City Council Meeting   3/18/2019

Good evening.

So I apologize for our delay.

Dr. Bellamy?

Here.

Ms. Hill?

Here.

Here.

I'll just follow up.

I think this was mentioned last time.

Mr. Alexander presents the fifth annual My Help List contest, a thinking and writing and reading activity.

Entries of 150 words or less to share in writing.

It's important to help people because list five things that you've done to help someone or how you can help someone.

Eligible to all students throughout the Charlottesville and surrounding counties in grades categories K through two, third through fifth, sixth and eighth, and then high school ninth through 12th.

One winner from each grade category will be chosen and win a $100 cash prize with a reception to be held in their honor.

Winners will be announced on NBC29 and alexan.com.

It runs through Friday, April 19th.

And we have a couple proclamations.

Milwaukee, I'd like to defer my proclamation after yours.

Could we have a moment of silence for the members of the Islamic community, as well as reading yours?

So if we could have a moment of silence, please, for those affected in New Zealand by the terrorist attack.

and we have a proclamation that we want to present tonight.

In the wake of the horrific terror attacks at the mosque in New Zealand, the Charlottesville City Council reaffirms our commitment to the values of love and peace that led us to declare ourselves a welcoming city in 2016.

Good morning.

Well, good afternoon and thank you for being here.

It's our pleasure to be coming here tonight and to talk about how grateful we felt in Charlottesville to be part of this community.

When I woke up Friday to the news, I initially felt saddened and slightly felt scared of going to the mosque.

And it's because of the

these sentiments that have been brewing in our political atmosphere and it's not only anti-Muslim sentiments, it also goes to be anti-Semitic, anti-Hindu, anti-minorities, Blacks and Hispanic.

These sentiments have been growing lately and this act is not isolated, it's rather reflecting this atmosphere.

But while this act receives a lot of media attention, what it fails to receive is the generous reactions and contributions that we received to our mosque.

When I went to Friday prayer, so many new faces, a lot of them are non-Muslim, who came to show support for our community.

We saw many packets of flowers that were delivered, many kind letters and donations that were received by the mosque.

And these things fail to grab media attention.

When we look at the media, we only feel that this environment that we live in is very unwelcoming and unkind to all.

But the reality is, it's not like that.

It's very welcoming and very accepting.

But what this act indicates for us is the amount of hard work that we need to place on creating a welcoming society, a society that accepts all and respects all.

So we have another proclamation for the 2019 Virginia Festival of the Book.

And is that representative here to receive this proclamation?

Okay, Ms. Jane is here.

All right, so whereas the City of Charlottesville believes that

That literacy is critical to active and engaged citizenship and is committed to promoting reading, writing, and storytelling for all, both within and outside its borders.

And whereas reading stimulates the creative and intellectual growth of individuals, while also building community through shared experiences, discourse, and understanding.

and whereas the annual Virginia Festival of the Book draws attendees, authors, illustrators, and publishing professionals from the region, the commonwealth, other states, and indeed the world serving as a significant, economically beneficial event for this area while providing the majority of programs free of charge to attendees and whereas

Virginia Humanities, the Virginia Center for the Book, the University of Virginia, local businesses and schools, and cultural and civic organizations collaborate with the Virginia Festival of the Book to explore the world through reading, foster empathy for the stories of others, and promote literacy for all.

and now, therefore, our mayor, Nikuyah Walker, the mayor of the city of Charlottesville hereby proclaims Wednesday, March 20th through Sunday, March 24th, 2019 as the 25th annual Virginia Festival of the Book and encourage community members to participate fully in the wide range of available programs and activities signed on this 18th day of March by our mayor, Nikuyah Walker, and we have Ms. Jane Lotz receive the proclamation.

Thank you very much for this proclamation and the recognition.

We know this is fairly boilerplate, that this is something that's sort of easy for you to get behind, but that does not take away from the fact that we appreciate your support and we appreciate this recognition every year.

We're grateful for the city's longtime support for the Virginia Festival of the Book.

We know that city staff and counselors appreciate the value and the impact of the festival that it provides to city residents and to the entire community through accessibility to almost 135 free public programs.

The diversity and inclusion of speakers and attendees

author presentations to thousands of Charlottesville students and the many thousands of attendees who travel more than an hour to attend including coming from 40 states and the economic value they provide to local tourism, restaurants and hotels.

And I will say, I know, Ms. Cummings, there's a commitment to talking about equity as well as justice this year.

And there are several different events dedicated and predicated around both factors.

So if you can, please come on out and enjoy.

All right, thank you.

Are there any other announcements?

Okay.

Is there anyone who would like to speak on the consent agenda?

Consent Agenda A Minutes March 4, 2019 Special Meeting March 6, 2019 Special Meeting March 7, 2019 Special Meeting B. Appropriation State Criminal Alien Assistance Program SCAP Grant for 2019 $14,086 First of Two Readings C. Appropriation Domestic Violence Services Coordinator Grant $49,336 First of Two Readings

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

E-Resolution, Capital Funding Transfer for Smith Recreation Center Air Quality Project, $300,000, first of one reading F-Resolution, 10th and Page Park, Land Acquisition, $60,800, first of two readings G-Resolution, VDOT Programmatic Project Administration Agreement, first of one reading

H, Ordinance, imposition of fee for fire department inspections, second of two readings.

And colleagues, just for the public's benefit, I just wanted to note that the minutes that were posted to be included in our packet originally had to be curtailed just because of some technical issues that we've had with our minutes software.

So they will be available as soon as possible.

I just know that they were originally intended to be included in this packet.

I would like to pull B for us to discuss later.

Is there a motion?

Move to adopt the consent agenda.

Second.

Any further questions or comments?

Please vote.

So that carries five to zero.

Thank you Mayor Walker.

A few things that have been mentioned at previous council meetings that I want to follow up on this evening.

The first is the traffic situation which has been of some concern at the Willoughby intersection and we have

I've been out there doing the striping that has been recommended by the traffic engineer to make the pathway or to make it more clear what the pathway is.

I believe the residents were concerned that perhaps we didn't have all of the data

about the number of crashes in that area.

So we did go back and pull that for the entirety of the last year, March 1 through March 6 of this year.

And we went two blocks on either side of that intersection.

In total, there were eight reportable crashes and 14 non-reportable crashes in that area.

The definition of non-reportable for these purposes is any damage less than $1,500.

Actually, of the eight reportable crashes in this radius, only four were in the intersection we've been talking about at the council meetings.

and three of the four were rear end collisions by trailing drivers who were at fault for not paying attention.

So we do have some good data.

We're going to continue to look at other solutions because we know that past this one year look back that there was a very serious accident with a fatality there.

But I do want you to know that we are providing the additional study that we had discussed and that the Traffic Engineering Department and Public Works continue to work on a solution.

Let's see.

We discussed benches on the downtown mall and the cultural landscape, making sure that that cultural landscape, when it goes out, analyzes the return of benches and should that happen and where and what that design might be.

But in the meantime, I had said to you, hey, we've got some of the old benches and we can see just how many of them are serviceable.

and since they are a design that was already approved by the BAR we wouldn't have to deal with the issue about these backless benches that were installed in front of City Hall and after talking with Mr. Daley it appears we have about 12 of those benches that we could put back into service.

There are already locations that were predetermined where those benches would be appropriate because as you know the previous city manager in response to some public comment had those benches pulled out

So I'd be happy to receive Council's feedback, but it would be my inclination to work with Mr. Daley and install those 12 benches.

And primarily where they went out of were Central Place and down by the Violet Crown.

Is that correct, Mr. Daley?

Yeah.

So we'll look for the locations that are pre-approved.

They would, as is the case with the other benches on the mall, be bolted down.

I know that in the way back, they were freestanding, and you could pull them around.

But with our issues with fire lane access and all that, a decision was made during the re-bricking that they would all be in place.

Happy to take counsel's feedback on that after I get through these few items

You all are aware that we've talked about in a couple meetings having a pilot of altering the trolley route.

And so I want to make you aware of the results of that pilot, which were conducted a week ago today.

So essentially, we could alter the route and come straight down Main Street onto South Street, making a left hand turn onto Second Street and going straight through the mall crossing.

This would call for the reversal of traffic on Second Street as currently you have to turn off of water to head up to South and it would be the reverse in this case.

There are a total of three and possibly four parking spaces that we would need to remove in order to execute this.

And so the first is as soon as you pull onto South Street, the two hour parking spot that is on South Street, the next is right when you want to turn left in this new traffic pattern, kind of in front of the South Street Inn, and then

Because we would move the parked traffic from the east side to the west side of Second Street, we would lose one and possibly two spots because of how the street is constructed there.

Again, this is something I'd love to have Council's input on.

However, by policy, what we would do is post signs for the next 14 days about the potential of removing those spots, take public comment, and we could either act from a staff perspective at that point or return it to Council based on your pleasure.

Let's see, there's been some discussion in chambers and of course in the news about the posting of our police data on the interactive website.

I want to thank Chief Brackney for her work in that regard and make sure that the public and the council are aware

that immediately after the initial launch we worked towards what our original intent was to incorporate additional demography, chiefly race and gender, and all of that is now active on our website.

Finally, there's been some discussion here and via email about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

We have installed some general parking

directions or parking signs, about seven or eight of them in that area.

There is the request for some additional wayfinding.

And chiefly, what we still need to address is, you know, how do we continue to facilitate better access if that is possible?

And so we are looking at a number of solutions.

I know that one of the requests is a roadway and a parking lot.

There is a both access and cost and design issue there.

And so we are just be honest, looking at other solutions like bringing people over there by other means of transportation, perhaps through a reservation system in order to facilitate that access.

So bring you back more on that at a future meeting.

The efficiency of that, providing transportation too, we don't know that yet.

Well, that really becomes a policy matter for the council whether they'd like to enhance that service and the cost benefit.

I think it's the stance of staff that, you know, the memorial was constructed and improved at the time of the Warner construction per ADA standards and so it is suitable in that regard.

I do realize there's a lot of community discussion right now

about whether the access point and the parking is too far away.

And should you want to entertain some solutions, I would say that some sort of shuttle reservation system in a Polaris is going to be a much more effective and efficient use of city resources than it would be to construct a roadway from Melbourne Road all the way across the park or from the YMCA all the way across the park.

There are many ways to provide the access that's being discussed.

Okay.

Mayor Walker, I have a question for you.

I've heard from several people who would be in favor of the idea.

So I would support

On the, on the bus.

I think staff acting is.

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, that's.

So next we have Community Matters.

The first speaker is Ellen Farina.

Ellen Farina.

All right, next we have Harper Willingham.

Harper Willingham.

I'm going to start off by saying that no one has the solution to racial inequity and injustice in this country and that there are a multitude of potential avenues working to decrease the disparities between whites and blacks in this country.

I'm here to talk about just one of these avenues, the one that has been transformational for me in furthering my awakening as a white person living in the racial hierarchy of our country.

Since the beginning of 2017, I've participated in a white racial affinity group through the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville.

Although most white people in America are unaware, being white in this country comes with a heaviness, accompanied by a range of very difficult emotions.

Shame, anger, defensiveness, guilt, frustration, hopelessness, apathy, overwhelm, and sadness, just to name a few.

In white affinity groups like the one I'm a part of, we create a safe container in which white people, myself definitely included, can reflect, share, and learn about the deeper implications of being in the dominant racial group of this country.

I've been involved in many racial justice initiatives in my adult life.

Being a member of a racial affinity group that is based in mindfulness and meditation has been crucial to transitioning me from feelings of deep guilt, hopelessness, and overwhelm about racial injustice to a path of action and determination.

Having a place where I can talk about the shameful, embarrassing, and politically incorrect thoughts I have and actions I take around race has allowed me to process many of the obstacles that were holding me back from working towards change.

Since September of last year, I've been leading a class series through Common Ground Healing Arts Center at Jefferson School called A Mindful Exploration of Whiteness.

It's a meditation-based class that uses Ruth King's work on meditation and racial justice as a foundation.

I'm speaking to you today because Ruth King is spending several days with us in Charlottesville this week as part of the Festival of the Book.

Ruth teaches nationally on meditation and racial justice and has been pivotal in leading our local Insight Meditation community to a greater understanding of why our group remains all white.

And this is a pattern in Charlottesville, the all white institutions.

Institutions and power structures have been and remain dominated by white people.

There is much work to do amongst ourselves as white people, those in positions of power both great like the white members of city council and the less powerful but still influential white people like teachers, business owners and retirees in our community.

I've brought copies of Ruth's book for all the council members, and I encourage you to pass it along, whether you read it or not, to others who might benefit from her wisdom.

I've also included the dates and times Ruth will be speaking around town this week, and hope that you'll consider attending one of her events.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Walt Tyneke, 1521 Amherst Street.

I'm one of two representatives from the People's Coalition on Criminal Justice Reform that's going to be speaking to you tonight, so when I'm done with my statement, be prepared for part two.

So I just want to point out that next summer,

The media will inevitably be back in Charlottesville asking questions about what has happened in the wake of 2017 in Charlottesville.

What have we done?

How have we responded to the attacks of the white ethno-nationalists and the racists in this town?

And how have we become awakened to our own complicity in generations of racial discrimination in this town?

And I think you'll be able to point to at least two crowning policies next summer when that question comes up.

One of them is your stance on affordable housing, which we'll talk about later.

But the other one is your support for a civilian review board.

and oversight of the police.

So our community has come together to define core elements of what we consider to be a meaningful CRB and that is able to adequately fulfill our city's needs.

We presented this list to the Interim Police Civilian Review Board during their last meeting, but we believe it's important for the counselors to hear this list as well.

For each of these elements, we ask that the city attorney give us his opinion of whether it is achievable under current Virginia law in terms of what the CRB task force is presenting.

If you believe it is not, please provide us with a citation to the authority on which you base the opinion.

Second, we ask that the city attorney explain how he would advise the CRB to achieve the articulated goals in its bylaws.

If he believes the precise goal is not possible under Virginia law, he should suggest a mechanism for the bylaws to get as close to the desired end as possible.

The following are the core elements of what our community considers to be vital powers and responsibility of the CRB.

Because of limited time, I'll read off the first core elements and you'll hear from our second coalition speaker later.

Firstly, the CRB membership should reflect Charlottesville's community with particular care given to representation of communities that have historically experienced disparate policing.

Designating organizations and communities that get reserved seats on the CRB, for example FAR, NAACP, Sin Barreras, Jefferson School, would be desirable.

The CRB will only have one ex officio retired member from law enforcement.

The CRB must have investigative power.

Specifically, the CRB should be able to perform additional investigations of complaints through an investigative staff and have the ability to compel the production of documents and people, witnesses in fact.

The classic mechanism for this is subpoena power, but we realize other avenues may be necessary.

Please note the broad definition of document, which includes cell phone and body camera video as well.

The CRB must have investigative power.

In addition to our previous points in regard to this, we emphasized lastly that this investigative power must not be limited to determining whether internal affairs work was sufficient, i.e.

some appellate jurisdiction, the CRB must be able to conduct a full and independent investigation.

My name is Susan Cruz, and I have been a Charlottesville resident for 20 years.

In that time, I have been active with both the environmental and social justice community.

I worked at the Legal Aid Justice Center for 10 years, and I am now the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative.

The next 10 years will be critical for climate action, and the City of Charlottesville will be setting its emission reduction targets by June of this year.

Through its climate action planning process, I believe that Charlottesville has the opportunity to stand out as a community not just by setting a leadership goal, but also by the solutions we put forward to address community vulnerabilities.

The intersection between affordable housing, transportation, and fossil fuel emissions is undeniable.

And as global temperatures rise, so will energy costs.

This will have a disproportionate impact on low income communities who have the least ability to mitigate dramatic temperature shifts with energy efficiency upgrades and clean energy technology.

Charlottesville's Climate Action Plan should address the need to provide sustainable, energy efficient, affordable housing in order to move our whole community forward.

The first public comment period for city residents to weigh in on community-wide emissions reduction goal closed at midnight last night.

The Charlottesville Climate Collaborative submitted three letters in that comment period.

The first was on behalf of 41 local for-profit and non-profit businesses, representing nearly 3,000 employees, including businesses such as Centaur Martha Jefferson Hospital, the CFA Institute,

Champion Brewery, and nonprofits such as Virginia Organizing and the Legal Aid Justice Center.

We submitted the second letter on behalf of seven independent schools, including the International School, Peabody School, and Village School.

The final letter was submitted on behalf of 827 citizens, 422 of which were city residents.

Each letter asks the city to set a leadership emissions reduction goal of 45% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

Each letter also asks that the city conduct an emissions inventory every two years to keep us on track.

The Charlottesville Climate Collaborative is well positioned to work with businesses who are ready to invest in sustainable practices,

schools who are educating the next generation of climate leaders, and nonprofit organizations advocating for affordable housing, energy efficiency, food security, and climate justice.

We believe that our work can support city and county leaders by convening sectors and developing common sense policy solutions.

2019 is an important year for climate action in Charlottesville, but the next 10 years will truly determine whether or not citizens and local governments capitalize on this momentum to lead our whole community forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, Mary Carey, city resident, as you know.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy, for getting this pilot started.

I think more people will get on board once they get the literature out because

I talked to a lot of people last week that rides the trolley that gets off at 4th and Main and have to walk to Friendship Court and Reed Street and Dice Street and stuff.

So by that trolley coming down South, we just saved them a couple steps.

And like I was saying earlier, I saw

One of those big buses come out of Second Street the other day, 65 Passchner, take that wide turn and go down South Street, so I know it can be done.

Last month was Black History Month, and Ms. Galvin, I was thinking that you might have had the decency to apologize for what you said in November about Venable Hill and Starr Hill being one and the same,

But I don't know why you didn't do it.

It would have been appropriate.

And Ms. Reynolds stated a lot of things about black disparities and things and how people feel about things like that.

That's black history.

You don't cross that line.

You ought to leave a lane when you do that.

But all you had to do was just come out and say, I misspoke.

And I would like to let the black community know that I didn't speak about that.

It wouldn't have took no skin off you.

And see, when you go to Richmond with you trying to throw your hat in the rain to be a delegate, you got to understand there's a lot of people that live in Richmond from Charlottesville that know what you said and don't like it.

and a lot of people in Charlottesville that are voters, black people and white people that know what you said, don't like it.

And when you start going around talking about black history and you read it somewhere, I lived it.

And I'm still living it.

24-7, 365 plus one sometime.

And see,

I got this green off because I'm a leprechaun.

I got this green on because this represents Jackson P. Burley High School, which I attended, and see a lot of my classmates from there didn't like what you said, Ms. Gavin.

It's not that nobody don't like you, because if they don't, hey, I'm Kevin.

but I don't like what you said and November and this is March and we're still waiting on our apology if we can wait for 450 years for freedom we can wait a couple more months for you to apologize so when people that's looking at this go to the polls to vote remember what I just said remember your black history and remember how many people have

I tried to put it down and don't respect it because I respect mine and I'm going to stand as tall as I can.

And Mr. Bellamy, you should back me up.

Good afternoon.

Hello, my name is Lynn, City of Charlottesville, and I am the second representative for the People's Coalition.

In continuing with the community's list of core elements of what we consider to be a meaningful CRB that is able to adequately fulfill our city's needs, I continue where our previous speaker left off.

Again, I would like to reiterate that for each... Oh, can you hear me now?

I'm short.

Okay, thank you.

Again, I would like to reiterate that for each of these elements, we ask that the City Attorney 1.

Give us his opinion of whether it is achievable under current Virginia law.

If you believe it is not, please provide a citation to the authority on which you base the opinion.

And 2.

Explain how he would advise the CRB.

to achieve the articulated goal in its bylaws.

If he believes the precise goal is not possible under Virginia law, he should suggest a mechanism for the bylaws to get as close to the desired end result as possible.

Continuing with the community list of core elements, all police misconduct cases will come before the CRB with the full authority to resolve complaints against officers, including taking disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

If this is not possible, please explain who must retain final disciplinary authority and why.

In addition, we prioritize the ability to make public robust data on policing.

This involves monthly supervisory review of stop and frisk data, including CRB access to both summary reporting and raw numbers.

and 14 days after a complaint is lodged, the department must make a publicly accessible statement of what actions have been taken and why.

Also, the CRB must have adequate staffing and resources to fulfill its mandate.

This includes, but is not limited to, the ability to access outside counsel, aka lawyers other than the city attorney, for the CRB when necessary, and for its auditing arm, hiring a staff person to do the auditing.

And for our final two points, the CRB will report to

and answer to the mayor and city council.

And the CRB will be provided with semi-annual reports from the police department related to officer diversity and use of force training and annual reports on minority officer recruitment and hiring.

ideal act on.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Edie Lockton.

I'm one of the city residents.

I'm here representing the Human Rights Commission of Charlottesville.

As you know, the Human Rights Commission acts as an advisory body to the city council and matters pertaining to human and civil rights.

Affordable and safe housing is one of those topics most frequently addressed by the commission, largely because there are frequent client encounters in the Office of Human Rights that try to address this issue.

We have reviewed the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program,

that provides monetary support to those in low income households to pay for housing.

The Human Rights Commission has endorsed a resolution to continue, expand and review the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program or CSRAP.

The resolution has stressed four key points.

The first is to continue to provide funding to current CSRAP recipients.

The second is to expand funding to cover all vouchers that are already provided.

The third is to expand funding to cover applicants who are currently on the waiting list for vouchers.

And the fourth is to ask for accountability of the program with a review of the CSRAP.

We advocate that the City Council budget include continued funding for those citizens that already have received vouchers for rental assistance.

According to figures from the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, or CRHA, which I'll refer to as such,

From January 31st of 2019, there are 77 households currently living in housing supported by CSRAP.

According to CHRA, it will cost $627,000 to continue to support these families in the fiscal year of 2020.

CRHA reports that 16 additional households have received vouchers and are currently searching for housing and current funds do not fully cover the number of awarded CSRAP vouchers.

We recommend the appropriation of additional funding to provide for all families who have already been given vouchers for the 2019 fiscal year.

According to figures provided by CRHA, this would include appropriation of $131,000 for the fiscal year of 2019.

Additionally, we support increasing the funding for CSRAP in the 2020 fiscal year.

At the end of January, CRHA reported 28 households are on the waiting list for vouchers.

Supporting these individuals in the fiscal year of 2020 would require an additional $229,000.

So to reiterate, to cover all voucher holders who are still searching for housing in this fiscal year of 2019, that would require an appropriation of $131,000.

to cover all current voucher holders plus those on the waiting list requires a total budgeted amount of $987,000 for the fiscal year of 2020.

And finally, our resolution supports a thorough review and assessment of CSRAP by the Neighborhood Development Services.

We recommend this review to be done prior to funding appropriations with the goal to ensure that the figures are current and accurate

and that the program is functioning as prescribed by the city of Charlottesville affordable housing fund CSRAP grant agreement.

At this time, I would like to invite all audience members who are in support of continuing and expanding the CSRAP program to please stand or snap.

And thank you for your time and attention.

So just for FYI, I'm the council rep on the Housing Authority Board.

It's currently in the budget for us to continue funding the vouchers.

And I think it's a discussion that we'll have to have with the Housing Authority.

Mr. Duffield isn't here, but I see Mr. Collins from FAR.

In terms of expanding, because I don't think council has got that direct request, have we?

So we would probably need to, from the housing authority board, place that on our agenda and then send that request to council.

It's my opinion, since I've been on the housing authority board, council has been rather generous in terms of ensuring that the housing authority gets the funding that they need.

So it's just that in terms of continuing that we just have to follow the process.

So I'll speak with Mr. Duffield or Mr. Collins and some of my colleagues on the Housing Authority Board about the way in which we want to go in order to see some of the increase come to fruition.

But I think we have to have a discussion about that first because there's some other things that we're working on as a Housing Authority Board that may complicate that.

So, thank you for the comments from the Human Rights Commissioner.

This is an area that I was aware you all would be coming forward, so I've been asking questions both of our staff and Mr. Duffield.

We actually have a meeting scheduled for next Friday, which is the 28th?

27th.

8th, 9th, somewhere in there.

Next Friday, how about that?

10 a.m. And so I will say that upon the initial examination based on the dates at which council has appropriated monies in the past that all of the figures that are being discussed and the numbers of people who are receiving rental assistance are your FY 18 appropriation.

which means, as I've discussed with Mr. Duffield just last week, the entirety of $945,000 is available in this fiscal year for the remaining three months.

So there is no shortage of funds.

We would need to move that money out of the CAF, Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, and appropriate it at a council meeting.

But that's not been requested by the Housing Authority at this time.

So I want to say that, you know,

$900,000 is level funded in our proposed budget for all five of the years.

So I would say that when you look at the $131,000 or the $200,000 plus and having the entirety of over $900,000 available for only one quarter, that we are well positioned to not only take care of the needs of the people in the program, but to lease additional folks moving forward.

I want to caution that I'm very interested in an audit of the program.

I'm working with staff on that because here is my concern as somebody who's interested in appropriately housing people and making sure they get the support that they need.

Most best practice in any kind of housing or supplemental rental assistance

would give you the capacity at least should you need it to serve people for up to 24 months and as it stands right now we did spend a lot of money in the first year without having the backstop but as it looks as though we've tapped none of the 19 money we find ourselves in good shape so we'll make sure that going forward that anybody who gets a lease

If they have the circumstances where they continue to need rental assistance for us, that that is, as we continue to recertify folks, possible for them to get that for up to two years.

There will be people who will move or not need assistance for the full 24 months and we need to be carefully tracking that in an audit so that we know when to unencumber those funds and allow new people to get leased up.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy, for being on top of that.

Thank you.

Don't push the button yet.

Thank you all for that.

voucher stuff.

People appreciate it, the community appreciate it.

Tanisha Hudson, 711 Prospect Avenue.

I want to talk about a couple different things.

One, Mr. Swingler who runs Rose Hill Market is requesting that two parking spaces on Rose Hill be designated for 15 minute parking so that people can come in and out of Rose Hill Market and Jones Heaton and Ayer because the little

Cafe on Dale Avenue and Rose Hill Market.

A lot of the people that go there are taking parking spaces.

People are actually staying in these places and people can't park to get to his store.

And we have similar parking setups in Belmont, Grady Avenue, and other little convenience store locations all throughout Charlottesville.

The next thing is we do a lot of conversating about climate change and making Charlottesville a green city.

Open source recycling is a place that takes a lot of old computers and computer equipment from different businesses and they recycle them and they pass them out to low income people who can't afford technology.

They've been really grasping for some type of funding so that they can find a building since they've been displaced out of Virginia organizing due to politics.

So I think that's something that the city should definitely consider funding.

I mean, there's no recycling place near Charlottesville.

So when you think about dumping old computers, old laptops, once you actually swipe the information off of them, they're willing to take that equipment

and then repair it and pass it out to people that need it.

And not only do they give them a laptop or a computer, they fix it and replace it if it breaks or anything.

The next thing is property taxes in the city of Charlottesville, because a lot of family members of mine are affected by this.

If we're going to increase assessments due to new developments and new buildings being put up around certain neighborhoods, we have to levy, you know, the

the tax levy needs to increase so if right now the income limit I'm just making up a number because I don't know the number if the limit is $30,000 right but 65 is it 65 okay we probably need

It's 50,000 right now.

Can we get it up to about 65 or maybe 66 for people who, cause I mean we got to think about gentrification right?

Like this is one of the reasons why the city has been successful with allowing gentrification to happen.

Taxes has always played a part.

If you look at the Starr Hill community, if you look at the Vinegar Hill community, if you look at certain communities, we know that this is the reason why they were able to take people property.

And I had a meeting with some of you gentlemen, and you know I found some information that proved that very point on how they were going into these communities, Cedar Street, Run Street, Page Street.

Pearl Street and taking people property because they owe $25 worth of taxes at the time.

We don't want to allow that to happen moving forward.

We want to do our best to try to keep the Natives in the communities in which they chose to purchase their homes.

Thank y'all.

Y'all doing good.

You know what?

Sorry, I need like 10 extra seconds.

Not everybody may be happy, but I feel like y'all are trying to right some of y'all wrongs and I think people in the audience need to give the council, the city manager, and everybody credit because they are doing some positive things.

But they are doing good things.

Thank y'all.

Must be freezing outside.

We got a compliment from Tanisha Hudson.

Where's the Dave Rogers?

It is cold outside.

Mighty, mighty cold.

But good afternoon.

Good evening.

I want to talk about Rosie.

I'm Rosie Parker, AKA Rosie Parker.

I want to see me tonight.

But I'm coming to you, Mr. Murphy, again about 8th and Main.

8th and Main is still, this has been three years, and it still has not been solved.

Even though it's been told that it's been solved, the problem still has not been solved.

It's still more dangerous to get across that street.

I'm tired of bringing it to City Council.

I'm tired of hearing about all these other different neighborhoods getting all this good lookout, you know, with the crosswalks and traffic, this, that, and the third.

I need that to be fixed.

CRB.

I need the Chief to apologize to the CRB board because still, like I say, I own minds when I'm wrong or I'm right.

But when you have my whole board looking bad for something that the chief felt that two individuals are doing, call us out by name.

Don't call my whole board out and make my whole board look bad saying that the CRB is what's keeping the police officers from being hired when it's y'all's incompetency of paying y'all's officers.

Not only that,

The data that was given last week just before the CRB meeting, as a citizen I'm not happy with that.

Don't put it in the paper as a CRB member, as a citizen, put that no link.

I'm not happy with that because that felt that to me that was just thrown out there and I would like to know when is that process gonna start?

Was that process supposed to start particularly that day that it went out or when is that process gonna you know start because I haven't seen it been taken care of in any form or fashion of the process and the data that was given at that CRB meeting.

Two,

Y'all talk about how the CRB supposedly, like I said in that paper when we was made to look bad, well let me go back on your officers.

If we want transparency, we all need to be on one accord because when I have two officers coming at me in a CRB meeting that we weren't arguing about knowing, we was having a disagreement, I need not to be

I came as an activist.

I was an activist before I became a CRB member.

I was a community leader and a community organizer before I did anything.

But when I'm being told that it's not my right that I can't say what I want at a protest,

and I'm wrong and I'm this and I'm that.

And then when one of my members have to speak on to another officer and tell them that you're not going to disrespect two black women in here, we have a serious problem within your ranks of your police department.

So I think that needs to come under control.

with your police department.

And as far as city managers, we need to have a damn good city manager that comes in here.

This is the way that it was presented.

The way that everything came out, particularly just before that CRB meeting in general.

Like, we should have had that information before that day because, like I say, when did that process start?

Is that process starting when it was launched?

the new process of the complaint procedure.

How is it going to be done?

Was that when that was sent, that data that was presented at that meeting, was that when that that whole process took place or when is that process going to take place?

Ms. Parker, I'll just say that thus far all the responses that I've heard from the CRB about the Chief's presentation last Tuesday were positive.

But not all, that's what I'm saying, not all of us were happy because like I said as a citizen and being still in those areas

That don't affect my whole CRB board.

It affects me as a citizen.

I'm speaking as a citizen, not a CRB member.

So that's what I'm saying.

When did that policy take effect?

When it was presented that day?

Or has that policy been in effect this whole time?

As we have discussed, you know, previously last Friday or whenever we most recently had a media discussion about reforms in the police department after Chief Brackney came here in June and after we got past August she set herself to a complete review of department protocols including internal affairs and including transparency with the data

and so all of those have been in the works for some time.

Well obviously the complaint process must have happened simultaneously because we have been coming back a couple of times in the last few months since January continually bringing back

asking about what's going on with the complaint process.

Why are things being regenerated?

Why are things being this and why are things being that?

But what was presented to us is not saying that these are the things that are being done.

It's saying that these processes are going forward as if nothing has been wrong with what's been going on with the complaint process.

But as a citizen, I understand that y'all are saying that it was whatever you're saying it is, but still something still isn't right because

The citizens of Charlottesville still do not know what the indication, what took place.

I mean, you can't say with personnel files, I understand that, but still as a citizen, we do not know what is being, what is the disciplinary actions that are being taken with the police officers.

We don't feel that it's helping us any because all it's doing is going around in internal affairs and it goes back to you.

So as a citizen,

As a citizen, we still need to have, like ditto to Walt and what Lynn said about these reports that need to go out.

Okay, now what I'm saying is what was presented to us in the CRB meeting is not the process of what's been going on in the complaint procedure.

What we're saying is, this is what I'm saying now, this is what I'm asking, when did that policy start?

Because that's why I say, did it start the day that it was launched, as he said, when it came out to the CRB?

Because we've been to this mic quite a few times since January, bringing the same stuff back up about these complaints.

And even in the reports of certain things from

The Chief.

I don't have no problem.

That's why I asked, when did this start?

That's why I was asking, would he be able to ask her when it started?

I'll just say that we have made some changes to the process in order to improve the citizen response and in order to be transparent.

It's my understanding that those same files that the CRB received are online and as each case is closed they will be updated and it will be known what the disposition of each of the cases were.

Will you know

That's the problem because a lot of everything has always been exonerated, exonerated, exonerated, exonerated.

So you're saying that you all don't agree with the outcome and that's the question.

Exactly.

Okay, so

Yeah but not as many.

Very, very, very little.

Very little.

But I'm just saying, compared to what's been shown and the complaints that have been put forth, not only with, you know, I'm not talking about Miss

Turner's complaints.

I'm talking about other ones that have went, you know, that we have been dealing with.

And it's, you know, they're not saying the same thing.

And it, like we said, we're steady coming back with the, you know, the generated every 30 days, you know, generation, generation.

So what she is saying that it's not coming through this way.

But that's what I'm saying.

What was presented and what was told how the process goes is not how the process is actually going.

Thank you.

Good evening, Peter Krebs, Piedmont Environmental Council and City Resident.

First of all, I wanted to just endorse that trolley reroute pilot.

I think it's a great idea and I love when you guys just try stuff, right?

Tonight, I just wanted to talk about two opportunities that are bike pedestrian related this week.

This Wednesday, Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is hosting a public meeting on the 5th Street Trails Project.

The scope of the project's changed a little bit, and they're going to talk about it and have a discussion.

That's Wednesday, 4.30 to 6 at TJPBC's Water Street Center, which is 407 East Water Street.

The second event is Friday evening.

PUC is co-hosting a social with Safe Routes to School at Three Notched Brewery and Restaurant.

There will be volunteers fixing up the city's school's bike fleet and people ask me, do the city schools actually have bikes for the kids?

And the answer is yes, they do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Ken Edwards.

Good evening.

How y'all doing?

My name's Ken or Kendrick Edwards.

I am a city resident.

I am here this evening to talk about the rising tax assessments.

The rising tax assessments need to stop.

because many people have been displaced from their homes and or will be displaced or forced to sail.

Let me just share with you how fast my assessments number have changed over the years.

Y'all ready?

1997, 55,000, 2,058,

60,000, 64,000, 121,000, 183,000, 2005, 220,000, 2006, 269,000, 2007, 311,000, 2008, 342,000.

It dropped a little bit in 2010, 2011, 301,000,

2012, 312,000.

Let me move up a little bit.

My oldest brother lives in Oklahoma.

and he has 80 acres.

And I know Oklahoma is not Charlottesville, but he has 80 acres, two houses and a barn on it.

The last time I checked with him, I paid more than he did on his taxes.

And he has 80 acres and I have .1620 of an acre.

Let me share with you what else needs to be looked at.

Some years ago, my wife Holly, that's the mayor's friend, went to an open house.

And as soon as we walked in, the realtor told us, this house has been sold.

And the realtor goes on to say, and the people who bought the house basically started bidding on the house.

It could have been $100,000, but after they finished and somebody came in with a whole lot more money, they could have paid $200,000 or $300,000, which I know factors into the tax assessment.

Because tax assessments are based on the price the houses sell around.

So when you got people coming in who have a whole lot more money than many people in this city, that's a problem.

Some folks from other areas are so desperate to live in Charlottesville that they'll pay anything.

You can't expect people that work at UVA, restaurants, school teachers, police officers, EMT, fire departments, personnel, rent, to be able to purchase a home with skyrocketing assessments.

So we need to look at that.

And I also encourage you to partner to help folks become homeowners by partnering with Habitat.

In other words, hook them up with some dinero.

Thank you and please look at those high rising tax investments.

One more thing, somebody tore down a house not too far from me and built a new one.

Guess what the tax assessment on the new house is?

620,000.

Used to be able to buy a house in Belmont for $60,000.

Myra Anderson.

Thanks for the opportunity to address council this evening.

I wanted to talk about the city's climate policy and our recently closed comment period on the greenhouse gas emissions report.

This is a great time to be addressing climate change.

There's been a lot of research that has come out recently both at the federal level and the international level showing the importance of addressing it urgently and the challenge of going ahead and doing so in a way that will leave a just, equitable, habitable planet for our children.

Like many others who have come before me, I want to emphasize that the city should be a leader in adopting aggressive climate goals and we should have regular targets that we go ahead and monitor on a biannual or other regular basis.

But I don't want to reiterate what a lot of other people have addressed to Council before.

I want to talk about a specific issue that hasn't been addressed much and that our policies seem to run counter to.

Specifically, it's our ownership of a fossil fuel utility, Charlottesville Gas.

We operate it like a conventional fossil fuel utility.

We provide incentives for the adoption of fossil fuel infrastructure.

And we spend advertising dollars to go ahead and incentivize its use.

Last fall, as it does every couple of years, this Charlottesville Gas went ahead and sent out mailers to non-gas customers, such as myself within the Charlottesville Gas service area.

extolling the supposed benefits of gas usage in homes and encouraging the installation of gas-fired appliances.

We continue to offer free hookups to gas service for residences in the area, a subsidy of several hundred dollars per residence.

So we both spend money advertising these fossil fuels and we incentivize their adoption by providing infrastructure free of charge to homeowners.

There once was a time when natural gas may have been the cleaner fuel from a climate perspective, but those days have passed.

As our grid has gotten cleaner, as we've added wind and solar and we've retired a lot of coal plants, electric options are by far cleaner than natural gas furnaces, water heaters.

Heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, electric conduction stoves, they're both better for indoor air quality.

and they're both better from a climate perspective.

Nonetheless, we continue to go ahead and advertise and incentivize natural gas adoption.

That trend is only going to continue as the grid gets cleaner, as we add more wind, solar and low carbon resources.

There's a growing recognition that electrification of building appliances is going to be an essential and cost effective step in addressing any sort of aggressive climate goals.

The Public Utilities Commissions of California and Massachusetts have emphasized building electrification.

The government of the United Kingdom recently proposed a ban on natural gas fired home heating appliances starting in 2025.

So this is not just the activists proposing these changes.

These are the bureaucrats speaking in this manner.

So I have three recommendations for the city and with respect to Charlottesville Gas.

One, stop incentivizing fossil fuel usage.

Remove our incentives for going ahead and installing infrastructure.

Switch the incentives.

Encourage the use of cleaner electric-based

appliances such as heat pumps and pump water heaters.

And three commits to a zero carbon future for Charlottesville gas.

Thank you.

Do we have Jehu Martin?

Andrea Massey.

Very briefly, my name is Jeff Fogel.

I live in Belmont.

I just wanted to respond to Mr. Murphy's comments about transparency because I see that as one of the principal issues in Charlottesville.

Mr. Murphy and I think this probably applies to a lot of you and other people in the city leadership who have misused the term transparency.

Complying with the law is not transparency.

and that's all you're saying is that public information which is required to be kept and given to the public by the police department is proof of transparency.

It's not.

What's proof of transparency is when you give up something that FOIA doesn't require you to give up.

So far the city claims transparency and all it does is comply with the law and you call it transparency.

That's not transparency, that's called complying with the law.

Let's use transparency for its intended purpose, which is to show us things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to see.

And that's what's consistently the issue with the police department and in many other respects with this community.

Now one of the things that was learned at the last CRB meeting was this notion that you could not reveal anything in anybody's personnel file is not a requirement of law.

It's a policy decision apparently that was made by the city manager, which is apparently not reflected in any writing, in any minutes that I'm aware of, or in any other discussion.

So the question is, should we have a policy that further limits transparency?

Is that what Charlottesville stands for?

Because that's what's happened as a result of the policy of the city manager's office.

Do you see that changing?

Do you see yourself getting at least equal to what the task is?

Do you see yourself actually giving us transparency?

Do you see yourself taking away a rule that's been established by your office that is not reflected in any writing and has no source?

So I would say since I was at the CRB meeting that right after the CRB meeting Chief Brackney and I had the discussion.

The city attorney had made a statement in the meeting and we haven't met yet.

to discuss what the possibilities are because we haven't had time since the meeting, but the discussions did start based on the statement, the presentation, the statement that was made.

So I know that people like things with snap of fingers, but there are people that are listening, asking questions, asking for clarification, and trying to come up with solutions.

There doesn't seem to be a space for the fact that there's a process to things.

I don't think anybody's trying to hide anything.

We're discussing it.

Yes, I am.

The city attorney made a statement.

We are now having discussions about how to make

and what we can make happen is a discussion.

So unless we come back and say nothing has come of that discussion, I don't think anybody should be thinking that we're trying to hide something because we started having a discussion right after the meeting.

You all haven't met again.

the CRB hasn't met again and so I think there's just the level of impatience and to just say that we are doing the same things that's been done.

Transparency I don't think and I am actually questioning that because even with what I thought coming in that it could mean how irrational some people including you Jeff have been has been

Yes.

Completely irrational.

Okay.

That's a ridiculous statement.

That's fine.

That's fine.

I wouldn't throw them out about you.

Okay.

Well, apparently that's not the case.

I just had started a conversation with you about your statements.

So anyway, we are attempting to work on it.

We are attempting to have the conversation based on what's allowable, what, you know, some of my questions are how are police protected?

Do we know that that is what they have hired someone to protect them?

What can we do that will not

completely undo anything the CRB comes up with.

There are, I think, a lot of components to this.

We're trying to figure it out.

Nobody's trying to hide anything.

Again, I will say we started the discussion soon as the presentation.

You all were in the room.

Chief Brackney made her presentation and then the city attorney made a statement after that that didn't, that they were

and so I immediately followed up and that's where we are.

So I just wanted to just say that I heard you all.

I started the discussion about that particular issue and I would like for you all to give us time as a group to figure an answer out.

That's my statement.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

My name is Jane Fletcher.

I live at 527 Park Plaza.

I want to talk about real estate taxes.

I live in a wonderful neighborhood, but I live in a very modest home.

I have one bedroom, one bathroom.

Unfortunately, it's a very desirable neighborhood.

It's in north downtown.

21 years ago, my real estate taxes for the year were $1,100.

This year, they're over $6,000.

It's only going to take six more years to hit $10,000.

I will have been retired by that time.

One reason this neighborhood is so good is because there are lots of different aged people there.

There are lots of retirees.

That makes our neighborhood safe because people keep an eye out for other people.

It's not a neighborhood where everyone is gone for eight or nine hours a day.

And I just feel so sad that I'm gonna be driven out of this neighborhood.

I haven't received any additional services.

Well, 9% of $1,000 is not the same as 9% of $6,000.

And so it will go up a lot faster.

The only thing I can think of is that the budget needs to be constrained.

It needs to go down.

There are offices, there are situations where the county has an office and the city has an office.

There's no reason why those can't be, those two offices can't be merged together.

For instance, Parks and Recs.

I had business with Parks and Recs.

It took me hours to go to two different offices.

I shouldn't have had to do that.

Why are we paying for personnel?

Two different offices when it's such a small amount of people.

So there are lots of ways to save money.

Thank you.

I will not qualify when I retire.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak, Nancy?

Not too long, but my name is Nancy Carpenter.

I live in the Rose Hill neighborhood.

I want to thank Ms. Hudson for bringing attention to a potential parking issue there at Rose Hill Market.

I hope that the traffic engineer will agree with her and provide Mr. George with parking for

patrons of his store because he's an important part of that neighborhood.

I also want to thank Mr. Murphy and the board for looking at putting back the benches that have backs on them that were taken out.

I remember those conversations several years ago, how the downtown Business Association just didn't want to have a lot of poor people hanging around the downtown mall.

Seems like that's still a situation.

The other question I have is for the city manager.

Trying to still determine if that Vinegar Hill plaque that was attached to the retaining wall near the code building has been returned to Parks and Rec.

It has, okay, what will be, will the construction company put that area back as it was after construction?

because that was supposed to be repurposed for a park to memorialize Vinegar Hill.

There hadn't been any money put towards it but it was in a plan and I want to make sure that that area is put back in the condition it was so that the plan can go forward with putting that as a park to people who lived actually had footsteps, footprints in that area.

instead of the way it looks now.

And the other thing is, talking about parks, I'm still a little peeved that Washington Park doesn't have any money put towards any improvements to that area except for standard maintenance to the buildings and the grounds.

When I drove by there the other day coming to work, the swim building just looked tired.

It just looked like something out of another century I think it could certainly should put some money in putting a better face on the park because after all you're gonna have all those people at Dairy Central who want to have some place to walk their dog and I would hate that the only time that the park gets updated is when a lot of people move in that are at a very higher economic level than a lot of people living in that around those neighborhoods right now so it's you know maybe the next fiscal budget

Look at actually putting some more money into Washington Park and making it a gem like it should be.

The Vice Mayor has asked me just to address one of Mr. Carpenter's comments and that is that yes the western end of the mall was intended to be an area acknowledged as Vinegar Hill Park or Plaza and as it stands currently should there not be any new design for that area the contractor will be obligated to return it to the condition it was in before.

I think most of the interpretation that would happen to make that a park or plaza would actually not be a plaque that is this size but actually a series of signs throughout the area that are much larger that would go through the Historic Resources Committee and that work started

Katrina Turner.

I just want to speak real quick about what Ms. Parker said as far as what was presented to us because when I filed my complaint I had to come back in front of City Council in order to hear anything about my complaint so that's kind of part of what we're talking about this system you know and plus

Last year, if you could recall, you asked the chief to write me a letter stating that she did not view a videotape of my son's arrest, that she only looked at a picture of my son's arrest.

I haven't gotten that.

That's been probably, what, five, six months now?

And when she presented, you know, the complaint form, well, the complaint

I think the sustained part of a complaint like if you make a mistake on a report or something the disciplinary actions that's supposed to go against you she made a very big mistake when she wrote and said she looked at a videotape and only saw a picture.

Why haven't I gotten that letter yet?

Is that going to hurt her by admitting that she made a mistake, as they said, that bad?

Why haven't I gotten this letter yet?

Because, like I said, when she presented what she presented last week, she should be in trouble for putting that down on paper.

So what's going on?

Am I going to get that letter?

stating that she didn't make a mistake that she lied about watching that video.

That's not a mistake.

You cannot mistake looking at a video and looking at a picture.

You can't do it.

So I just want to know why I haven't gotten that letter yet.

So I think we discussed here the fact that

The language in the video, I mean the language in the letter you received was in, I think you answered that there was no potential for a video to be, that it was pre-body camera, that there is no dash cam footage.

I mean, because that's more than a mistake.

I mean, she's the chief of police.

And if I was to have put something wrong down on a complaint, I would be in trouble for it if I lied on a complaint or if I lied about a decision.

I would be in trouble.

OK.

We'll certainly follow up on this specific request about whether a letter was sent.

As Ms. Turner is aware, she has received an answer.

It's been reviewed by three different police chiefs and two city managers.

So, I mean, the disposition of the case, as I understand it, is no longer in question.

The disposition, really, I have a recording from

from Chief Thomas that anytime I can find a lawyer, I can get every last bit of information in my complaint, but I haven't been able to find a lawyer.

So evidently it's going to stay open from how the Chief Thomas told me because these records will always be here for me to get.

And I have that on record.

So these records are here for me.

Why can't I get them without a lawyer?

To piggyback many of the other citizens who have come up about taxes, we presently live in a house that is over 100 years old and yet in the last two years our assessment has gone up $52,000.

with no structural changes, no enhancements to the facing of the property, nothing, but it's gone up some $52,000.

The only thing that has changed is the Dairy Central project, which is right around the corner from where I live.

So this takes me back to the conversation I had with you all some time ago when this was being first bantered about.

what it does to a neighborhood when a developer comes in and puts up a project like this.

It drives up the tax base and then in many cases makes it impossible for the residents to continue to live there because they can't afford the additional taxes that come with it.

So once again in perpetuity we need to allow for residents in these areas that are affected by these types of development plans to not be so adversely affected and not be forced out of their homes because again it just equates to back door gentrification.

People are best being driven out because they can't afford to pay the taxes on the homes that they've done nothing to, that they've done nothing wrong with, other than they live in an area that was affected by development.

So please, I ask you to remember and look inwardly and realize that

The most valuable resources we have here in Charlottesville aren't the hotels and the restaurants that litter the skyline.

It's not UVA and it certainly isn't those grandiose, granite giants that brought the hatred here a couple of years ago.

It's the residents.

That's the city's most valuable resource and that's what needs to be protected.

Just because I think some people I don't think everybody's gonna be here when we have a discussion so I just like to say this briefly so we've been talking about this for some time and just with my personal position I hear you wholeheartedly my assessments went up as well but it's twofold

because we hear from a lot of people that there needs to be a commitment to affordable housing.

The city has for a long time not done what we're supposed to do for the same population that you're talking about in regards to providing housing, in regards to providing subsidies.

We heard eloquent statement from the Human Rights Commission, which I think is in agreement with members of the Low Income Housing Coalition and several other groups about why there needs to be

to be an emphasis from city council to put a priority to address affordable housing.

Well, in order for us to be able to address affordable housing and put many of the dollars in, we have to find a revenue stream or revenue source.

So for me, I'm really confused because I hear from some people, and I'm having this discussion with you, but it's not just for you.

I hear from some individuals, address affordable housing, do what we have to do to make sure people aren't displaced, do what we need to do to make sure that we address these housing needs.

So then when we try to find the revenue to be able to do just that,

There's no reason that we can't attack and approach all of those things.

And we need to look at that.

But we don't need to drive up the revenue for affordable housing if we don't have anybody that will be able to live here in town.

So that too is a double-edged sword because Mayor Walker has presented a plan through the CHAP, I don't want to make sure I said it correctly, the CHAP.

through the chat which is, and I think we've been discussing and I think there are votes to do so, to provide funding to alleviate some of the stress for those who fall under a certain threshold to get tax relief.

So that's our effort to be able for those who you're describing who don't have the income to be able to stay here and remain here, those who may be on a fixed income if it's under a certain threshold, we want to provide funding to be able to keep you here

Well then, look, we've got to focus on affordable housing and our low-income residents.

That's got to be priority number one.

Because we've got to be able to take care of the people who need it most and who deserve it most.

Priority number one.

But we've got to also be able to create an avenue to take care of the existing residents who, once again, are being directly affected by something that

that they had no part in.

Any time that a development comes into the area, developer comes into the area, number one they're seeking tax breaks first of all and we can't allow that to continue to happen because they're going to make their money rather it's on the front end or the back end.

They're going to get their funds.

So if they come in looking for tax breaks just to build, that's a problem.

So we've got to, again, take care of the people who would be directly

directly and adversely affected by these developments coming into locales, rather it's on whatever corner and whatever the developer is and whatever it is that's going up, unless it's affordable and low-income housing.

And once again, what's affordable in Charlottesville, I don't know.

I mean, God bless folks who have moved to the $15 an hour salary, but understand, that still puts you at a threshold below $32,000 a year.

and there's nowhere that anybody will be able to live on $32,000 a year in Charlottesville.

It's just not possible.

But we've got to...

I can't believe that it can't be done.

There's some brilliant minds up here.

And I can't believe that we can't put our heads together collectively and come up with ways and be creative that we can, again, not drive up the tax base of people

Okay, may I ask a question of Mr. Blair?

I'm sorry?

When you're done.

Okay.

I'm not done.

Alright, thank you.

And Mr. Blair, if you need time to think about an answer, but I think a big driver

At least what I've been hearing is a big driver for the assessments has been the cost of the luxury student housing and there was a major change of ownership

in 2016, one of the luxury student housing developments on West Main Street, which gave rise to a huge jump in land value.

And that has had a reverberation across the entire city.

Can we have

Moratorium on Luxury Student Housing.

Can we put that, because that seems to be, what I'm hearing is that that is exacting like an enormous price per acre just to sell land and so that's leading a lot of property owners

concerning your question a couple points number one the Virginia Supreme Court has held you can't have a general moratorium on development concerning luxury student housing I do think as you were stating a lot of these are subject to special use permit and rezonings and that's that's something for the council to consider when those applications come before it

But I don't believe and I'm happy to research this, but I do know the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled there cannot be a general moratorium on development and localities in Virginia.

And you're talking about a specific kind of use.

It's interesting.

I mean, I think uses themselves per the zoning code obviously are at your discretion as a council.

I think a question about luxury student housing is how you would define that and when you talk about multifamily versus student housing and whether there can be a distinction on that or whether there couldn't be.

I would have interest.

So the city does have a office of the Assessor.

It is located next to the city space underneath the Market Street parking garage.

People who have questions about how their assessment is generated, or if it is correct, certainly have the right to appeal in any given year.

I don't have the guidelines about the timing of that appeal in front of me, but certainly.

Thank you.

We can certainly talk to Mr. Davis about how that data is established.

I have not been asked about any appeals, although certainly it is known to us what the volume is of appeals in any given year, and we actually estimate that in the budget for a certain number of those appeals to be granted.

So we do know that on occasion

that the process does change the assessment.

It is true, as some folks have alluded to, that a lot of these assessments are driven by what a realtor or somebody else would call the comps, the comparables, what sort of houses were sold in that direct area.

and there are parts of the city that are disproportionately affected.

There are parts of the city, well on average we know that just the residential, since we're talking about mostly residential uses in here today, I think the average is about 8.7%, but there are places with little to no increase and places that I'm aware of that have 18, 19% increases.

So they are really based on the specific area, the type of the house, et cetera.

If you want to go deeper with the Assessor, certainly we can bring them to the April 1 meeting.

I think that might be helpful.

Especially so folks understand it's an independent, the way the government is set up, it's set up as an independent Assessor's office.

And just for clarity, we're going to have public hearings on all of this stuff still coming.

One clarification, I know Mr. Fogel is back in the audience, but I know there's been some questions about

Policy, so to speak, concerning releasing personnel records.

The city code does provide that the Department of Human Resources, pursuant to the city manager's approval, does issue personnel regulations.

Those regulations do, in fact, and they apply to police officers, as they do to all city employees.

Those regulations currently state that

the personnel files are not to be disclosed to other persons outside of the city government.

Now obviously they can be changed, but that is where the policy currently resides.

Alright, thank you.

We will break until 8.35.

So we just need to vote on the appointment.

Please vote.

So there's a motion.

Yes, Mayor Walker, I would like to make a motion to suspend the rules of the meeting tonight so that we can make an agenda change.

So I need a second.

I second that.

Yes, I need to vote on it.

Can you hit the bar?

And, Mayor Walker, I move that we adjust the agenda so that item number eight, which is a report on Bennet Village playground, now moves to be just above the public hearing on the proposed real estate tax rate.

And we'll have 10 minutes allocated for total for this item.

All right.

Thank you.

Good evening Mayor and members of City Council.

Thank you for the adjustment to the agenda and moving this up this evening.

The item before you tonight is a proposal from Bennett's Village, a local nonprofit organization who is proposing a partnership with the city to fund, design, and construct an all-abilities playground at Penn Park.

Such a facility is certainly in need in the central Virginia region, with the closest facilities of this type currently located in the Richmond and Northern Virginia areas.

A playground designed for individuals across the age and ability spectrum is a bit of a departure from traditional playground design, which have clearly focused on children and more primarily on able-bodied children.

While the city has incorporated accessible play elements in our playgrounds throughout the park system and at the city schools, the construction of a dedicated all abilities play facility is a unique opportunity for the community.

Joining us tonight are Karen McClurkin and Brian Gibney, representing Bennet's Village, who have a brief presentation to share with you outlining the proposed partnership.

Thanks for moving us up.

We have some middle school students who need to get to bed.

So before we get started, I wanted to tell you a little bit about our son, Bennett.

When Bennett was one, he was born with spinal muscular atrophy, and folks with SMA are missing a gene that allows their muscles to regulate, to work properly.

So Bennett couldn't sit up on his own, he couldn't walk, and over time, without treatment, muscles deteriorate and they lose the ability to move and to eat and to breathe.

and so as you might expect with this diagnosis we were devastated.

We were told to take him home and love him and that two years was the typical lifespan.

Well, in spite of the diagnosis, Bennett survived past the age of two and he did more than just survive, he thrived.

He was an amazingly curious and social and funny guy.

He loved playing with his friends, he loved playing with his sister

and the power wheelchair gave him independence that he did not have without it.

Otherwise, we basically had to carry him around everywhere.

Most importantly, Bennett loved to play.

Play is important for a lot of reasons.

To children's development, but for the rest of us too.

It helps us learn to problem solve and test boundaries, to meet challenges, to work out differences and build relationships sometimes with people you've never met before.

Play is not only important for children, but it's important for the entire community.

But most of our playgrounds actually have some pretty significant obstacles.

particularly for those who have mobility challenges.

If you look at the surfaces, they often are mulch-based, which makes it really hard to get in.

It doesn't do you any good to have a handicapped accessible space if once you get into the equipment, there's no way to access it.

While there are swings on most of our playgrounds that do have some adaptations, they were way too big for Bennett.

You can see in this bucket swing, I sort of shoved my sweatshirt in there.

He couldn't hold the ring, so he wasn't able to swing.

And there's many kids with many different kinds of disabilities that make it so they can't even fly in a swing, which is something that I think all of us love to do.

Also, the way to get onto most play structures are steps and poles and those climbing things.

And so if you're in a wheelchair, there's no way for you to interact.

Your friends are all running around and high up and you're stuck down below.

We carried him a lot of the time.

He weighed little enough that we could do that.

But as he got older, that was a real challenge.

Just because playgrounds meet ADA regulations doesn't mean that they actually are set up so that they can be inclusive places where all can play.

And so what we are proposing is something different, a place where everyone can play.

Then it was just one of our community members who struggled to be included in play spaces.

We know many community members with a wide range of abilities who would benefit from this playground.

There are more than 9,000 local residents under the age of 65 with a disability in this area.

And once you get to the age of 65, one in three have a disability.

That doesn't include those people who have temporary injuries or have health issues that

aren't defined as having a disability.

So there's a huge community out there that we don't get to think about that actually don't get to access our play spaces.

Also we have amazing medical facilities in this area and we have friends who traveled nine hours for treatment here for SMA and they had to come in a couple days before for tests.

There was very limited opportunities for them to interact in our city.

Thank you.

So, like Kara said before, just because something, a playground meets ADA compliance does not mean that it is an all abilities playground.

And it's definitely not accessible for the vast majority of folks that have disabilities.

An all abilities playground, which have been popping up all over the country, is more about a general philosophy and is a huge departure from how we think about traditional playgrounds.

Yes, there is accessible equipment, but it really is about mindful design.

When we design all abilities playground, we think about lots of different populations.

Those that are mobility limited, those that are developmentally delayed, those that have sensory or processing disability, as well as those that are affected by age and temporary illness.

Thank you.

This is a picture of a wonderful treehouse that was at the Arc Park in Richmond.

The beautiful thing about this, if you can see in the background, is that it has an enormous ramp that kids that are mobility limited can go up to.

Just the notion of being above everybody else when you're used to being in a wheelchair is hugely empowering.

The fact that it has a ramp means that kids can go up there as well as older mobility limited adults.

If you're developmentally delayed and are wheelchair-bound, there has been equipment developed, and this is all relatively recently, which enables you to do things like swing, which is something that is so basic to playground equipment.

Getting to the swings is a huge problem, and having a larger structure around the swing that enables you to do that is part of what the mindful design of an all-abilities playground is all about.

and the Art Park Richmond, there are also sensory elements where people that just really either cannot see or like have the stimulation of a focused sensory experience can get joy and be social with other kids.

Seating and shaded area is a huge part of an all abilities playground, enabling parents that desperately need a rest to look around and have a good vantage point of the park because sometimes kids that are moving around have a tendency to wander off and having visibility is a huge part of an all abilities park.

So the problem is that there's really nothing very close to us.

There's a huge population in the Charlottesville area.

The closest parks that we would have to go to would be the Arc Park or Soar Park in Richmond, and that was over an hour away.

We would have loved to have Bennett experience that social interaction with more of his friends, but not many people were willing to go an hour.

So last spring, Bennett's friends and family were devastated when he passed away suddenly from complications from the flu.

At times of such loss, I think you can turn inward or you can turn outward with your grief.

And we chose to look outward.

So we founded Bennett's Village in order to build a playground that Bennett and his friends could have had truly equitable opportunities to play.

Our goal is to build a multi-generational all abilities playground in our community and to advocate for more inclusive spaces for everyone in our community.

The Arc of the Piedmont is our partner and serves as our fiscal sponsor.

Over the last year we've shared our vision and had overwhelming numbers of community support.

We've had more than 15 fundraising partners combined with over 600 individual donors, and we've raised almost $100,000 just by telling Bennett's story.

We don't have plans, we don't have anything specific, just this dream.

We've had some opportunities to do some outreach.

We have got into the classroom.

We've worked with middle school students, some of which are in the audience here.

We've worked with elementary school students.

I have worked with several classes at the University of Virginia, some graduate students working on the Charlottesville Equity Atlas.

I also worked with an architecture class that looked at inclusive design.

And we also look forward to talking with other community groups.

So the reason why we're coming here tonight is because we do have a plan.

We've been talking to the city of Charlottesville Parks and Rec.

Mr. Daley and Benitz Village has been working very closely together.

And we have a proposal to make.

Based on our model, which is the art park in Richmond, we would like to propose that we create an all abilities park in Charlottesville.

Based on that model, we estimate the size of that park to be about 2.5 acres, and the projected cost is $5 million.

The interesting part of our proposal is that we suggest that Charlottesville provides land that is already within the scope of how that land would be used, and that Bennett Village provides funds for the design, equipment, and construction of the park.

We propose that Penn Park, which is already designated a regional destination park, be tapped as the site of Bennett's Village.

It is already consistent with the current usage of Penn Park.

So what do we need tonight?

We are asking city council, is an all abilities playground consistent with the regional park designation of Penn Park?

Is it consistent with the existing uses of the park so it wouldn't require adapting to the master, creating a new master plan?

We're asking you to authorize Parks and Rec to create a memorandum of agreement with Bennett's Village and to move forward with planning so that we can do engagement with the community.

We can start seriously raising the funds and designing some site specific plans after we receive community feedback.

Thank you.

Mr. Daly and Mr. Murphy, just where are we in the process?

The next steps would be if there's support from the council to move forward with establishing a partnership with Bennett's Village for this purpose.

There's a draft resolution in your council packet to that effect.

I would direct staff to go ahead and begin drafting a memorandum of agreement that would outline the relationship between the city and Bennett's Village for this purpose.

With some specificity about responsibilities of the city, responsibilities of Bennett's Village and

Those items that we would share responsibility for and we can work directly with them to affect that agreement.

We have something of a model that we've used for previous partnerships that can serve as a place to start with this effort.

I will add that staff are wholeheartedly supportive of this.

There is a need in this community for such a facility.

All right.

I think that, you know, you have this draft resolution.

We weren't intending for you to act on it this evening.

Ask that you consider that, that we put that on the next agenda for your consideration.

I'm supportive of what Mr. Daly is drafted.

All right.

Madam Mayor, I just want to thank you all and press condolences of course.

I was recently at the ARC, I guess now, in Richmond with four kids, all little, not with

I think anybody should invest this 70 minute trip to hang out there with kids if you can or just as adults.

It is a totally different kind of playground.

Just transformative to hang out in.

And I remember when we were there, I was like, there ought to be something like this in Charlottesville because it will become a destination and it just is a different experience of a playground.

So I think you're absolutely right.

It will bring something totally new for a whole universe of people here and it would be very in keeping with our values.

Mayor Walker, I'd like to say something too.

I just want to say that I'm in awe of Bennett's parents fortitude to move forward and your inspiration from your son.

It's really inspirational for all of us.

Okay, so next we have the proposed real estate tax rate for fiscal year 2020.

All right, Mayor Walker, members of council.

This is a presentation that's going to have a lot of familiarity to the council members and certainly to the folks who've been to many of our budget sessions.

But for the purposes of this presentation this evening and the benefit of those who have not been at all our meetings, we will do a little bit of a review of the proposed budget.

and I'll just point out that there are a total of four budget public hearings.

There will be one presentation that will cover all of those and then you can take each of those public hearings one by one.

This is to indicate to you all that over the past 13 or 14 years that you'll see that there are years of increase and decrease but in all but one year there was an increase in the general fund budget.

This year the general increase is 5.05% of the budget.

There is some good news in the indicators here in the city.

We have more jobs than we've ever had within the city.

Unemployment is the lowest in the state, vacancy rates are low, and there are lots of major developments that will increase the tax base.

The council agreed to organizing the budget around some themes.

You can see that among them are support for the schools, investment in employees, affordable housing, and of course being efficient in our local government, among others.

This slide had a question about this generally a little bit earlier so you will see that you know while we talk about taxes particularly tonight as we have a number of public hearings that about three-quarters just under 73% of all the money that comes in to fund the general fund in the local budget is from different types of taxes including real estate, personal property, meals, lodging, etc.

So real estate is a part of the proposed budget.

You can see that in general there has been some increase and that's due to the change in assessed value that the manager's budget, while there has been an advertisement saying that it is possible for the council to endorse a real estate rate of 96 or 7 cents or somewhere in between based on our advertisement,

that the budget is balanced in the manager's budget at the current 95 cent rate.

For those who have been coming to our public forums and work sessions, you will know that tomorrow night the manager's office will present some

Additional modifications to the budget based on the idea of a one-one-one scenario that was discussed on Saturday, which is one cent on real estate, one cent on lodging, one on meals.

The one cent on lodging and meals was already in the current budget from the city manager.

This is just to indicate to folks that you know obviously we can't capture every unique dwelling in the city but since we know what the average rate of increase is to give you some notion that based on the different values of home

We know that if they went up roughly 8.7% on the residential side, how much more tax people are going to pay in the coming year.

We obviously are looking at some increases pretty much across the board.

There are certainly areas of the city that are affected more than others.

Just a reminder, since we're talking about a potential change in the formula, that each penny of the real estate tax is worth $771,000 plus.

So we have been looking at, particularly in comparison, the different types of revenues, some information from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, and it was divided into deciles.

So we tried to do that with all the residential parcels in the city too.

I think what stands out here is number one that when you get halfway through all those residential parcels that the values of the parcels or the homes are still under $300,000 and that as we have considered the CHAP program

the housing affordability program and the tax relief that the manager's budget proposes and Mayor Walker has requested that we go even further with that 70% of all homes in the city actually fall under the assessed value that we're talking about.

So this is a graphic about the meals tax.

We're proposing in the budget that the meals tax change from 5% to 6%.

It was last changed in four fiscal years ago.

I know that there's been significant discussion around this point.

We'll emphasize just a couple things here.

One is that meals tax has consistently grown.

There was no year where a penny was worth less than any other year.

that this tax is worth approximately just under two and a half million dollars per penny.

You know as we talk about what it means to go from 5% to 6%, I want to emphasize that going up that one cent keeps the city at or below

27 of the 38 independent cities in the state of Virginia and the actual impact, the out of pocket cost is the equivalent of 10 cents on a sandwich that costs $10 or 20 cents on a $20 meal, so forth and so on.

So I referenced before that there was some work that we looked at in some federal level data and so we just wanted to be able to compare and understand that does this and how does this affect people in their general budgets and you'll see that

in the lowest income brackets in the nation that our proposed tax increase on meals would affect people $15 a year or $1.25 generally out of their monthly budgets and even at the highest income $6.43 per month and that 35% of meals tax is paid by people who do not live in the city.

We've also talked about in this budget a proposal to change from 7% to 8%.

That did change three fiscal years ago.

And this occupancy tax in hotels is something that has been climbing in the city as far as revenues go.

if we were to raise the rate that we would be basically equal to or lower than half, 19 out of the 38 independent cities and that while there is significant data and public comment around the idea that the lodging sector has been shrinking that that is true of us regionally and we do have a regional partnership for the

Convention and Visitors Bureau, the CACVB.

However, in the city we've been up over the last year about 9.4% and in the county down 14%.

This is just to emphasize where does the money go when you pay your taxes to the city.

You'll see that about a third of all dollars go towards our local contribution to the schools, followed by a quarter of the money to public safety and justice.

I want to clarify there that since one of our public speakers at a previous meeting equated that all

to a direct appropriation to police.

That's police, fire, sheriffs, jails, detention center, all of that together.

And then healthy families and communities, the work that you do to fund social services, human services, nonprofits, etc., follows that.

And of course infrastructure and transportation next.

Much smaller amounts on all the remainder.

Would emphasize you see that debt service payment has continued to grow a bit over time.

So I talked briefly prior to this about the CHAP, the Affordable Housing Tax Grant and Relief Program.

The manager's budget was already based on a concept that would increase the funding to that program by $285,000.

And how that happened was both looking at how much relief households get and also increasing the income threshold from $50,000 per household up to $65,000.

Council will remember that at the most recent discussions on this we are also at your request analyzing what it would mean to look at changing the income threshold just to $55,000 instead of $65,000 and trying to give as much relief as possible.

There are some proposals out there that would take us up to

full relief all the way up to either $20,000 or $25,000 in income.

So we talked a little bit about expenditure drivers.

You know that about a third of all our money goes to schools.

The total contribution of $57.3 million in FY20 is an increase of over $3.3 million or 6.2% in the coming year.

I would tell you that by formula, you have conventionally had a policy about devoting some new revenues, 40% of it to the schools.

Based on that formula, we would have contributed an additional $2.2 million this year.

So obviously you're exceeding that by a good amount.

And you continued to have some discussion as recently as our weekend public forum about whether we could meet the original school's request, which was at $3.8 million.

So, in addition to those operational side needs, there is also the matter of what we fund in the capital side for the schools.

There's six and a half million dollars in the coming year for the schools.

in the FY20 budget.

Three million of that is really to study and move forward with the planning design of the school reconfiguration that's been discussed and to prepare you for understanding what it may take in the 55 to 80 million dollar range for that reconfiguration.

The other three and a half million dollars is for significant renovations that happen each year in the schools kind of in a rolling fashion throughout the stock of the schools since we have nine or ten buildings to maintain there.

So you'll see that part of this budget is also to invest in employees, to take another step in what I think was rightly pointed out in our budget forum the other day.

A new level of minimum wage in the city for city employees of $15 per hour.

which is an increase of 4.17% and we use that same number in the proposed budget as the cost of living adjustment for all employees for several reasons.

One is because we have a number of employees including in public safety who are at that 1440 level who will need to continue to move up.

that we have not traditionally funded enough for compression issues and we have a lot of evidence that we're behind market in a number of departments.

It also actualizes the mid-year adjustment in sworn police officers which happened earlier.

at 4.83%, so we're taking on that expense annualized for the next year.

We're doing this without any change in the healthcare premiums for employees.

We've had good cost experience in the past year and in launching some new initiatives about online benefits and self-service.

So there were a lot of new requests from departments.

I want you to understand that we did not fund over $5 million worth of new requests, but there are a handful of changes that I think are significant to highlight for you.

One is to give a half of year's funding.

So to ask people to wait half the year to implement a requested position as a centralized safety coordinator, be housed in risk management, and help us advance

Training and education that will help us in every department to make safer workplaces.

The security manager which will be housed in the police department but is a really a full city-wide initiative looking at building safety, event planning, and a number of other initiatives that certainly we have emphasized over the last two years.

DMV Select, this is kind of an enhancement as you're aware.

Mr. Vandiver has brought this forward for the year that we're in.

Our DMV is the second busiest in the state and that's why people wait a long time out there.

He has a half-time employee who will move to full-time and that's what this expense is.

We believe we'll realize additional revenue beyond that expense.

One of the primary recommendations of the efficiency study in the Department of Neighborhood Development Services was to hire a support services manager underneath the assistant director who currently has 15 direct reports and we're implementing that at the mid-year in order to save some dollars and balance the budget.

I'd like to get more and more of our transit drivers into regular full-time status and into benefited roles to increase the reliability of our system and to provide those benefits to folks.

When we first began to analyze this, it looked like only two-thirds of all routes are able to be staffed by our full-time regular drivers.

It seems like we want to move towards a standard that is more in the 85-90% range.

I'd like to have had the money to maybe hire as many or convert as many as 14 of these drivers we're proposing for at this time.

And we've had an efficiency, we're moving out of public works and into the utilities department so there's general fund savings because it will be dealt with in the regular rate, our storm water maintenance operations.

So this is a year where we've talked a lot about ABRT and the idea that, you know, as there's some discussion about process changes and a work group that was kind of brought together by the mayor, that we've kind of held harmless folks and froze those dollars.

There's a couple of things I want to highlight here.

We did start mid-year with some dollars that were previously appropriated by council, a therapeutic docket.

The fiscal agent is Offender Aid and Restoration but this is in the general district court specifically meant to assist people with mental health concerns who are interacting with the criminal justice system.

I think it's a great enhancement to the system.

We propose to continue funding that going forward.

and there are some agencies that are not your traditional 501c3 nonprofits who we have either kind of a quasi-governmental or

Contractual relationship with and you'll see that Jaunt and the library have some increases and that all the public safety agencies at the jail detention center and ECC are showing some decreases.

And those are all based on our formulas in our agreements.

So our debt service is going to increase based on some of the spending in the CIP by about $850,000 per year.

And you did at year end in December allocate $3.2 million towards affordable housing initiatives.

That's part of how we fund some of the things in the first year of the CIP that we'll talk about in a moment.

So the CIP has over $35 million in year one.

It is the budget that you're approving.

And of course, the out years, the next four years are your plan.

I would point out that there's $10.3 million in investment in affordable housing, and that the schools, as previously mentioned, are also

A very significant expense.

You see some of the other things that are part of this budget Go ahead

So, with all that said, most of the time that we spend in the deliberations during February and March are about what didn't make it in, right?

So, we've been looking at that.

You're aware that we're still discussing at Dr. Bellamy's request whether there's any additional money for the full operating request of the schools.

We had agreed earlier to fund the $3 million, but we don't have the data yet to figure out what should go towards school reconfiguration.

There is quite a bit of discussion about whether we should include some flexible dollars that can be applied for in the CIP, in the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.

You can see by how the budget is constructed in the CIP That you know, it looks like there's some zeros across that line, which is true That's because we've prescribed ahead of time where that money should go.

And so the the most money that's ever been Devoted that I'm aware of to affordable housing in the city was 3.9 million dollars in any given year and this budgets at 10.3 million dollars and

So we talked about CHAP.

There's some scenarios out there we're going to revisit.

We have some new scenarios with Commissioner Divers that we'll talk about tomorrow night.

our departments just in their base budgets when we looked at some of the things that are the council and community priorities we said we're gonna have to make some cuts ourselves and so 1.39 million dollars was taken out of departmental operation requests and there was an additional 5.3 million dollars in new things that departments asked to do that we did not put into the budget

And I know that this is a really big capital budget and there's this big item out here looming for the schools, but just to put it all in perspective, there's almost 110 million dollars in departmental proposals for capital expenses that did not make it into our plan.

What did you say?

Tell me more.

So we do have a couple of additional meetings.

We're here tonight.

There's going to be four public hearings on the budget.

We're going to be at a work session tomorrow night, depending on our progress there.

We may meet next Wednesday evening with the hope that in two weeks we'll be back in front of council for our second public hearing on the budget and the first reading with the goal of doing budget approval, 2 p.m. April the 8th.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

Thank you.

All right any questions Council?

All right.

My name is Carolyn Belt and I've been a citizen in Charlottesville for 71 years.

I've signed every paper I think up there.

But I wanted to thank Ms. Walker, our mayor, for trying to find out if our tax money is being spent the way it should be and if we are getting any results.

I think that has been one thing about you that I've liked.

And other things too, but you really have care.

She is trying to use checks and balances to see if we are wasting our money or if it's just being put to good use.

The school system has always gone over budget and we still have one of the nation's largest educational gaps between white students and African Americans in the nation and we found that out from the New York Times paper.

We don't even know how many students go to school in the city.

I have never seen a number.

Have we dropped from last year?

What is the number of students in the last five years?

And are we improving?

Where are the checks and balances in the school system?

What methods have they tried and what has worked and what hasn't?

Do we have any of this data anywhere?

Because I have never seen it.

Children who are having problems reading can't get the attention they need in a large classroom.

Do we have more volunteers to help teachers in large classrooms?

Are our teachers afraid to speak up because of the principal or higher ups?

Maybe we need some whistle blowers.

Let the teachers write to our mayor and tell her what they think is wrong in the classroom and their ideas to fix it.

Murray School seems to be doing well with students with smaller class sizes and a variety of classes.

When the school system tells us what is wrong, maybe I would feel more inclined to spend my tax dollars on the schools.

Yes, I got the first real estate's first on the agenda.

All right.

Good evening.

I know that you all know the issues, so there's no sense in my going over those with you.

My concerns were

But what I do want to say is people are moving out of the city.

I know in my neighborhood I know of a couple that's been there longer than I've been and once after a three year period of time their taxes went from $400 a month to $800 a month and they decided that it was time to move out and they moved over to the county.

A few years ago, the house next door to me, they spent quite a bit of money fixing the house up, remodeling it.

After the five year freeze was over, they saw the taxes go up to $10,000 a month.

And she decided to, I'm sorry, $10,000 a year.

And she decided to sell and she couldn't afford it.

It was her dream house where she was hoping to retire to.

So people are moving out.

We need to increase the limits of the tax relief for disabled and seniors as well as look at some of the other categories that we have and bring those up.

I know there's some question I was told because state law doesn't allow certain things to be changed over to a certain limit.

So maybe that's something you can take on one of these days.

Rent on affordable housing goes up when we raise up the rates.

A landlord who has these high increases is just going to pass it on to the tenants and it makes the property that much more expensive for somebody.

I'm actually facing this myself where I've been seeing double digit increases.

One of the reasons I bought my house is the fact that it did have an apartment to it.

and I've tried to keep the rent on extremely low, way below market value, but I had to make a decision this year when my current tenant moves out to increase it by about 13%.

I want to mention something that I've discovered that's taking place in New York City and some other cities around the country that may be something that you all might want to look at.

And that some other cities have multiple layers of real estate tax.

So I don't know what New York City does, I know that they have four levels, I don't know what those four levels are equal to, but maybe someone who buys a new house

or new construction gets taxed at one rate.

Someone that's been living in the same house for 20 years, maybe another rate.

Disabled individuals, maybe another rate.

So that may be something that needs to be looked at.

Of course there's also one other thing that could be done, you just need to not spend as much.

I don't personally mind spending a little bit more if the money's going into affordable housing to especially buy maybe land to put away for future use.

I'd be happy with that.

But what worries me is the fact that maybe seeing multiple year after year after year double digit increases.

That pushes people out.

Then there's a question, what are you going to do next year to increase revenue?

So that may be something that needs to be thought about too.

Thank you.

A lot of what I'm talking about has already been discussed, but I'm just here to state what our situation is.

My name is Kimber Hawkey.

I'm a long-term resident of Belmont and a homeowner since 2004.

We took out two mortgages to buy our house back in Belmont 15 years ago.

Back when everyone said don't move into that neighborhood, it's the drug neighborhood.

Well, we went in and we

We bought the house, almost lost the house to the bank when the economic crash happened and we both lost our jobs and we've been fighting to keep our house ever since.

We've had plans to renovate the 100 year old house since the very beginning, however with the oppressive rise in assessments, which for us is over 13% this year, that hardly seems possible.

And one other issue that's not been brought up about the assessments is that magically this year we have an extra bedroom on our house.

All of a sudden we've gone from a four to a five bedroom house.

We don't know how that happened.

And we also have a new greenhouse in our backyard.

I guess because we threw some plastic over the plants that we had there.

And if you look on the picture they actually have a

a little like a shed or something and there's nothing even there so the problem in the assessment office more than just the problem of crazy assessment rises and so in addition to all this crazy assessment you're now looking to raise our taxes even more and it just seems like we're being doubly taxed and it doesn't seem like people are moving out it seems like people are being pushed out so

Last year, there were $41 million in added inventory to the property tax base from what we saw according to the assessment documents.

So aren't you already earning a lot more in tax money?

And why not use that instead of increasing our taxes?

There are also a lot more developments, as you can see on the PDF forms from the different development services, more development coming our way.

So again, why tax us further?

So let's look at some solutions, perhaps.

I'm no expert, but it seems like the fact that UVA pays nothing is crazy.

How is that even possible?

Why is it that their luxury apartments are going to increase neighbors' taxes?

That doesn't seem right either.

This seems to be that there could be a fashion to grandfather in long-term residence, have a tiered system according to how long someone has lived in their house.

Also there was a big article in the SEVA Weekly recently and about the nine and a half acres that the city is using to park cars in.

Why isn't something being done with that land instead of just parking cars there?

Seems also that you could combine city and county offices to save costs, as someone else had pointed out as well.

Like I said, I'm no expert.

There are other solutions, and we want to stay in our house.

Thank you.

Colette Hall, and I'm also speaking for my husband, Kelton Flynn, who could not be here.

I live in Robertson Lane in the city.

Good evening, Ms. Mayor and Councillors and Mr. Murphy.

First, I want to thank Mr. Murphy, Mrs. Beauregard and their staffs for the year-long efforts they put into the annual budget and budget presentation.

A thankless job, but the most important task so the Council can discern and decide city funding.

An article in the Daily Progress, February 1st, 2019, headlined, Council discusses possible tax rate increases.

Quote, an average of 7.9% increase in assessed property values in 2018.

As usual, our house has gone up more than the average residential assessment, this year up 8.09%.

Our assessment has gone up 16 years out of the past 20 years, or over 425% increase.

Percent change since 2017 is 15.01%.

Yes, that's correct.

It's 15.01% increase.

And by the way, we're talking about a small to modest 1,500 square feet residential house on a small lot.

I have heard the restauranteurs complain because the council wants to raise the meal tax by 1%, so I propose a trade.

You pay my 15% increase and I'll pay your 1% increase.

Saturday I attended the Community Budget Forum.

I heard multiple speakers say, quote, raise my taxes and I will gladly pay more taxes.

I should have gotten their names and phone numbers.

I would propose they pay my 15% increase and I will pay the rest.

This would be win-win.

They would be paying the city more in taxes as they wish, and I would pay a lesser amount, albeit still high.

An increase in the tax rate is unjust and inequitable.

We will already be paying 8.09% higher in taxes.

In fact, anyone whose assessment has increased will be paying higher taxes even without a tax rate increase.

The solution is for council to spend millions less.

For example, spending millions on multiple consultant studies for the same projects like the Belmont Bridge or downtown parking.

or one third of the city budget, 57.3 million for schools who need to produce good outcomes as non-profits, profits are expected to do when they request city funding.

Thank you.

Again, my name is Jeff Fogel.

I live in Belmont.

You need a sustained source of revenue if you're going to fulfill the commitment that you're making to affordable housing.

Several things that I don't think you've taken into account.

For example, in my own personal situation, I bought a house 12 years ago.

It was assessed at the purchase price.

The economy then tanked.

The value of my house according to assessments went down significantly and has only gotten back to where I was in 2006.

So this year I'm paying the same taxes that I paid in 2006.

And I can't be the only one in town who's in that situation.

Secondly, obviously you need a much more robust system of rebates for taxes for homeowners and also including the impact on renters as well.

But in the long term, the question is where are you going to be able to sustain the money and the commitment that you're making.

And the only place is in real estate taxes.

and the question is how do we have a progressive tax system that affords us income without harming the people who would be harmed, some of whom have spoken here tonight.

As an aside, I just need, I couldn't not say, the people who are concerned about white people moving out of this town should look at what's happened to black people.

54% of the people in this town were black.

in 1864 and now it's 19%.

Now what happened to your concerns about people moving out of town that reduced that population to a minority?

That has to be a concern as well.

And if you look at the demographics you'll see that the principal demographic that's leaving town is black and poor.

because they can't afford it, not middle class or rich.

But we've got a lot, a lot of rich people in our town and they can afford to pay more taxes.

And let's recall that one of the issues in town is the huge and humongous discrepancy in wealth and income.

The way our economy is set up, there's only one way to affect that and that's taxation.

and since the people who actually were going to pay more taxes under a Democratic regime in Washington ended up paying less taxes because of a Republican regime.

So now we have rich people paying considerably less taxes than they would have paid had the Democrats, most of whom they supported, been in office.

So there is that pot of money for those people which would not hurt them.

It will only bring them back to what they voted for when they voted for Hillary Clinton.

So those people have accepted the notion that they pay more taxes.

We need those taxes.

The only way you're going to be able to fulfill the commitment to affordable housing is to have a sustained source of income.

That's it.

Thank you.

I would just like to echo some of the concerns that folks have had here.

My name is Aaron Winston, I'm an organizer with the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition and a resident of the city.

Real estate taxes are going to be a necessary evil in the current legal framework that our city operates in.

We can't have an income tax in Charlottesville, unfortunately.

So the question remains, like, how do we have a real estate tax that is progressive?

And I think you are on the right track with the tax abatement program.

If done right, we can use this to reduce the impact of rising assessments and tax rates on our city's most vulnerable citizens.

But that leaves a lot of money out there that we are able to get at.

This money is vital for operating our city, not only for commitments to affordable housing, but to balance a budget.

The fact that there's over $100 million in unfunded requests in the general fund is, or excuse me, the CIP, is sobering.

That's a lot of work.

that we need to do to maintain the infrastructure in our town.

And we're not going to make a dent in that if we're just robbing Peter to pay Paul and move money around to important commitments.

This money has to come from somewhere.

You've already been up, right?

But that wasn't real estate tax.

Hi, Walt Heinecky, 1521 Amherst Street.

So I want to first commend the council for making a commitment to affordable housing in this town.

I think we need to take a step.

When I start thinking about these issues, I'll start with how it's going to affect me, right?

How my assessment is going to go up, how my taxes are going to go up.

I think we really need to reframe how we're thinking about this.

We're here because people who look like me didn't stand up against racial covenants, against redlining, against decimating Vinegar Hill, and against racist zoning.

That's why we're here today talking about affordable housing.

That's why we have an affordable housing crisis.

And finally, council is addressing the affordable housing crisis in a substantive manner, and I commend you for that.

We have a housing study that shows us that we have 3300 units of affordable housing.

We're in the hole, 3300 units, and it's going to take us quite a while to get there.

Your own HAC, your Housing Advisory Committee, figured out that it would take us about 15 years to fix that problem.

And they backtracked it, and it looks like it's going to cost about 150 million, so that's about a $10 million commitment per year.

That's why we're supporting a real estate increase, because it's a long term problem that needs a long term solution.

So I'm happy to see the one cent increase supported by three of you on Saturday.

I have been listening

Councilor Hill's concerns that a real estate increase just gets passed on by owners to renters and so that's why I really think that we should maybe start thinking about doubling down on programs like the CHAP and programs like CSRAP and anything else that actually

gets us to the progressive kind of tax that we really need.

And I'm thinking that maybe we should even get to say this, because I know you're not going to want to hear it, but maybe 1-1-1 isn't enough.

Maybe we need to add to get to a larger threshold for supporting people who are being hit by real estate assessments, by being hit by real estate taxes and MELA taxes or whatever.

We need to get the threshold up

That's how you do progressive change in a town like this.

And let's face it, the federal government is not coming over the hill to save us.

The state government is not coming over the hill to save us.

We are finally on our own.

And how you respond to this

reflects the values of this community in a way that implicates what's happened with 2017 and then a national conversation about racism and white nationalism and it also reflects about our awakening to our historical discrimination in this town, generations of historical discrimination.

I urge you to really think about doubling down in a way that gets you more in CHAP, that gets you more in CSRAP so that you can address some of the problems, the issues that have been brought up today.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council.

My name is Brad Slocum and I promise I'll be brief.

I just don't think we need to reinvent the wheel on some of the stuff.

There are many, many communities around the country dealing with this exact same issue.

I can only speak from my experience as far as the city of Ithaca dealing with Cornell University and to a lesser extent Ithaca College right on their doorstep.

To my knowledge, Cornell University pays

zero or close to zero taxes on their land and the City of Ithaca is dealing also with affordable housing issues and where to generate revenue.

They are working on solutions.

I wish I had more details to offer.

But I'm sure there are other cities throughout the country that are trying to figure this out I'm sure there's tons of state and federal level things with trying to tax UVA as Far as how they can contribute to this community, but I don't see them in this room I'm sure they may be involved in some of the other discussions, but I'd really just like to echo the sentiments that have been

made earlier as far as this needing to be a sustainable thing.

I did some quick math and the gentleman earlier with the 400 something thousand dollar assessment.

putting that in 1998 dollars that would have put his fifty five thousand dollar home at two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

So somehow in 20 years, his home got his home and land got five times more valuable.

I don't know what that looks like, but I think the the comments about the pressure from other projects somehow

raising assessments and things like that need to be looked at to the tax breaks all that kind of thing because it has to be a sustainable solution I'm not saying just go beat up UVA for money even though we definitely should

But that like has to be looked at in a sustainable way.

It can't just be a one time like have them hand us a bag of coins and walk away and say we did our part.

There have to be longer term solutions and there's something right on our doorstep that can definitely be looked at.

Ithaca's mayor is Savante Merrick.

I'm going to shoot him a text.

Nancy Carpenter, I'm here speaking in support of a tax increase, but first I want to acknowledge the frustration and pain I hear from a lot of people who have been up here before in front of you talking about how they want to maintain their residency in this city.

and how difficult it's become because of assessments, not necessarily because of the tax rate, because it is 95, apparently it was $1.13 some years ago before the crash in 2008.

So that seems to be an issue.

I know that when a couple years ago, some of my neighbors called me and talked to me about the assessments that they had in their neighborhood and why.

I mean, the land is still the land.

Nothing's really changed on it other than what we give it as a value, which is

certainly you know can go up and down but one of the things I wanted to say is that agree with a sustainable revenue source for affordable housing because if any of you have been watching the news Mr. Trump came up with his 2020 budget which is his budget kind of like what the city manager's budget is and you know the Congress will work on it but when it comes to housing he's talking about zeroing out CDBG, zeroing out home

zeroing out I think under public housing operating monies I mean zero and significantly cutting the housing choice voucher program which will significantly affect elderly, disabled and families so in looking at the long run we do need to have that sustainable source but I think there's also room to even increase

Tax relief for the people that feel like they're being pushed out.

It's a class war.

It can also be racial equity that there does need to, I think, be an expansion of that type of tax relief because we are going to go to higher density housing.

And if higher density housing is going to be a little more expensive, going to have more people in the city to to share the burden of the real estate tax, which funds our schools, because we do want children that

get a good education in our public school systems so that they want to stay in their home communities or they want to go to a university and come back to their home community because they can, because they like it, you know, good memories maybe.

So hopefully you will adopt the one I would prefer to but I'll, you know, if 1% is what gets it this time around then let's go 1% but let's look at expanding the income levels for your CHAP program.

and other interventions because I am a renter.

I choose to be a renter at this age in my life.

I don't want to be a homeowner again.

And there are interventions that can help tenants.

It could be in the form of, I know there are some landlords in here, but it could be in the form of perhaps some type of rent control if Virginia allows that.

Mr. Blair, I'm sure, could address that.

But there are interventions that can be done.

There are other funds that you all have in your budget that can be perhaps more robust to help tenants if they feel the effects.

I wanted to take Tanisha Hudson's advice and commend this council, commend Mr. Murphy about this amazing budget.

It is historic and I think we should recognize that.

And it's also breaking a long tradition of disinvestment and exclusion, not just in the city but across the nation.

And so you are moving in the right direction.

These commitments must be permanent and long term.

Just like Walt said, the HAC is looking at a $150 million price tag for the needs of this city.

Honestly, the how is up to you.

The 111, the meals tax.

Honestly, I don't think that CLIC has a strong feeling one way or another about these directions.

And also, Legal Aid Justice Center is happy to work with this city.

I heard a lot of ideas tonight.

with regard to about tax relief ideas and also looking at different areas of the city to try to protect homeowners.

We agree that that's an issue.

And so the only ask that I have is with regard to the tax relief issue to increase the tax relief that is available.

We actually have an infographic here from

About 2017, I believe, and I just have a copy for each of you.

I think there's a camera here.

Just of the home ownership that has decreased of black home ownership in the city of Charlottesville since 2000, it's gone down by 23%, and this is because

of the increase in taxes so you know this is an issue I'm not we're not poo-pooing that part away and I think that the tax relief is a way to deal with that issue and increasing the caps will make a difference I actually just you know we have clients that come into our office often and

who have these issues and they might have applied for the tax relief program but it's not enough.

They need more and those levels are way too low.

But again, I commend you.

We encourage you to increase the CAF contribution as well as the rent subsidy voucher program.

Good evening, Brandon Collins.

I live in Charlottesville.

I've lived here my entire life.

I have three children who've lived here their entire lives.

I've paid attention to city government for a very long time, and every year this conversation happens about assessments.

And I know it's been particularly rough over the past few years in terms of rising assessments, but it's always been a way to pass the buck and get counsel off the hook for raising taxes and raising money through the assessments.

You know, it's part of the growing pains we're going to have to understand and get a handle on as we approach the affordable housing crisis, which you are doing.

You've seen the numbers, you've got the housing assessment, you've seen the tool put forward by the HAC,

You can see we have about a half billion dollar with a billion dollar affordable housing crisis in Charlottesville and your investment over a hundred and fifty million over a period of years

could realize that and could significantly change things and you come up with that money and like Mr. Heinecky said, you have to have a funding stream to make that happen.

As we look at that, we have to look at all versions.

It's not just units that need to be built that we need to build a lot.

We need to have many different types of interventions in terms of the city voucher program.

Homeownership, the CAF, and all this.

And we can't talk about affordable homeownership unless we're talking about some kind of tax relief, right?

There are contradictions built into our economy that are just going to be a pain for us to deal with in Charlottesville.

We live in the Confederate state, the Dillon rule state.

of Virginia.

And that makes things really difficult.

And we know these are challenges we're going to have to do.

So we have to incorporate that into our housing strategy plan as we craft that over the next year.

But it's vitally important to get that funding.

I support a real estate increase.

I'm a homeowner.

It's really hard.

I almost hate it, and I wish I had never done it.

I'm going to keep my home because I love this city, right?

But we need this tax relief, and we need as much as we can get.

So as we raise the real estate tax,

We really need to raise those caps for tax relief and just go for it.

End of the day, every cent you spend has nothing to do with all the analysis and all the historical stuff, all this stuff that I like to talk about all the time.

Big dreams, lots of analysis.

The end of the day, every cent you spend means one child is not sleeping in a car, is not sleeping in a hotel.

There are seniors who are not dying early from the poor quality of life.

Michael Payne, city resident, renter in Belmont.

I would just encourage council to really prioritize expanding the CHAP program to the maximum amount that you think you can do it.

I think we've heard a lot of testimony from folks about why that's important.

And I'd also just say I'm glad the conversation around assessments is happening.

because I think it hits a part of the affordable housing crisis that we don't discuss enough, which is land speculation and the fact that whether we raise or reduce the real estate tax, assessments are still going to go up.

And a lot of that does not actually have to do with supply and demand.

That's part of it.

but a lot of it is land speculation of a cycle of when investors see assessment rising they see an investment opportunity and they will hold on to land or try to invest in land with the explicit goal of flipping it which only further increases assessments.

Other cities have gone through this cycle, we're going through this cycle right now and the question is how to stop that cycle and I think a lot of that has to happen

a lot of council's policies but some things outside of council and I would just encourage council and the community to really explore the value of community land trusts as a way to decommodify land and stop this cycle because if we're not utilizing community land trusts and figure out ways to acquire land and get it into the hands of the housing authority or a land trust

We could spend millions of dollars and in 50 years not make nearly as much of dent as we thought we could, or we might be unable to stop this cycle of displacement in working class neighborhoods.

And I would again, related to that, just remind council and the community, there's a lot of discussion about building more density and building more units can reduce rents.

It's true.

But we also need to remember that research shows if you build a dense luxury unit in a wealthy neighborhood, it'll reduce rents regionally.

But if you build a dense luxury unit in a working class neighborhood, it'll reduce rents regionally, but it'll also skyrocket rents in that specific neighborhood and displace people.

So the question of where are we putting density matters tremendously.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak on the real estate tax?

All right, I'm going to close the public hearing.

No questions.

Next we have the city manager proposed budget for fiscal year 2020.

I've already said a lot of my piece.

I'm Aaron Winston, city resident.

But just echoing some of the things said earlier about commending y'all for the hard work you're doing on this budget.

If you had told me we'd have 10 million dollars in this budget a year ago, I would have called you a liar.

So thank you very much for the good faith efforts that you're putting in.

I'd also just like to draw your attention to a letter that was just recently sent to the council emails.

It's from a collection of eight

separate housing advocacy organizations signing on to a letter of intent saying that we are encouraging every potential avenue for raising revenues in ways that don't affect the low-income community and devoting those dollars towards affordability.

So if you'll check your emails, you'll find a letter from us there.

Thank you.

Linda Seaman.

I think it was unclear.

She's the first speaker.

I have it on lodging tax, too.

We're not.

All right, I'll do it on real estate then.

Well, when you assessed it at $500 million, I thought that was enough instead of going ahead and adding the tax on.

And the thing is this, if you assess it, you can't get real estate relief.

You can't get real estate relief if your house is assessed higher than what you're asking for.

So this is my problem and I was thinking why not give people 65 and older a break on their real estate and just do it across the board.

If you're 65 you get a break, if you're 70 you get a little bit more break.

We need something to help us because we're stuck in the middle here.

The house is assessed too much.

Even though the money is okay, we can't still get relief.

All right, thank you.

Good evening, Council.

Peter Krebs, city resident.

One of my mentors taught me that design equity is often revealed in the small gestures, not the huge ones.

She told me that spaces that work well for the elderly, for the young, and the disabled provides access for those who need it the most, but they're also great spaces for everyone.

Actually, I could almost make a paper airplane in my speech after that Bennett's Village playground proposal, because they said it super well.

The current budget contains some subtle elements that are good and equity focused.

For example, it doubles the city's commitment to ADA sidewalks, upgrades, and retrofits.

So people can walk, roll, or be pushed through our city streets with dignity.

It includes a restroom at Riverview Park.

I'm glad that stayed in the budget because it's mostly going to serve the very young, the old mothers and their children.

That's great.

These are examples of the kind of work that we need to do to make the resources that we have truly available to everyone.

I applaud that.

The budget does not include any of the large gesture projects that

We see sometimes, for example, the new pedestrian bridge in McIntyre Park.

I'm actually fine with that.

I think you guys are doing it the right way and you'll see why in a second.

The completion of the Jefferson Area Bike Ped Plan

which is just now being approved is going to bring forward some very exciting opportunities for crossing barriers like highways, the Rivanna River, streams and even railroad tracks.

These are big investments that only government can make.

Albemarle County is making an unprecedented 6 million plus dollar investment in bike pedestrian infrastructure but interestingly that's dropping in FY21 so they can use the time to find the exact right mix of projects.

I think you should do something similar.

Although I'd always love to see more funding for bike ped in Charlottesville, I think you should think ahead a little bit and set aside now, starting either now or in FY21 when the county is also dropping its bike ped money.

Make a smart, well-crafted package of investments that will help us become the safe, connected, equitable community that we would like to be here.

Joan Swanberg.

Just quickly, Walt Heinecky, 1521 Amherst Street.

Two things about the budget, three things.

Thanks for all the hard work by staff.

I really appreciate it because it shows a lot of thoughtfulness in the budget.

One on sort of the negative what I heard today from some citizens is that we can do better in terms of prioritizing and eliminating waste and I think some of the past decisions that have been made about consultants and other things are kind of hurting us today because people have lost some confidence in the ability of the city to sort of efficiently look at cost expenditures when it comes to those kinds of things so I want to

I want to just sort of reiterate that I think we really should be taking a hard look at the ABRT process and I'm an evaluator by training and the only two questions I ask repeatedly for 22 years have been, is this program working well and should we fund it?

and I'm not quite sure the city does that very well.

We need to ask more questions about our programs and evaluating our programs.

Maybe think about bringing in some help from UVA or something to help with thinking about that.

The last thing I wanted to say on this issue is, again, big picture, I think next year when the media comes back and they start saying, well what has Charlottesville done to respond to 2017?

I think this budget's going to be a jewel in that crown.

And I think it's going to be a way of responding to that question nationally.

So I applaud you for this budget and its commitments to affordable housing.

I hope, and I have to admit I didn't look closely enough, but I hope there's some money in that budget to support an effective CRB.

As it's developed, it's going to need to be staffed and funded at a significant level.

Good evening again Council, Don Gathers, City resident.

To echo what the sentiments are of so many that I've heard, kudos to you all for the hard work that you put in and to you Mr. Murphy for the budget that you put together.

Thankful that it includes so much towards affordable housing.

Am I correct though that I saw that

In the city schools budget, $6.5 million is earmarked for CIP projects and $3 million of that is for study.

I think if we would just simply talk with the school board, with the school staff, with the student

and shifted somewhere else rather than utilizing three million dollars of almost half of their CIP for a study.

We sometimes study things to death and I think that money would be best utilized somewhere else.

and if we can't put it into the actual school building so that students can study, then let's look at some monies going towards specifically and directly towards public housing and even beyond that, jobs programs for our low income residents, maybe some sort of go tech program since there are so many tech jobs in the area and coming to the area so that we can prepare people for these jobs when they do come available.

and then transportation so that the residents of low income and public housing communities can get to those jobs once they are prepared for them.

I just think that

that there's so much more that can be done.

I applaud what's being set aside right now in the 10 plus million for affordable housing.

But let's also, let's not forget the public housing segment as well and make sure that we take care of all of those affected in those particular communities.

And it has just a domino effect.

if we want to move them and transition them upwardly we've got to have jobs available and that means that they've got to be trained and taught these jobs that are coming in and then they have to be able to get to these jobs so unless all of that's already in place and also let's make sure that we take care of the reentry program so that our people can again be made viable and

useful citizens here once they re-enter the communities and the workforce.

The $3 million is a part of the school's male equity plan.

They have been presenting this plan for a decade to place the fifth grade classrooms back into the elementary school and move sixth, seventh, and eighth together.

So that $3 million is actually part, not just a study, but the design phase to make that happen.

make Walker a centralized preschool and it's part of the shift they want to make happen to have less

We did, we had several meetings.

Okay, yeah.

If I may, Mayor Walker, maybe they're actually going to be using that money to produce what they call construction documents.

leading to the construction of these new reconfigured schools.

It's not a study.

It's architectural and engineering documents.

I'm just saying how it was presented.

Call it out as what it is.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak on City Manager's proposed budget?

Our close public hearing on that one.

Next, we have the proposed mill tax rate for fiscal year 2020.

I just think you need to be very, very careful with taxes on meals and lodging.

It really does have an effect on people whether they want to go out as much as they may do otherwise.

I'll use an example for myself.

I can be pretty cheap at times, and I literally have not gone across the street over here to get a muffin because I kind of resent the fact that I'm paying 10 cents on a dollar muffin for taxes.

I know sometimes I'm kind of reluctant to go out to a restaurant because I know how much I'm going to pay in taxes when I go out to eat.

So do be concerned about that.

Walt Heineken.

This is what you get when you give a guy 12 minutes in one night.

And I'm not even running for anything.

So I just want to think a little out of the box here.

Like the dude or Jeffrey Lebowski once said, my thinking on this has been all messed up and all wrong.

I want us to think about reframing the meals tax in a particular way.

The way I see the meals tax, I see it as an opportunity to support our post-2017 equity policy here.

in Charlottesville.

I personally actually would be incentivized to eat more in Charlottesville restaurants if I knew that the money that I was spending in those restaurants was going to support affordable housing and the CRB and other equity issues that you guys are all working on.

So I would be thinking this is a great opportunity and I think

I do think if we reframe this in a particular way that a lot of other people are going to be thinking that this is what they should be doing once they hear that this money is going toward positive outcomes and solving real social problems in this town.

I think, in fact, I'll bet you that the number of meals will go up in Charlottesville once the public understands the commitment

of this council and this city to social justice.

People will want to come from Charlottesville, Albemarle and other places because they know that that small tax is being spent on equity issues.

So I predict that that will lead to an increase in revenues for restaurants.

So I think from my point of view, when I think about the meals tax, what it looks like to me is an opportunity to engage in socially conscious investing.

That's the way I see it.

And I think other people are going to see that as well.

Thank you.

again thank you for letting me address you I'm just here in support of the meals tax I was asked today how I my opinion and strictly my opinion how I thought the meals tax might affect a certain cohort that I'm have experience with and I said that it's not going to hurt them at all because there are plenty of options

for folks to receive meals.

And I think, like Walt said and Mr. Kavitz said, if we're putting money from the tax into something that has an outcome, a positive outcome, and it is true, Charlottesville is on the cutting edge of what has been going on in the last two years in this country and globally.

and I think that if we are seen as a leader in addressing our equity issues that have been the result of 150 years of policies

that I didn't put in place, you know, but I have benefited from those policies and I now know how I benefit and I want to change those policies and make this city a more equitable place for everyone that's here, no matter whether you're been born and raised here and want to raise your family here, if you're a refugee that comes to this country because you see it still,

for a reason as a shining beacon or you are someone who comes here because of school and you like the area but I think the meals tax is a small part to pay when we want to create and have a more just world.

We're imagining what that is and with this equity policy that you all are talking about perhaps it can start coming to fruition.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak about regarding the mill tax increase for fiscal year 2020?

All right, I'm going to close that public hearing.

Next, we have the proposed lodging tax rate for fiscal year 2020.

I would like to somehow separate the lodging tax from Airbnb and hotels.

Hotels are a big corporation and they have them backing them.

We are paying the tax out of what we make the Airbnb.

We are cleaning and changing sheets, not hotel staffs.

And I just think it's unfair that the Airbnb's are being taxed just like the hotels.

When it's really a family business, when you're trying to make a little money, you pay your taxes.

And I just think it should be somehow separated.

On the lodging tax, here again it's about the perception of this community.

I think people are going to want to come here when they see a lodging tax for social equity purposes.

They're going to say, this is where my money's going.

And it doesn't really affect our community that much as people coming in.

It's people that come to the football games.

It's people that come for UVA events.

So I say,

Let's rob Peter to pay Paul.

I'd be happy to create a nice little sign that says my hotel supports equity and give it to every hotel owner in town that supports this tax increase.

So they can hang it in their window and people can see that they support equity.

and maybe it'll increase their lodging rates and maybe more people want to stay in those hotels over other hotels.

And another thing is you've already given them a deal.

You let them build all these hotels in this city.