWSA.

Pretty soon you'll only be able to recycle plastics number one.

Which is, I don't know what percentage it is, but it's much less than what we've been able to do.

So put your recycling energy into composting.

You can drop off compost at the McIntire Recycling Center.

City Market starts Saturday.

You can drop compost there.

You can pick up free compostable bags at both locations or Best Buy.

And just two seconds on tax rates.

I'm a landlord trying to keep three units affordable.

And there is another option available in state law, but Charlottesville has not yet figured, I don't know if you've ever considered it.

And one thing that I did forget, Mr. Murphy proposed an increase in the rental assistance, also for renters, $200,000.

It's to double the current program.

So it's total to, what's the total?

So that was another thing.

And Mayor Walker, can I just get Mr. Murphy to confirm?

All right, thank you.

I'm here today to talk about CPA TV.

I wanted to thank everybody but I already did.

I didn't mention

Cal Tate has been a long time manager.

He helped me to begin with the idea of making a TV show.

I was learning through a CPA TV how to engineer

A show, so we learn the audio.

It's a skill.

And the computer graphics and also how to project and do different things with the cameras.

And it was Caltate that gave us lessons.

Many people still know of Caltate.

and so I want to thank him very much for that but also he's been supportive with helping them put together the new equipment that we're going to be able to use and so I'm very grateful because I feel like this is the place that we can have ideas shared and it's also streamed so everybody can have their own show.

I do air for about three hours myself.

So, and that's just because nobody else is doing it.

If you guys all want to do it, then I'll probably only give 28 minutes.

But, so there's about a hundred spots and there's only been 12 for the last two and a half

All right.

Folks who want to develop their urban gardens, we can have that ongoing.

V-RISE is women who are having empowerment experiences, people who want to start new businesses.

Zai Bryant wants to do a show, and she has been dedicating herself for the last year

to make herself understand the process of the student body and she's on the Board of Education.

So we definitely need to highlight her.

She's an example for all the students across the country.

I mean there's so many things that we could do and I've been canvassing for Michael Payne and Generation 180 for Solar Schools and Sally Hudson and I've heard a lot of people talking about that they cannot afford housing.

That's it.

I mean, they work at UVA.

They make $47,000 and they can't afford it.

So all I want to say is that I talked to a university teacher, architectural, and they want to help with that.

They want to get the students to help build.

So I mean, I think there's a lot of things you can do to make the housing affordable.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, Council members.

My name is Andrea Massey.

I'm a City of Charlottesville resident.

I've expressed my views on the taxes and I'm happy about the meals and lodging.

for tonight, but I'm still hoping that there's a commitment in Ms. Galvin to the 111 that you seemed to commit to at a meeting or two ago that I was attended.

So I'm hoping that we can, there's still a chance to get there.

I think that I live in the city and I am

want to have my taxes raised to help the city get to where we need to be with affordable housing and undo part of the damage that we have done.

I think I don't know if it sounded like maybe the real estate tax came off the table because some kind of find in the budget.

I'm not sure if that is the reason that seems like it has.

But that is a one time find, I'm assuming.

And this is a long term problem that needs a long term solution.

And the amount of

With the amount of wealth in this community, it's so beyond unacceptable where we are right now.

So I hope, especially to the three council members that will be leaving because they're not running again, will think about making this part of their legacy to leave and not pass this burden on to the next people that are going to be sitting in their seats.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Michael Payne, City resident.

Echo those comments I think for myself like many community members.

Over the past few days I've been reflecting on the legacy of this council and amid everything I think there are a lot of seeds planted for future progress.

and what will be strong legacies on things like historic investment and redevelopment of public housing, creating of business equity fund, investing in pilot participatory budgeting programs, investing in the start of uprooting racist legacies in our city zoning along with many other things.

And I think, I hope council will consider this budget as part of that legacy as well and will support the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition's recommendations in support, raising revenues so we are able to make all our investments in public housing and friendship court, but also fund the CAF.

Fund as much as we can, rent relief and real estate tax relief, not just for this budget cycle but over the next five, ten years and think about it's one thing to

barely meet a budget gap for one fiscal year budget but what are we doing in five and ten years in terms of ensuring a stable revenue stream for redevelopment of public housing which we know is a multi-year commitment same with friendship court same with our real estate and tax relief programs as well as zoning reform

I'm particularly worried about will we have stable revenue over the long term to invest in city staff to have the internal capacity to do zoning reform, to have staff capacity to help the housing authority with redevelopment of public housing and I think that

along with some other things is convenient to not invest in in one budget cycle but long term what is the impact of doing it and I will hope the City Council will think about the implications of what revenue you raise over the next five to ten years and again will do so in a way that is responsible and allows you to support the Charlottesville income housing coalition's recommendations over a multi-year long-term period.

Hi, I'm Anna.

I live in the county, but I work in the city.

I'm here on behalf of Surge in partnership with Click supporting permanent solutions to the affordable housing crisis.

I'm specifically raises in the real estate tax.

Just one quick note on meals tax.

I'm hearing a lot about business owners and not a lot about workers and community members.

If business owners decided to actually pay workers a living wage instead of the 213 that they normally make, maybe there wouldn't be an affordable housing crisis.

Virginia as a state has one of the highest median income rates in the whole country, but it ranks 29th in real estate tax rates.

Millionaires and businesses like Amazon that exploit their workers have flocked to Virginia because the taxes on real estate and businesses are so low.

But to me that's not a good thing because I care about people and I don't care about corporations unlike some people.

Who pays when we aren't funding public housing, let alone any government service?

Millionaires can skate by without paying their fair share, and as long as the city government bends to wealthy white landowners who complain when they don't get exactly what they want, there's not going to be equity.

the rich and the owning class have to pay their fair share of taxes and any real estate tax of course should be paired with substantial tax relief for low-income individuals.

Housing justice is a racial justice issue.

There are many people

who are historians, who are community members, who are much more well versed than I am on the history of racism and housing.

And they have consistently shown up and talked in public spaces and forums about the displacement of black and brown residents and how it has been intentional at the behest of racist white landowners.

This town was literally built on white supremacy.

and it has done absolutely nothing, in my opinion, to reckon with that past, sorry, there are specific people who have barred the government from doing much of anything because of their egos to do, to reckon with that past.

And if the largest gathering of white supremacists in modern history wasn't enough to like open our eyes to the fact that we're doing something wrong in this town, then I really don't know what is, so.

I'm just going to reiterate what everybody before me said.

Don't listen to restaurateurs because they suck and don't want to pay me a living wage.

And please permanently fund affordable housing, not just shift some debt to another place.

First off on the food tax, I want to, Mike Signer said that cigarette tax

or the health reasons for cigarettes.

Mike, this food ain't helping us either.

People die from cancer every day from eating all of this stuff.

It's just as equal.

So raising the food tax is not going to hurt anything.

If you can afford to eat out downtown, then you can pay that tax because the poor people, trust me, we ain't going down there.

And when we do, we go to Christians.

Mike, thank you for the bench.

handling the bench issue on the mall.

I want to touch on Kathy bringing that up about the benches, about the business owners saying where they're going to be located.

It shouldn't even matter.

If I want to go downtown, sit in the middle of the mall, and just remember being down there as a little girl with my family, I should be able to sit in the middle of the mall.

I shouldn't have to buy a $30 salad and a mimosa.

just to sit in the middle of the mall.

And then about the parking lot that people are requesting for the Veterans Memorial.

CHS got all that space over there.

Them buses can park right over there.

They can walk right over that bridge.

We did it all the time as kids cutting through McIntyre Park.

Maybe you need to correlate with Charlottesville City Schools.

We fund them very well.

Sure they'll give us a parking space or let buses go over there.

It's strategic thinking to save money because that million that will put a parking lot for that memorial will definitely fight this housing crisis that we got in the city right now.

So let's not even think about a parking lot or a bridge.

Another thing on the lodging tax, please stop letting these people out of y'all like Charlottesville is not seeing any type of tourist action here.

These hotels stay sold out.

Have you tried to book a hotel room on the weekend for any of your family members coming into town?

People got to stack up in their house, I mean,

Literally, you've got people in all types of rooms, your living room, your dining room, sleeping on the floor, and mattresses probably selling at an all-time high because you can't get a hotel room here on weekends.

UVA just made the final four.

Do y'all not think people not gonna start coming here?

Seriously?

seriously I feel like we really just have to use a little bit of common sense sometimes the book sense is great and I get it y'all educated and stuff but look I need you to come down to just a common knowledge level seriously the real estate tax increase

It's necessary, but you need to up the tax relief for people that you have always left out.

Listen to what y'all saying.

Y'all making it clear who y'all represent when y'all say, I don't represent this, or I don't support this, or I don't support that.

Mike Willowtree leaving downtown.

They ain't gonna be supporting that meals tax regardless.

Y'all about to bill out way over by, out in the county ain't it?

But is it Albemarle County?

It is.

They're not going to be buying no food anyway downtown.

So boo, you already hurting us, because y'all going over there.

And every last one of your jobs pay a good salary.

They can afford to eat downtown.

Poor people can't.

Like, just pay attention to the people that y'all continue to leave behind.

You make it so clear that you don't stand for black people that are struggling, or marginalized people that are struggling, or even poor whites.

You ain't got to be so open with it.

Katrina Turner.

I just want to say something about the real estate taxes.

Right before I came here tonight, a neighbor came to me and told me that her house is going in foreclosure because of under $3,000 worth of taxes.

And she's been there for over 30 years.

Over 70 years old.

And she's getting ready to lose her house for $3,000.

Yes, ma'am, I will.

Also, I have one more thing.

For Mr. Murphy, I'd like to know about the other complaint that was filed on the chief of police, about the incident that happened right outside here.

The witnesses to it wanted to also know what's going on with it, because I believe it's over 45 days now.

And I haven't heard anything about it.

You did not receive a letter from me?

I'm happy to print it for you, I sent it certified mail.

Yes ma'am.

Walt Heinecky, Amherst Street.

I know, but I'm getting it back because there's an extra spot.

Thanks for the tip.

I want to talk about three other things today.

I'll talk about the real estate tax in a minute, but thank you for your commitment to affordable housing through the two other taxes that you've raised today.

I think we all really appreciate that commitment.

I also wanted to say thank you for supporting public TV here in Charlottesville.

I got to tell you, my daughter, who's now a playwright in Brooklyn, got her start in eighth grade in a TV show on public TV in Charlottesville.

And it had a huge impact on her development as an artist.

So anything that you do to promote that, I really appreciate.

And I think the public appreciates it.

And thank you very much for sort of putting time and effort into public TV here as well.

I also want to say I was a big skeptic about the skateboard park.

I know you spent a lot of money on that, a lot of money, and I was really skeptical about it.

But I walk in that, it's part of my neighborhood, and I walk in it now, and I see it used at a pretty high level.

So I think in terms of use, I appreciate the fact that I was wrong and that people are actually using it.

Third, you know I'm a vociferous advocate for ending stop and frisk here in Charlottesville.

I think it's a horrible problem.

I also wish there was a way that we could resolve Ms. Turner's problems with the police in a way that came to some equitable fruition.

On those two issues, I hope that we move forward.

I also would like to say that I'm thankful for what the police chief did with the threat from the guy that threatened Charlottesville High School.

I think that the way the police department handled that was really well done and well handled and I appreciated the way that the department took care of that.

There's just no room in this community for that kind of hatred and to go after

To go after those people like that, the people that do that kind of thing, the way that they did, I really appreciate it.

Now I hope the Commonwealth Attorney takes it to the full extent of the law.

But I do appreciate the way that the Chief and the Police Department handled that particular problem.

I thought it was quick and it was effective, and I do appreciate it, even though, as I said,

Real vociferous advocate for fixing this horrible stop and frisk problem that we have in this town.

But I'd like to give credit where credit's due and I hope that we can move forward sort of in building some kind of trust between the community and the police department here.

All right, thank you.

My name is Rosia Parker and Mr. Murphy we responded to everybody else's questions but you did not respond back to mine about 8th and Main and it is still dangerous and I'm still asking when are y'all gonna do something about that stop?

It's been three years and y'all said that y'all did something.

Nothing has been done to that stop and I'm still trying to figure out what is going to happen when somebody actually gets hit standing right there or a car really hits, you know, it's a really bad accident.

So I've spoken with the traffic engineer about this repeatedly.

We've implemented all the measures that he has recommended.

It's my understanding that Ms. Parker would like the rapid flash beacons and he doesn't believe they're warranted there.

So outside of that issue

You know, if the traffic engineer isn't interested and or feels like it's warranted to put in rapid flash beacons, I'm not going to overrule him on that matter.

Or what else can we put there that I mean to show their caution that there's people that are able to walk.

There's nothing that the sign is that the little piece still is there.

You know, there's still nothing that shows that that's a crosswalk.

and the reflector you know y'all still haven't even fixed that part I mean the things that you said it when you you know you were so gladly sitting up there a few months ago saying that y'all did this for the street nothing has been done there there's no reflector fix there's nothing there's no no fixing right there there's nothing done

So, I mean, I understand he might not put no flashers there, but it needs something there.

Because it's gonna take somebody to seriously get hurt to sue the city.

And he's already saying, you know, that the black community really don't get no type of attention.

But I done brought this attention here for three years.

Three years.

This is not one, not two, not three.

Three years.

And I'm tired of bringing it.

I think at this point, you know, Mr. Duncan has said he's put in the appropriate fixes.

I recommend that I just have him back at the next meeting, bring pictures, and, you know, we'll determine if there's anything else that can get done.

I would appreciate that.

Thanks.

Mayor Walker, I just want to thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

My name's Aria.

I moved into the city about four months ago.

And I also started my transition about a year ago.

And coming from Ohio, where it's really difficult, I just got to say that I do have to commend all the effort that's been put into just the acceptance and the culture here.

And it's not perfect, obviously.

A lot needs to be done with the LGBT community here.

and the troubles I've seen before I moved here and the stuff I'm coming to realize about the city with the large conflict.

Obviously, it's a work in progress, but I do want to commend that I have felt extraordinarily welcome and I have felt like I have a voice here.

Welcome.

All right, so we are now in comments.

We come back at 8.

Now we have the lease agreement with Verizon for communication equipment in the Market Street Garage, first of one reading.

Madam Mayor, Mr. Engle cannot be here tonight, but I did want to talk to the council about this item and I know that Ms. Schweller is here representing Verizon.

This item is before you, it's a new, well I guess it's a renewable lease for a five-year term for a small cell structure on the parking garage right next to this building.

In your package you're going to see there are two resolutions.

Verizon would like to renew the lease and have a 15% reduction in the annual lease.

Currently it's a $9,000 revenue stream to the city.

Verizon is

proposing to pay $7,650 per year as part of this five-year renewal.

Verizon has stated, and it is true that the state law did change which has now increased the ability to locate on public structures in Virginia.

And part of Verizon's

Justification for asking for the decrease in the rental rate is that since there are now more opportunities to locate these small cell facilities within the city of Charlottesville that the lease rate that was proposed and agreed to in 2014 does not in fact represent the market rate of today.

Mr. Engle's staff report indicates that he was not able to locate any market study

on the actual small cell wireless facility rental rate in Virginia.

He is still advocating for the nine thousand dollar per year annual rate from Verizon.

But again, Verizon is pointing to legislation passed by the General Assembly that now increases the opportunities for locating these facilities.

And they're maintaining that this legislation does, in fact, create market conditions

which with an increased supply should bring down the price of the lease for the small cell facility that's located on the parking garage.

Mr. Walker, I have a question.

I don't know if it's going to be just for Mr. Blair or for

I mean could we just have a blanket policy at some point about having third party review because it came up you know when we had a situation where the developer engineer that was wanting to develop a parcel of land was also the one that said that they didn't need to change the the FEMA map for floodplain and it hit me there that maybe we should have a policy where there is whenever there's an issue like that there is a third party that comes in to

to actually determine the facts.

For these particular types of facilities the council could set a policy.

Now the state legislation did in fact mandate that certain small cell facilities on certain facilities such as utility poles the city has to allow.

But

I think the only thing to add for the Council's benefit is when Verizon approached us about this facility six years ago, I believe.

They proffered the amount of 9,000 per month we accepted without negotiation.

It's unknown what the marketplace is for this.

Mr.

Angle did try and investigate that.

So we don't know the,

It would be Mr. Engle's contention that the original amount is appropriate.

We have the Verizon rep here.

I imagine that you should ask her some questions about how and why they arrived at that amount and make a determination.

Hello.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Members of the Council.

My name is Lori Schweller.

I'm an attorney with Williams Mullen representing Verizon Wireless.

And I'd just like to say thank you for allowing Verizon Wireless to lease this space.

This is one of the first mall sales in Virginia.

The lease was between the City of Charlottesville and Verizon Wireless in 2013.

And based on installation, this will expire at the end of May.

if not renewed.

So we're asking for your renewal for another five years.

The rent reduction is based on the following.

At the time that the lease was entered into five years ago, market rate was about $500 per small cell.

There were some outliers that were maybe $600 a month, but this one was $750, I believe, which was really on the high end.

And just to remind you, small cells are very small wireless facilities that are used to provide extra data transmission capacity in areas where people gather.

This one happens to be two antennas that look like fluorescent light bulbs within two of the eight glass

because of the

large and ever increasing numbers of small cells that have been constructed across the state and the country.

Tens of thousands actually, and that number will be, I've heard something like 800,000 by 2026.

Rents have gone down.

And as Mr. Blair pointed out, there are lots of other opportunities and really the carriers are focused on utility poles now instead of buildings.

But we do want to renew this site, for sure.

Yes, I think I'm with, you know, Counselor Galvin in terms of not having enough information to support a reduction.

Oh, yeah.

So I'll open the public hearing before our discussion.

Is there anyone here that would like to speak?

All right, now closing the public hearing.

Um, so that was it.

And again, I agree with Mayor Walker.

I think we need an independent third party looking at this, and I agree with the staff's recommendation.

So I guess our question to you would be

Yes, ma'am.

So we'll just approve the 9,000.

Number two.

Is there a motion?

I move the approval of

I move the approval of Resolution B attached to the Council Agenda Report.

Okay, got it.

All in favor?

Yeah.

We've already voted for B, which was not.

Retain the current rent.

Retain the current rent.

OK, thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, so that carries five to zero.

OK. All right, next we have the City Council proposed budget.

Here we go.

I believe based on her tweets Ms. Conger said that she could give the presentation at this point.

if we have a projector that will give a presentation.

There we go.

It's a very faint budget presentation.

Here we are.

Okay.

I hope it gets so much brighter.

Here we are.

So, over the course of the last several budget meetings, we have reviewed a number of scenarios and the new revenue between the proposal and where we are today is reimbursement for constitutional officers.

This is money in the state budget that has come to the city that we did not know about during the time of the budget construction by the manager's office.

I would remind folks that we have presented multiple scenarios during the last budget sessions and this is the one that council settled on most recently.

So how did we get to the expenditure here with this new money from the state?

We also found in the debt service fund that we were able to spend $850,000 less than we had imagined.

I've described this in some detail previously.

but the essence of it is that there's been a very conservative practice in previous budgets to imagine that all the capital programs that we had authorized in the past but not spent or not issued debt on would happen in the upcoming fiscal year and the fact is

I'll be with you all in two weeks saying that the only debt that we're going to issue in FY19 before June 30th is $10.5 million, not over $37 million.

That translates to the savings in the payment.

How would we expend those dollars?

We would add to the CHAP and real estate tax relief in the way that Mayor Walker had actually described earlier to the public.

There was already in the base budget from the city manager's office $285,000 in new money.

We're proposing that another $349,000 be added to that.

We also are talking about doubling the current program for rent relief, adding another $26,000 and that as opposed to the $10.3 million that was going into affordable housing overall in the capital program, that that number go up to $10.55 million.

there was a suggestion about some marketing assistance for restaurants as meals tax was being raised this amount here was arrived at because it's five percent of the new revenues and there's some adjustments back and forth small things between departments and IT expenses etc so

This details some of the things that the mayor was describing earlier.

Basically, just under 1,000 people would benefit from the newly revised CHAP program.

There is a full relief.

area for folks with less than $25,000 in income.

The income was adjusted up to $55,000.

I would note for staff in the budget office and Commissioner Divers that we need to change that last category so it's $45,001 as the mayor pointed out to me earlier.

So, Ms. Galvin mentioned earlier that this is inclusive of about 70% of the residential parcels.

I think that that's a significant portion.

I think that that captures the total investment between these two programs is almost one and three quarter million dollars.

So what does that mean as far as what did we do on the capital side?

As I said, we ended up adding $255,000 to affordable housing.

Of course, we were adding

to the affordable housing fund in that kind of general application pool that folks have been talking with you about.

There is a small adjustment to supplemental rental assistance that I discussed last time.

Dr. Bellamy, I've communicated an email to him actually tonight to share with his colleagues at the housing authority.

I can share that with the rest of the council.

Essentially the reason for this small reduction is a couple

All money that has been spent thus far on CSRAP was actually appropriated by the council in fiscal year 2018.

and there is some set aside within that.

There is $945,000 still available in the year that we're in, so between now and June 30th.

And so with only a quarter to go, knowing that there's $945,000 and that we have all of the rent obligations budgeted for between 77 and 82 people, 77 who are housed, 82 who are seeking the right place to live,

and knowing that there are 28 people on the waiting list.

I think that that in combination with three quarters of a million dollars available only three months from today would have us sitting nearly two million dollars in the pool.

And so I feel very secure in meeting the obligations to everybody currently on the list and those on the waiting list.

and you know a lot more comfortable with the time that we could serve folks because I believe best practice is to be able to ensure that we can meet an obligation should people need it up to 24 months.

The other small adjustment here is to make a change in the year one allocation to friendship court.

It still means five and a half million dollars to that project overall.

$10.55 million overall to affordable housing in the $35-plus million budget just in FY20 for capital improvement.

So this is just a summary of what I've talked about there, different format, a way to look at that.

You see that we're just under $10.6 million.

There is an increase over all scenarios that we've presented you with to date.

One of the things that the council has talked about a bit is the idea that you know typically there is money that we are able to appropriate each year in December based on when we kind of close the books on FY19 which ends for us June 30th and realize that there are additional dollars available because we didn't

spend as much as we might have imagined or we realized more revenues and what council is articulating here during our budget discussions is look there's some stuff that we want to be thinking about in December and let's say what those things are ahead of time put that money back into friendship court

try and fund the affordable housing fund all the way up to the 1.55 million that has been talked about by a lot of folks tonight and throughout the budgeting process.

$150,000 back to the rental assistance program.

Instead of amortizing the retirement fund costs, pay them up front, which would be a better practice.

And Dr. Bellamy asked last meeting about restoring half a million dollars to the equity fund because you've made a lot of great investments from that fund this year.

We did talk at length about a number of issues that we need to address with our compensation.

We know that in Lynchburg just the study of that was a six figure enterprise.

We imagined that it would be at least that here and that it took them about two years to get to the first phase of implementation.

Imagining that we hear from council and the public tonight, you're slated for approval, City Hall, 2 p.m. next week.

Thank you all.

So I think we can just open it up.

All right, so I'm going to open up the public hearing.

Is there anyone who would like to speak?

No?

All right.

Do I have a list?

Good evening.

I'm Vicki Bravo.

I live at 1135 Locust Avenue and I'm here tonight representing IMPACT with two of my colleagues.

We applaud your work to accomplish major improvements in affordable housing, including planning for record investment in public housing redevelopment, expansion of CHAP, expansion of rental assistance,

a plan for $800,000 in the CAF and a possible additional funding of $755,000 from the surplus.

We very much appreciate your hard work on this.

We are continuing to press for the $1.55 million in the CAF to cover homelessness services and other services covered by that fund and other affordable housing plans that will come forward.

We agree with other speakers on the need for a permanent revenue stream for the calf.

Michael Payne, City resident.

I've already stated my position, but I'll say again, I think there is a lot to celebrate in this budget.

I think this is a historic budget when it comes to investment and affordable housing, and there is a lot to celebrate in it.

But again, I would just reiterate when thinking about revenues, think long term, think about the

well over a hundred million dollars in unfunded CIP projects we currently have which that does not even include the 50 plus million dollars for the school modernization and expansion and what fiscal position we will be in long term with unfunded CIP projects, the school modernization expansion and city staff requests if we're not raising revenues as much as we could.

Are we just putting it off for a year or

Thank you.

Walt Heinecky, I'm Herstreet.

Again, I do want to echo what's been said about like the positive comments.

I think that you've done a great job with this budget moving toward affordable housing.

I'm much appreciated.

I think it's long time coming.

It solves a problem that's been a long, long time.

200 years worth of history has led to this particular problem.

And I want to encourage you to start thinking long term on this.

And that's where we're going to have something on the real estate tax in a minute.

But I feel like

My cup's two-thirds full at this point, and we're getting there.

I think oftentimes we don't think long-term.

It's like, you know, in the UVA game it takes a really strong defense to win those games, but you also have to have a strong offense.

And I think right now we're still playing defense by thinking short-term with our funding for affordable housing.

And I'll give you an example.

Ms. Carpenter said that she knew of an affordable housing unit right now in which there's been a change of ownership.

There's 46 people who are up for eviction when they come back.

they'll probably face higher rents and yes you've increased the rental assistance programs which is really great and I think you ought to advertise that there's money left over because I think people in town don't know about that fund and we need to advertise it but my thinking here is that we need to be thinking down the road and so long term

I think you're doing a good job short term, but let's think what's going to happen over the next 15 years in terms of the needs that we're going to have to fill for those over 3300 units.

This isn't going to go away this year.

And so we have to think about things like

And this is why I think raising the real estate tax is important is because we have to think about playing offense.

And playing offense in my perspective means that we have to think about land acquisition.

Maybe we buy that apartment building that people are getting kicked out of.

Maybe we need $3 million to buy that apartment so we save all of those units, right?

And so maybe the real estate tax helps us put with down payment on buying that unit.

and helping CRHA or PHA buy that unit.

And there we save that 40 some odd number of folks that are going to be displaced and facing higher rents.

So I think we have to start thinking ahead a little bit and thinking about the next year and the next year and the next year and what you can do now to get prepared for those coming years.

And I think increasing the real estate tax and thinking about using that money

Thank you.

Thank you, my name is Jake Mooney.

I live in the city.

So the $850,000 or so, personally I'm still not 100% clear on how you found it.

I don't know that it's been explained all that well.

I might have missed it earlier today, but I saw that referred to as a miracle.

I think it was Ms. Galvin.

Sorry, I was rushing to get here.

I could understand how it would feel like a miracle if you're running for office and you sort of all of a sudden can appease the affordable housing people without having to raise taxes.

I'm not a church goer but what I think would be a miracle would be for people in my demographic who have benefited from property value accumulation in the city to share some of that wealth and I think that

What you're contemplating doing by not raising the tax rate is kind of the opposite of that actually.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

All right, so closing public hearing.

New York, I'd like to make a comment, if I may, because there's been some questions about the $850,000, the reason why we didn't

stay with the 111 plan and I just want to review a little bit at least my thought process and what happened over the course of the month of March and in March I believe it was March 14 we had a budget work session where

Staff had proposed that we were going to be raising, we needed to raise taxes for what was essentially a one-time cash outlay to cover the redevelopment of our assisted and public housing.

And I had asked the question, well when, I don't ever remember

when we would raise a tax that would have a permanent ongoing revenue stream for a one-time cash investment.

Why couldn't we use our general fund reserve?

And subsequent to that, we had our city's financial consultant come in and say that is very bad fiscal policy.

You don't raid your reserve fund because that is what gives you the stability in the event of any kind of catastrophe or downturn in the economy.

And any business would have at least a three months reserve to cover their payroll, for example.

So I said, okay, all right, it seems like there's no other way to do this.

We needed to get, at that time, it was a $771,000 difference.

And that was the cost of a one cent increase on the real estate tax rate.

We had, I believe it was March 19, we had a work session where our budget staff actually took a really hard look at how we do our bond issuance.

So when you have different moments in time when you

issued different chunks of the total bonding that you need.

And in that process they understood that they were reserving unnecessarily keeping from the use of the public for public good $850,000 in debt service payment.

That told me that was $78,000 more than what we were going to get for this one year with a one cent real estate tax increase

And we weren't doing something that had historically been not a wise budget policy, which would be raise taxes for one-time cash infusions.

So to me,

I do believe that human reason and hard work and then getting outcomes that are extremely productive and constructive are in some sense a minor miracle.

So that's why I express it the way it was.

I was greatly appreciative of staff's hard work because they listened to the way we're agonizing over using a tax increase to cover a one-time cash outlay.

Now, having said all that, that does not at all remove what we all know is going to be a long-term commitment that we have to make on housing.

We forget all the debates and struggles we had about needing an affordable housing strategy.

Several months ago, this council committed close to a million dollars to do three things.

Finally complete the comprehensive plan,

get a comprehensive affordable housing strategy and do our zoning overhaul, which has been long overdue.

It's been due for about six or seven years.

That to me is smart planning.

So I don't know where we stand on getting that request or proposal out, but we do understand that we need a hard, fast, clear strategy that will tell us

what we need to do by way of raising taxes and give us even more tools that we need to use to make our real estate tax more progressive.

Just a month ago we had residents come person after person telling us about how that is a hardship.

It's a hardship to increase taxes on top of our land values already going up.

And we can't ignore the fact that as we give tax relief, we're taking money out of the revenue stream.

So all these things need to be understood so that we're not digging ourselves into a hole.

So I just felt really important that I needed to explain why this 1-1-1 plan was no longer needed right now.

And I'll just add that definitely the commitment on my part is there.

I know that we got away with not maximizing, I guess, our bond potential and even real estate tax and if we can create

policies that are not harmful to you know low-income homeowners to then and I think we can do both that is definitely what I will keep you know pushing for so it's we're definitely not at the end we're just at the you know beginning of this process.

All right.

All right, so that's it.

OK. Next, we have the annual tax levy for calendar year 2019, first of two readings.

Who's the presenter?

No?

Yes.

You held your public hearing at the March 18th meeting on the real estate tax rates.

Is there council, any additional discussion?

All right.

Um, so annual budget appropriations for fiscal year 2020.

Any additional discussion?

All right.

And, oh, I did have one comment.

The 8th at 2 o'clock, I'm going to have to use that as one of my call-ins.

One of my two, right?

Thank you, Mayor.

I was hoping that was for my presentation.

I'm Bill Morya, the Executive Director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority.

And as you may know, we provide the drinking water systems, the wastewater treatment systems, refuse disposal and recycling systems for Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville.

And so as we come into 2019, I'm pleased to say that our reservoirs are full of water and that's really good news.

We have over two and a half billion gallons in our three reservoirs that serve the urban area, so that's a good thing.

The granular activated carbon filters that we completed last year for about $29 million are doing a great job in removing organics and contaminants from our drinking water and continue to enhance our drinking water.

It was mentioned in solid waste that

We would discontinue recycling number three through seven plastics and that's correct.

We will recycle number one and two plastics which constitute about 90% of our plastics recycling stream.

The three through seven we found were

eventually going to a landfill out of state and not really being recycled so we didn't see the purpose in going to the effort of trying to recycle and spend money in the pretext of recycling when they weren't really being recycled so we want monitor the market and try to optimize all of our systems.

For budget comparison, so the Rivanna's working on its water and sewer budget.

Our budget's about $36 million for our operating budget and about $97 million for our five-year capital improvement budget.

So we are very debt heavy because we provide all the major infrastructure.

The debt service cost is about 47% of our operating budget.

I did send you the written report with the wastewater flows for your information, as well as a brief summary of some of the major capital projects.

that we have planned for the upcoming year or two.

If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

Otherwise, I have two short videos to show you about two of our major capital projects on our South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant, which produces most of the water for what we call the urban area, the city, and the urbanized areas of the county.

As well, we have a project at the Observatory Hill.

Water Treatment Plan.

And so those are planned to go forward later this year for a cost of about $35 million.

And that cost is shared between the city and the Albemarle County Service Authority.

The city's share is approximately about 47, 48% of that cost.

The set foot for the water system is comprised of a source water reservoir, raw and finished water pumping facilities, water treatment plant, and water storage tanks, all serving over 110,000 citizens and businesses in the city of Charlottesville, including UVA and urban areas about Marl Kennedy.

The South Rivanna Reservoir was built in 1966 and currently provides about 850 million gallons of usable water storage.

Water from the South Rivanna Reservoir is treated at the South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant, which has the capacity to process 12 million gallons of finished water per day.

The South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant is the largest of the three urban plants.

A project to add granular activated carbon filters at all of our water treatment plants was recently completed to enhance the quality of our drinking water.

Additional plant improvements have been identified and will be accomplished in a construction project starting in the fall of 2019 with completion scheduled for 2023.

These improvements include an expansion of the chemical storage, laboratory,

and process control facilities, installation of two additional filters, replacement of pumping and electrical equipment, and additional billing to increase office, training and storage areas.

These upgrades will improve reliability of the plant and maintain the current treatment capacity.

Any questions about that project?

The South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant, which is out past Walmart near the Rivanna River and the reservoir.

The Observatory Water Treatment Plant is the oldest of the three urban plants.

The plant was constructed in 1953 and is located on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

Since that time, very little of the plant has been replaced or upgraded.

The 65-year-old facility operates with much of the original equipment, which is prone to failures and replacing parts are not readily available.

The Observatory Water Treatment Plant receives raw water from Ragon Mountain Reservoir and has capacity to provide 7.7 million gallons per day of finished water to cover 110,000 residents and businesses in the City of Charlottesville, including UVA and urban areas of Albemarle County.

The Ragged Mountain Reservoir was improved in 2014 and currently provides 1.5 billion gallons of usable water storage.

The community water supply plan developed from 2002 to 2012 envisioned that this plant would undergo a comprehensive upgrade as part of the strategy to provide an adequate water supply for 50 years.

Included in this project are improvements to the flocculators, filters, conveyance flumes, sedimentation basins, electrical and chemical systems, all to enhance the reliability of the plant.

In addition to providing much needed equipment replacements, the existing plant will also upgrade from 7.7 to 10 million gallons per day in treatment capacity.

Upgrading the plant will support future increases in water demand and enable the urban water supply system to withstand or recover from difficult natural man-made conditions.

The budget to complete this project is currently $20 million.

So the observatory plant is on property owned by the university and a lease was put in place in 1922 and expires in 2021 around the corner so we are in negotiations with the UVA to renew the

99 year lease with another 99 year lease.

So sort of different to have a 99 year lease come to an end.

So we're working on that.

But again, these are two of the biggest projects we have that will be going forward later this year.

The city, through a contract and put an agreement put in place in 2003, has agreed to pay

48% of renovations to existing facilities.

If there's new capacity created, such as where we're going to raise the capacity at Observatory from 7.7 million gallons a day in treatment capacity to 10, then we have to get a new agreement and we're talking with the Service Authority and your Utilities Department about that agreement now.

I guess some of the things that have come up with the public is just understanding that just the strategy and we've talked about this in years past around why we're putting so much investment into capacity that doesn't seem like it's necessary at this time.

Well, capacity is something that we have to have in advance.

We can't need it and suddenly go out and build a new, a large water treatment plant or a new reservoir.

It takes years and decades to plan in advance.

And so a matter of fact, we're doing a study right now of the urban area water demand for the next 50 years.

And it's an update to this study that was done in 2010 to help us project how much water we do need, what, and it looks at all the facts.

How much water are we using?

The graph that I give you here, what's the five year average?

What's the average?

What is projected for the next 50 years?

And then we have to match our water

Supply capacity in our reservoirs.

Do we have enough reservoir capacity to provide what's going to be needed in 2050?

Then we have to think about building the water treatment plants to treat it.

And thirdly, we have to enhance the piping systems to distribute it throughout the city and the county to get it to the customers.

So we work in really a long-range planning.

Pipes we expect to last 80 to 100 years.

Treatment plants, 100 years.

And so while today one might say, well, our demand is low, we've had a lot of rain, the reservoirs are full, we don't need to think about supply and capacity.

Maybe that's true right now, but in 2017 we had a drought.

In 2001 was almost a drought of record.

that the stories are told that they were at the verge of telling the university to send the students home.

So I was at a conference last week that talked about

Extreme weather events have been more frequent in the last 12 years than they were in prior decades.

So we try to assimilate all this data when we look at demand studies and supply.

And even though it might not be clear today or last year or the next six months, we're trying to plan ahead

And yes, we are putting the pipe out at Birdwood.

Part of that was in coordination with their renovation of the golf course.

They have it torn up and we wanted to get this pipe installed before they finished all their work at the golf course.

And then at some point I came to this council a few months ago and told you about the project.

that's already been approved in the community water supply plan to extend the pipe from the South Rivanna Reservoir over to Ragon Mountain so we have a better way to fill Ragon Mountain.

And if you noticed in the videos, the rock on the water side of the dam,

So that's 12 more feet of water that that dam and that reservoir is designed to add, 12 feet of water to increase our water supply.

But we currently fill it with a trickling pipe from Sugar Hollow that puts in 4 million gallons a day, but when you have 2 billion gallon capacity, it takes a long time to fill it.

So the concept in the community water supply plan was to build a pipe between the South Rivanna Reservoir and the Ragon Mountain Reservoir and we could pump 25 million gallons a day over to Ragged to keep it full.

Part of the plan issue is not only a drought but if we had back to back droughts.

and a reservoir got low, could you refill it?

So did that speak to it enough?

Thank you.

So I have a question about, so UVA, how are they fitting into the equation in terms of, so you said there was a 2003

For the 99.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm happy to let Bill answer, but UVA is a customer of the system and also maintains some of their own infrastructure.

Yes, ma'am, I think so.

The earlier agreement had wrapped together the rate structure with the city and that you guys have renegotiated.

It also had this lease component rolled together because originally the lease was with the city.

And then when Rivanna was born in the 1970s, the city turned over the observatory plant and effectively the lease of the facility to us.

We pay the rent on the facility $36,000 a year right now.

So it was discussed that we should separate these components of that document and the city and UVA have understand a new contract about water rates and then we're going to have a separate contract with the university on leasing the facility.

But as Mr. Murphy said, they continue to be your customer and so we make all the drinking water for everyone.

So we sell it to the city, you sell it to UVA, we sell it to the Albemarle Service Authority, they serve all the Albemarle County public utility users.

So, and UVA has some of their own piping, but they don't have any water treatment or waste water treatment, neither does the city, neither does the county.

It was in the contract that, yeah.

that a rent would be paid.

All right.

That's where I was going.

Madam Mayor.

This is Mr. Murphy.

I just in my time on council, I don't think we've we haven't, I don't think, done a large infrastructure direct capital funded project and we've done

you know, like fire engines, some other very expensive things.

We purchased real estate, but so I, this is my lack of familiarity, but so with, and this is with respect and just wanting to know, but with thinking about large infrastructure projects around a country where you have oftentimes round numbers and the figures are very large.

I'm curious about what, I understand that there is a fiduciary

to make sure that the figures are are are correct and narrowly tailored and so on but I'm curious and I know that nobody's getting paid more if there's you know a large expense but I'm just curious about what's our

what's within what is our fiduciary role to make sure that the budgets are correct with very large infrastructure projects because sometimes they do run over sometimes you do see bridges become much more expensive than they should have been sometimes you see public contracts have

Ms. Galvin, myself, and Ms. Hildebrand currently serve in that role.

The county has three folks also and there's a citizen rep that you jointly appoint who happens to be the chair for some time now, Mr. Gaffney.

And so there is quite a bit of presentation to that group about all of the capital projects.

And I would point out that, you know, there have been some projects we've questioned.

I asked a lot of questions about Birdwood recently.

And as I recall, that was actually a project that came in less than half of what they had imagined it might.

So there there is certainly a lot of scrutiny about the bids.

We follow the Virginia Public Procurement requirements so we have to public advertise and get the low bidder and sealed bidding so we follow all those procedures.

We have a value engineering program like this big project of the two treatment plants.

We're having an independent engineer look over our primary engineer's shoulder and make recommendations for how to be more

value added, not necessarily cheaper, but value added.

It's very helpful here.

Even at the city level, we have very robust procurement rules that are a lot stronger than in a lot of other states, for instance.

and if I could bring up too that the public has weighed in very heavily in certain decisions and one of them was you saw pictures of the granular activated carbon treatment method and back four years ago the city was about and the city and the county and Almonte County Sewer Authority were all about to proceed with

Just adding chloramines, a chemical that had been found in some places to combine with the byproducts and create adverse reactions to the community as well as the surrounding wildlife.

I believe when I got on the board it wasn't clear to me what public process had been used and there wasn't a very clear open public process.

We opened the public process up.

Long story short, all four boards were given information by the public.

We want to do this in a way that doesn't threaten the health and safety of our families and our planet.

and this community opted, we filled the whole room in the Almonte County office building to go with a more expensive way to treat our water but was one that the public would trust to drink.

And so I just want to say that this community has over and over again opted for poor quality and safety.

and I might add that one of the advisors on that was the person that later would find out all the problems with Flint, Michigan.

We do not have any of those problems and it's because of the expertise of this willing

Yes, thank you because it is important to us to be cost effective.

We try to do our best, but relative to the Flint, we don't take shortcuts that would compromise the quality of our water or our drinking water, or our wastewater treatment.

And by the way, the Birdwood Waterline Project, the city's share is 20% of that project.

The Albemarle County Service Authority pays 80% of that project.

And in terms of growth and our projections for accommodating affordable housing, so the water supply plan was based on a growth projection of the city of 72,000 people.

That was through the AECOM engineering firm.

And that is what provides us with the infrastructure to create the supply to accommodate that future population

out to 2060.

So that's, some of you may remember too, we had a long conversation with some of our planning commissioners.

Can we go beyond, you know, some of the visions that were presented to us with the comp plan is like 150,000 people.

So we have to be aware of these things.

And then, but I will say that you look at Weldon Cooper's growth projections for 2040, we're putting us at 55,000.

Well, we're at 49,000 now.

And if we build those 3,000, build those 1,200 units of housing that the 2018 report said we needed,

as well that the HAC distilled from that 2018 report.

That's 3,000 more people like within the next couple of years.

So that means we're going to be hitting the Weld and Cooper growth projections in 2022, not 2040.

So we are growing and we have to accommodate more people to get the affordable housing we need.

So anyway, I just wanted to clarify that.

And I have been on the board, so I feel an obligation to explain some of these things

I've had the history as well by seeing all this data, all these studies, all this strategic planning that we need to do for things like affordable housing, street improvements, you name it, education.

Thank you.

And I have another question about the plastics 3 through 7.

Yes ma'am.

We're still using the same company.

They go to a company called Sunoco near Lynchburg and then they package them and send them to North Carolina somewhere.

So our solid waste manager has been doing some investigating and calling.

and looking into it and that's his belief that they were not being recycled further down the stream.

The China effect as we call it that a lot of almost all the recyclings in the country were going to China and they have changed their rules and they're accepting only a very very small percentage of what they used to.

So there's no, there are few places to send a lot of recyclable products such as plastics.

Glass is becoming a bit questionable.

newspaper recycled, cardboard is good, recycle them, aluminum cans, that's a good product.

But the plastics and the glasses are not becoming so marketable.

And just as an FYI, the recycling program loses money every year.

So it's subsidized by you and the county every year.

Roughly several hundred thousand dollars.

I can get you the exact number.

All right.

I know we sent the county a bill today for three hundred and fourteen thousand for their quarterly dues for all of the programs that they support.

And I think your bill was about eighty six thousand dollars.

So for a quarter.

So that's your contribution to maintaining the old landfill area that we have to do environmental protection out there.

So it's not just recycling, but that's part of it.

I'm just still trying to just wrap my head around where, you know, landfill versus recycling and what we're doing, I guess, um, you know, not just local, but state and national level to resolve that.

So just, um, I guess you may not have those answers.

Well, you know, we haven't landfilled anything since the late 1990s.

And so everything now goes through a transfer station.

So people still bring it to the landfill.

And the county fund it.

And we built a brand new building.

It opened in September.

The transfer station, it's got a concrete floor with a hole at one end.

And the trucks come in and dump their trash on the floor.

And our tractor pushes it in the hole.

And there's a truck down below.

And it goes in the truck.

and then we ship it out and it goes to Amelia County Landfill.

The Amelia Landfill.

Because they were the low bidder on taking it.

So that's how we transfer.

And Mr. Murray, could you please share with us why we can't put solar panels on the landfill?

We attempted to do that.

We had a firm contact us who was a backup.

So Virginia Power, the General Assembly required Virginia Power to support alternate

energy projects.

And so they committed to create so many megawatts of solar and wind power for the state.

And so they were soliciting companies to propose

both of those types of projects, solar or wind power.

And so this company, actually from Maryland, came to us and said they wanted to put together a project.

Could they use our landfill, rent space at the landfill?

Our board agreed, and we said, yes, you can do it.

They proposed a project to Virginia Power, but it was not accepted in that program.

Virginia Power got enough projects they needed to meet their need and this was not one of them.

So there's no technical reason why that didn't work because it was a great use of land area.

Yes and we did get a call from them recently to say hey this is not totally dead.

Virginia Power may have another round of projects that they do and they were going to reapply again.

So we haven't given up.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Any other business?

No.

Going on five.

So the matters by the public.

Is there anyone who would like to speak?

Nope.

All right.

So meeting adjourned.