City Council Meeting   3/4/2019

Welcome to the council meeting.

I hope you all had a wonderful day.

Ms. Hill?

Here.

Ms. Walker?

Present.

Here.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Go for it.

Okay.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Hill.

I have one announcement.

Good afternoon.

Good evening, everyone.

I have one announcement from Mr. Alexander and Virginia A. Gatewood.

They both are presenting the fifth annual My Help List contest.

So this is a thinking, writing, and reading activity.

So here's what it's all about.

You were asking for all students throughout Charlottesville and surrounding counties in grade categories K through 2, K through 2nd grade, 3rd through 5th grade, 6th through 8th grade, and grades 9th through 12.

That's everyone who's eligible.

And here's what you have to do.

You're going to write an entry in 150 words or less, and you're going to share why it's important to help people because you're going to list five things you have done to help someone

or how you can help someone.

Again, here's the rules.

150 words or less share in writing.

Why it's important to help people?

So it's important to help people because list five things you have done to help someone or how you can help someone.

The winners, here's what you get.

One winner from each grade category will be chosen to win a $100 cash prize

with a reception to be held in their honor.

Winners will be announced on NBC29 and alexxan.com.

The contest runs from Monday, March 11th, 2019, through Friday, April 19th, 2019.

Again, it's from Monday, March 11th, next Monday, through Friday, April 19th.

You can drop or send all entries to Carver Rec Center using my help list and the address there is 233

Fourth Street, NW, Charlottesville, VA, 22903.

Enter the contest to get a $100 cash prize for winning.

I have one more quick announcement or acknowledgement, Mayor Walker, if you don't mind.

I wanted to give some kudos to our Superintendent, Dr. Rosa Atkins, our Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent, Dr. Rosa Atkins, who's in the back.

participated in a panel discussion at Virginia State University last Tuesday, a lunch discussion with about 100 young folks from both Virginia State University as well as Virginia Union University.

She represented the city very well.

Many of my students who were there were interested in trying to come and work and teach in Charlottesville after her passionate speech.

about the dos and don'ts and keeping your head up, fighting through adversity.

So I think we really should be appreciative of the gem that we have in Dr. Atkins.

Madam Mayor, thank you and good evening to the audience.

Thank you.

And I would like to remind everybody that this Wednesday you all will have an opportunity to meet our finalists for the city manager position.

It is one of the most, if not the most important,

decision that this council will make this year with and we definitely need as many of you all to be a part of that as possible.

Today we worked out with Dr. Atkins making sure that our youth were able to participate in

I'm the meet and greet and an interview with the city manager.

So we have invested a lot of time.

Counselor Hill has been the primary working with the executive search firm to make sure that community members had an opportunity to be a major part of this.

So we hope you all take note of that and come out Wednesday 4 o'clock at the

at the Jefferson, at the Heritage Center, and we'll have interviews from four to six, and then a meet and greet from six to eight, so it'll give you an opportunity to walk around and mingle.

Hopefully, be very mindful of the fact that there are other people hoping to get some time with the candidates too, but that you'll have the opportunity to do that, and see Zai in the back, so make sure, hopefully you're aware that they'll be at the high school.

Okay, we just worked it out today.

Can I say one more quick thing?

I know you're going to beat me up, but I want to I want to make sure that the community knows we've talked about this a little bit, but it's really important that we acknowledge the work of both Mayor Walker and Vice Mayor Hill throughout the city manager process.

They've been out of the limelight and not really talking a great deal about it.

But these two have put in a ton of work and a ton of hours

to ensure that this process goes smoothly.

They've literally been the staff for us in this whole process, making the phone calls, working with people together, contacting the rest of council.

And I think I can speak for the rest of your colleagues and how much we appreciate y'all working on this for us.

And it's been going really smooth, and I'm looking forward to us bringing this through.

So thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Bellamy.

So this evening council is appointing the following to our boards and commissions.

For the Building Code Board of Appeals Peter Weems.

For the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Commission Michael Pritchard.

For the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority Nicole Fernandez and Jay O'Donnell.

For the Human Rights Commission

Jeannie Abenader, Idil Atkin, Chantelle Bingham, Elliott Brown, Phoebe Brown, Ernest Chambers, Katherine Laughlin, Sue Lewis, Andy Orbin, Katherine Speer, Matthew Tennant, Lindell Von Schill, and Robert Woodside.

For the Housing Advisory Committee, Christopher Murray, under the developer role,

Phil Duranzio in the banker role, and L.D.

Perry as a citizen at large.

And also wanted to comment that council will be exploring HAC's recommendation to add the Charlottesville Works Initiative as a permanent position.

And so we'll be working through with the HAC that and also just relooking at all the membership that we have on the Housing Advisory Committee.

And that certainly involves a current member that through the Charlottesville Works Initiative we look to maintain.

So I guess that's a motion.

All right, please vote.

All right, that carries five to zero.

All right, is there anyone here who would like to speak on any item that's on the consent agenda?

A, minutes.

February 19th, 2019, regular meeting.

February 20th, 2019, special meeting.

B, appropriation.

Dockless Mobility Funds for Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements, $50,575.

Second of two readings.

C, appropriation.

Capital Fund Transfer for Completion of the Standards and Design Manual Rewrite, $66,680.

Second of two readings.

D, resolution, approval of the 2018 to 2022 analysis of impediments to fair housing choice report, first of one reading.

E, resolution, business equity fund donation agreement, first of one reading.

F, resolution, acquisition of Hartman's Mill Road land, first of one reading.

G, resolution, support of friendship court redevelopment, phase one, first of one reading.

H, resolution,

Support for Crescent Hall's redevelopment, first of one reading.

I, resolution, support for South First Street redevelopment, first of one reading.

J, resolution, city market lease, first of one reading.

K, ordinance, encroachment and aerial easement from city for code building on West Main Mall, second of two readings.

L, ordinance, telecommunications franchise to MCI Communications, first

All right, thank you.

We're looking to make amendments to the resolutions which are part of items G, H, and I.

And so I should go ahead and just read the language.

OK, so for each of the resolutions around supporting Crescent Hall, South First Street, and Friendship Court, there's language that's adding.

For the two that are CRHAs, it's satisfying the conditions of a memorandum of understanding agreed to by the city and the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority.

Can we get a second for the amendment?

Do we have to vote on those seconds?

And then we make a motion to adopt the consent agenda with this amendment.

So moved.

Alright, please vote.

All right, now we're at the response from the city manager from our

Two items, Mayor Walker and Council.

One is that there's some items on pedestrian closures of streets and sidewalks that the traffic engineer is looking at in addition to the crash data at Willoughby.

I will give you more information at that at an upcoming meeting.

Second, we've talked for some time now about this idea originally presented to you by Ms. Carey.

You promised me she'd be here tonight, but I'm sure she's watching.

And we have settled on a pilot date for moving the trolley directly from Main Street down South Street and then turning on Second Street and crossing the mall.

And that will be next Monday, a week from today, on the 11th.

After we pilot that, we could as soon as, about three weeks later, make that change if it works with the bus length and the mechanics of making the change.

I also want to advise council before we do it, just so that you'll be aware, downtown parking's always an issue.

We'll probably be eliminating a couple spaces on Second Street.

Thank you.

All right, now we're moving into community matters.

I'm Bill Lankford, 1400 East Market Street.

Hello.

Thank you.

I would like to talk today about fossil fuel divestment at the national level as the Green New Deal is changing the conversation on environmental justice.

We need to be thinking about what can we do as a city to create a Green New Deal for Charlottesville that amplifies these efforts for bold climate action happening at the national level.

Climate change and environmentalism is not a niche issue.

It is directly connected to affordable housing, economic and racial justice, and economic inequality.

and I think some of the two most powerful things city council can do for moving towards a Green New Deal for Charlottesville is again committing itself to a bold greenhouse gases emissions reduction target of 100% clean energy by 2035 which matches what other cities have already done in divestment from fossil fuels in the war economy.

Charlottesville on its own can obviously not solve the climate crisis.

but actions we take can reverberate statewide and nationally.

Fossil fuel divestments is one of the most powerful actions we can take on climate change.

The 100 top corporations in the world are responsible for over 70% of fossil fuel emissions.

Climate change is a problem of corporate power.

And if we can pull our money away from the corporations and the military industrial complex responsible for the climate crisis, we can start to strike at the roots of it.

This is not a niche movement.

If we support fossil fuel divestment, we would be following the lead of cities that include, in part, Burlington, Vermont, Berkeley, California, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin.

The divestment movement is supported by the Secretary General of the U.N.

It is supported by 350.org and other leading climate change organizations, and there is a clear precedent locally for divestment.

The city in the past has divested

from South Africa during apartheid and from Sudan during the civil war there.

The city currently uses a corporate bond from ExxonMobil and has significant fossil fuel investments in the retirement commissions in other areas.

This is something we can take action on.

and I think if we divest from both fossil fuels and the war economy, we would become the first city in Virginia to do so and we could help spark a divestment movement throughout Virginia.

I would encourage everyone in the audience who supports fossil fuel divestment to stand up right now and if you have your signs, hold them up.

This is a popular movement supported locally in part by Indivisible Charlottesville, the Charlottesville Amnesty International, Sunrise Charlottesville, Together Charlottesville,

and at least four current city council candidates including myself, Sena Magill, Lloyd Snook and Paul Long.

Please take action on divesting from fossil fuels in the war economy and I have a resolution here that the city could support to again make it clear that city council wants city staff

and hiring its new investment manager and managing its investment portfolio to divest from fossil fuels in the war economy.

Thank you, Mayor Walker and members of the council.

My name is Eric Terry.

I'm the president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association.

We represent over 1,500 members statewide in the restaurant, lodging and travel industries.

A couple of things I wanted to point out as you talk about the budget and sort of what the plans are for that.

I want to point out what the payroll is here in Charlottesville City in the hotel industry.

We have over $17 million in annual payroll in our hotels here in Charlottesville.

As you probably have noticed, there have been a lot of new investments, over $110 million in new hotel investments.

And that's something I think should give pause to whether or not you raise that tax with so much new product.

You've got the Quirk Hotel that's under construction.

You've got the draftsmen that opened last year, the development of all the other projects.

And so I think you're in a pretty good place.

But what is not necessarily good is that your hotel occupancies have dropped.

over the last couple of years and one of our other speakers tonight will talk to that a little more succinctly.

The other thing is when you look at the tax in the county or in the city versus the county, as you look at this raise, you'll be 33% above the county on that.

And so I'm not sure when people make decisions, especially with group meetings and things that they can move around to different places, weddings, other things, the tax can make a big difference if you have a number of rooms, you have a number of other things.

The other thing I wanted to point out to you, and we're happy to share some information and study if you'd like to see it, is just the regressive nature of the meals tax.

And I think, you know, the misconception is that it really is across the board.

But in terms of percentages, household incomes below $30,000 spend 8.1% of their annual household income on food.

And the reason for that is they're working families.

They have children.

They're going to soccer practice or going to different things, or they have activities.

and so they're grabbing a meal quickly outside of the home.

For households over 100,000, it's only 3.1%.

So it does disproportionately impact your lower income households as you look at a meals tax.

Just know that they are spending a lot more on that.

You know, the last thing or two more things I would point out, the county actually allows hotels as they remit their lodging tax to receive the discount for the credit card fees.

As you probably know, credit card fees could be up over 3%

on the collection of lodging taxes.

The city does not allow that.

It does on the meals tax have a percentage in there.

And I would ask you to consider that.

If you are intent on increasing the lodging tax, you really should address that because you're putting them at a disadvantage of collecting the tax for you and also incurring an expense.

So I don't think you want to do that.

Lastly, I'll leave you with we have a number of hospitality programs here in the area.

PVCC is starting up a culinary program and some other programs.

and so we've got a lot of people who are coming into the market employment wise and with the advent of the new hotels I think you'll see a lot more of those coming forward.

Please consider that as you look at this tax.

I think you'll go that way.

Thank you.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Yes.

And we haven't had linked discussions in regards to the meals tax, whether the council has a hold us forward or against us, so forth.

But I think just based on some of the data in which you asked, one question that I'll optimize many of the hotel owners and the individuals who are in this space is, in terms of a living wage,

What you're saying that we're bringing in a great deal of new participants who will be included in the industry, PVC and so forth.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and I'm happy to share that with you, we're at $12.56 on average for in the hospitality industry.

In the area.

In the area.

In Charlottesville, that's from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Yeah, the average is $1,750.

You know, I would say we do have some hoteliers here who could answer the question.

Again, you're talking about housekeepers and other folks.

Well above the $1,250.

I'm sorry?

They're not at the minimum wage.

Right.

You know, I think the concern is, and I'll defer to one of the restaurateurs, is that it does hurt, I think, the opening of new restaurants.

We haven't seen much growth in new restaurant openings in Charlottesville.

We've seen quite a bit of growth in the number of restaurants in the county.

There certainly is that, but I mean there's opportunities for restaurants and certainly you've got some, you know, some critical mass down here of the hotels opening and everything else.

But, you know, I think in many cases, you know, as you look at the increases in meals tax and the Richmond one was certainly not a popular one and they had a similar situation with Henrico County and the city of Richmond and the surrounding counties there that were at a different number.

It has impacted some of their group business where the groups again have the ability to move, you know, amongst different locations.

And so, again, I think as you look at what the industry employs in terms of number of employees, you know, going back to the earlier comment, one of the things that our industries are is we're a growth industry and we're an opportunity for people to advance whether they have a four-year degree or they have a high school.

And these high school programs that we operate I think really give students a chance to move into the industry and move up pretty rapidly.

and that's really, you know, I myself started at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg.

I was making $1.90 an hour and I was making pizzas.

I'm not aware of any.

That's probably a question you'd have to, economic development and whatnot, so I don't know.

I do know that the Quirk is still under construction and is scheduled to open.

Good evening, how are you?

I'm here for two things.

Oh, you want to introduce?

Huh?

You can do it.

Candelario.

Yes.

Oh, my address, I live in the city.

So I'm here for two things, two different things.

The first thing is the

All of the funds that are going to the affordable housing are great and wonderful, but I want to remind you guys to not forget about home ownership and Habitat and giving a portion of the funds to Habitat as well because home ownership is crucial to growth.

and I just have to say it's changed my life to become a homeowner, so just that.

And then the second thing is the school reconfiguration for Walker and Buford.

Just want to let you know that I'm for it.

I think that it's a great idea.

I have two kids, well no, I have three kids who have went through Buford and two who have went through Walker and Buford.

I think that the kids having more of a stable environment by having the two schools combined would be very beneficial to their growth.

My son had such a hard time the first year of Walker because I feel like he was just so immature for the environment being so big that he wasn't able to sort of have the same kind of, I can't find a word, but the same kind of care that you would have in an elementary school for a fifth grader.

and why Ms. Payne is coming up.

Louisa, great job last week with Black History Month program at Beaufort.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Susan Payne.

I work at 206 East Jefferson Street, downtown Charlottesville.

The tourism industry is now in a position for growth following two very challenging years and a downturn in their industry.

The Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau is reorganized with full city representation for the first time.

On the board is Kathy Galvin, Mike Signer, Mike Murphy and Chris Engel.

These hold important board positions and there is currently a search underway for an executive director.

We know this work is important to bring the importance of tourism to the Charlottesville City Council to represent us to the Charlottesville City Council.

In Charlottesville, the local tax receipts are $8,500,000.

In Albemarle, the number is $13,750,000.

Coming off the events of August 12th that created a tourism downturn

and looking at the refocus of CACVB, there is definitely room to grow the industry.

The county meals tax is 4 percent.

The city is considering 6.

The county lodging tax is 5 percent.

The city is considering 8.

The differential is significant.

An alternative to raising taxes is to grow the market.

We would like to bring more people to Charlottesville.

We'd like them to stay longer and we'd like them to spend more money.

In closing, the tourism industry does support affordable housing, increase salaries for police officers, and increase salaries for city employees, and increase funding for Charlottesville City Schools.

We support the goals of the City Council, but believe growing the industry and not taxing the industry will generate higher tax receipts and not hurt the local restaurants and the local hotels.

If anyone has questions or would like me to back up this with state statistics please let me know.

Ms. Payne, I have one question.

Ms. Payne, I have one quick question.

Thanks for the note and your comments.

I find it interesting in regards to let's try to grow the industry opposed to tax it is that there's no way in which we could do both simultaneously.

Like we can't help us grow the industry while still looking to increase the taxes.

I'm not saying that's what we're going to do.

That is clearly your decision.

I think that what I'm hoping is that now that city council has one-on-one representation they will understand that every dollar they spend on tourism they have a six dollar return and that's demonstrated.

We have not done too much in two years because we haven't had adequate support and that's hopefully what we'll get to but it doesn't seem like the best time to tax tourism.

Okay.

My name is Claire Habel.

I live at 301 Valley Road extended.

I just want to say thank you all for listening to the community.

I know it means a great deal to not only myself, but the folks who get to speak with you tonight.

I'm here to speak about the climate action planning process that's underway.

I know you have heard about it last week, times before.

and I'm certain times coming up.

I just wanted to spend the time tonight to tell you about what I do for work in Charlottesville and some things that my organization are doing on the lines of climate action planning.

I work for the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative.

You might remember my colleague Terry Kent speaking with you last week.

I'm here to tell you that I'm the residential program manager for this organization and I go around to different homes in the area and speak with families who are interested in reducing their carbon footprint.

So I know firsthand that a lot of people in our community are looking for Charlottesville to lead on climate action.

I won't spend a whole lot of time telling you about what these community members want because we've put together a letter addressed to you all for them to sign telling you what they want to see.

And leading up until the public comment period is closed on the 17th, I wanted to introduce you to some of these ideas that we're going to be presenting with a handful of signatures on them

As of this morning, we have just shy of 600 signatures and we plan on collecting more and more as the time rolls on.

You've heard lots of ideas about what a leadership level goal in greenhouse gas emissions reduction should be, but these are a few ideas that me and 600 other community members think that you should all agree on as you review the recommendation by staff.

The reasons that this is important are not new to any of us, but I want to remind you that we all believe that our local government should enact laws, should enact resolutions, should set goals that reflect our values as community members.

We also know that leadership is vital for ensuring that our community stays one of leaders, one of decision makers and problem solvers in the commonwealth.

We know that the health and safety of our community members are at risk as years go on and climate change becomes more and more and more of a reality.

And lastly, because we're all in this together.

The Charlottesville Climate Collaborative doesn't suggest that the residents solve this problem alone.

In fact, we've been talking with businesses as well as private schools and a handful of community members to tell you what these goals should be.

Namely, we want you to establish a best-in-class climate goal that represents the most recent science.

So this would look like a 45% reduction of our 2010 baseline by the year 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by the year 2050.

And I have to say that we would be the first city in the Commonwealth to set a goal with that inclusion.

We also urge you to suggest that City undertakes the greenhouse gas inventory every two years.

With a goal like this leading so quickly to our end time, we want to make sure that we're headed in the right direction.

So I want to thank you all for listening to me this evening.

Thank you.

I live in Starr Hill.

My wife and I have lived there since 2003.

We've received several increases in our assessment, but the 30% we've received the last two years is an eye-opener.

I've heard a lot about home ownership.

affordability, affordable housing.

I don't understand how any responsible family could plan for a 30 percent increase in their taxes especially when you budget.

I don't know anybody getting that kind of raise in their pay.

I understand you're going to be setting tax rates, you know, that's really, really the other factor when it comes to what I pay out of my pocket, my wife and I pay out of our pocket every year.

So it's just something to think about, you know,

And we were really pleased to find out through the news as we did the last time there were big plans for our neighborhood when we found out they were going to build a 60 unit building called The Crossings.

We found that out through the newspaper.

So as a neighborhood, we're a bit skeptical about the city's idea of inclusion and community input.

And then we found out that there was a $500,000

Grant, or a donation made to a community development corporation.

We just had a meeting with them.

And a lot of their messaging was about community input.

And we were interested in what that really means because we certainly had none on the last time the city council decided to take and pay attention to our neighborhood.

We don't even have a sign, but we got

Community Development Corporation with a small area plan.

Having lived in Starr Hill since 2003, there's not a lot of developmental property available in our neighborhood that I'm aware of.

Now, she touched on a few spots that she's supposedly going to draft up a plan for and I pointed out, are either of those parcels available for sale?

I mean I would think that would be an important part before someone was given such a sizable amount of money to come up with a development plan but that answer was no.

Those parcels which would be the city yard and staples according to her are not for sale that I'm aware of and nobody in my neighborhood is.

Then it was really interesting, you know, they've got a pretty interesting budget here and I found it

you know, via the internet and whatnot.

There's $350,000 allocated out of the $500,000 or 70% of it to what's called a small area plan.

I feel that's sorely lacking any detail, any due diligence by council when they're talking about tax dollars.

That's just me as a taxpayer since 2003 speaking.

They keep coming to the well, keep raising assessments, keep raising the overall amount of money that comes out of our family's budget every year.

And it'll be interesting to see how this whole thing rolls out.

Thank you.

I'm going to change my remarks a little bit.

My name is Thomas Penny.

I'm the president of Donahoe Hospitality Services.

We are one of the partners that developed the draftsman that just opened in May of last year.

I want to first speak to the opportunities that our industry affords.

I started in the hotel business washing dishes.

My only brother, two years my senior, was killed my first year in the business on a night where we were out celebrating my 18th birthday.

A few days later my father told me to deliver remarks at his funeral.

and at 18 years old all I could do was stand in front of his casket and say everything I do going forward was to make him proud.

Went back to the hotel two weeks later and over the next 18 months I went from washing dishes to being the second highest person at my first hotel.

Today I run the hotel company.

I'm proud of us having four African-American females running hotels for us.

I'm proud of the 500 kids that we support in Washington, D.C. by way of four hospitality academies.

I'm proud of the returning citizens that we hire.

I even went on TV in Washington DC, much to the chagrin of the industry, and talked about how this returning citizen who served as my doorman was one of the best employees in my hotel.

And I went on record as saying that I give preference to those who've had backgrounds.

And so when we talk about living wages at the draftsman we're paying on average about $14 an hour, for us,

Because of what I experienced personally, it's not so much as important, you know, the point of entry.

We want to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to grow with us.

We're opening, we have three hotels under construction right now.

We want to have people in positions of leadership to grow into them.

I am all day long in support of education.

I've worked in D.C. with mayors to select chancellors.

I am all day long in support of affordable housing.

I was here last week and I was riding through West Haven and some of the public housing communities in Charlottesville just to understand.

I think this is a unique moment in the history of Charlottesville.

In essence, it needs to be business and elected officials.

It shouldn't be affordable housing education or business.

We have to work together.

What we have seen is that

Since we've opened our hotel, the hotels that we compete against are down 10%.

Obviously, we've invested a significant amount of resources, and every time a person comes, we can get employees' hours.

And to the extent that business is down 10%, those are hours folks are not getting.

And so we oppose, we believe that if we can work to get more people coming back to Charlottesville, we can increase the taxes, we can do some things creatively in affordable housing,

I'd like to

They would model it and understand what that looks like.

And so this is a low floor, high ceiling industry.

And I want to make certain that's understood.

I want to make certain that when folks come in our hotels, especially folks of color, that they see individuals in positions of leadership to help them graduate into business.

And so I think this is a unique time for Charlottesville.

We're looking forward to working with you.

There are folks from the industry here today.

And again, we work together in other parts of the country.

So we opened in May of 2018.

And in essence, when we look at the results from May to December, their hotels, we get what's called a Starr Report that tells us how we're doing against the hotels we compete directly against.

And that shows that those body of hotels are down 10% year over year.

And so in essence, and what we've seen by way of our projections, we didn't do nowhere near what we thought we would.

And so we believe many of the hotels that opened, it opened because of what Charlottesville was before 2017.

However, what we've seen since 2017, the market is not as strong as it was pre-2017.

And so we actually think it's a time to strengthen the CVB, get the right leadership in place, strengthen them, support them, and invite people back to Charlottesville.

So your projections included growth?

It basically shows year over year percent of change.

And again, it's directly against the hotels we compete against.

Absolutely.

And I can show it to you.

And so in terms of, and Susan Payne's comments too, and you can come back and answer since I didn't ask you, but in terms of the priorities that we have on the line that the investment is really only being discussed because of what happened in terms of August 2017, you have families who've been waiting for generations for equity and this proposed growth

So let me be very clear.

Right.

To the extent that you have to increase hotel taxes, what I'm saying is a percentage of that should go in support of the CVB so that you can bring more people back to Charlottesville.

Now granted, typically when markets are down, typically in any places in the country, you don't increase taxes when markets are down.

That's the typical trend.

But I'm saying if you have to do it, obviously, if there are folks in affordable housing units that need support, obviously, we're sensitive to that.

So if the taxes do have to go up in any event, not saying we are, but if that is the route on which we go,

Doesn't that happen automatically?

It only does for the first five percent of our tax rate.

We also have to talk about the job that the CACV is doing.

I mean, unless there's a new ad campaign that I haven't seen, then I don't know why we would invest more funding at this time.

Okay, but we haven't seen it.

I may interject because, and thank you for your comments, and it's helping and looming the whole conversation, so thank you.

But with regards to the ad campaign at the CACBB, there was a lot of robust discussion and Mr. Murphy can attest to that about the original tack that they took which they were playing off the word civilization.

And it was extremely, extremely offensive to many of us.

We said repeatedly that that was not the way to go.

We understood we needed to do campaign ads for the industry.

So we have changed that.

I just want to get it very clear.

And it was, they had very diverse focus groups that did review it.

Excuse me, I just want to finish this because it's an important point.

So that the ad campaign has become much more focused on Charlottesville, Seville.

It is not playing off any of this conversation that we've been having about

Civilization, Civility, and it is much more respectful of our community at this point in time and we did make sure that it was vetted through a very, very diverse group of people that reviewed the ad campaign and they changed the whole tenor of the process.

So I can't speak to what it was, but I just see an opportunity to make it stronger.

and I see an opportunity to make it more inclusive.

It should be, no matter where you live in Charlottesville, you should be proud of the campaign.

And so I just see an opportunity to strengthen it.

And again, we've got to work together from my perspective.

That's the only way.

I just wanted to be respectful in case you had a question.

Yeah, I think we have other conversations.

Good evening City Council.

My name is Emily Little and I live in the county but I volunteer a lot in the city and I'm actually considering a city move to lower my carbon footprint because I'm always here.

You're not getting rid of me.

So I'm here to deliver 127 signatures in another petition.

We've been gathering hand signatures because there are different populations that are online and other populations that aren't online.

And our petition is to the city of Charlottesville for increased climate protection.

And what people were agreeing to by signing it was that they support the city of Charlottesville taking action to protect our community from the harmful effects of climate change.

I support our community setting a goal in creating a climate action plan that will help keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

What was really interesting about gathering these signatures is how excited it gets people to have it move to a local level.

Climate change is scary and ominous and feels completely out of your control.

And when people heard there was a potential for the city to do something,

Locally, people were excited.

It made them excited and less scared.

And I think as the goals are set, I think that energy will continue to grow.

And I think people are really ready for Charlottesville to be a leader in this.

One group that you heard from already today, C3, the Charlottesville Climate Collaborative,

has been engaging all these individuals including someone like myself and mothers and religious communities and all sorts of different people who maybe haven't always come to the conversation about climate change and again it's just people are really excited to think about the fact that they can do something.

Their individual action isn't going to be the only thing needed but it's something and it's really

exciting.

I wanted to say one thank you to Kathy Galvin.

I've been following your work and

I'm really excited because I think a lot of people are getting behind things that you've been saying for a really long time.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.

I love the Lorax.

Beautiful.

My name is David Swanson.

I live on Gillespie Avenue.

One of the side benefits, perhaps, of what I'm proposing could be some good press for Charlottesville that would cost exactly nothing.

The petition at divestcville.org, which has hundreds of signatures there, is proposing that the city have a policy of no longer investing in weapons companies or fossil fuel companies.

And I was surprised to know that the city does do that.

We were never asked.

I would be happy to go with a public vote.

If we are asked, I would be confident which way it would go.

The city has passed resolutions I've been so proud of in the past against wars, asking the U.S. Congress to move money from militarism to human and environmental needs, and yet we've got our public money invested

in weapons companies, companies engaged in environmentally destructive wars in countries where most of the people are not described as white.

We have weapons companies selling weapons around the world to dictatorships, US weapons on both sides of numerous wars.

Weapons companies, the city of Charlottesville has our money in selling weapons to Saudi Arabia to create the biggest humanitarian disaster the world has seen in years in Yemen.

We have fossil fuel companies with our money in them while we're talking about these initiatives to do better on climate or investing our money in the worst possible entities that there are, corporations like ExxonMobil.

This is our future we're talking about.

These are the companies that our National Security Advisor John Bolton says would benefit from overthrowing the government of Venezuela, a possible new war.

This is not something the state of Virginia can prevent.

This is something the city has the right to do.

There are many things at camp.

This is one it can and it's done before, as Michael mentioned earlier.

And this is not a national and global issue only.

This affects our climate right here in Charlottesville, the gun violence that comes to Charlottesville, the war culture that comes to Charlottesville.

And you can make just as much and more money investing more ethically as you make investing without any regard to ethics.

And this city has had a regard to ethics before on Sudan, on South Africa.

et cetera.

If you go to divestseville.org you will see hundreds of signatures.

I can send them to you by email if you'd like.

I would like again to ask everyone to stand up if they support taking our public money out of weapons companies and out of fossil fuel companies and making that a policy for this city and setting that example for other cities in this state as cities around this country are doing.

Thank you and I would welcome any questions you might have now or

Thank you.

So Mr. Murphy, I have a question.

Mr. Murphy, if we were, if we were, cause I'm just looking it up and then I'm reading the resolution or whatnot, and I've read some of the materials beforehand, but if we as a city were to look at divesting, what would that look like?

Because I know there's

Well, I think that you want to bring in some folks from the retirement commission.

Yes, sir.

Particularly Mr. Vandiver, as the person charged by the public as making some of those investment decisions as an elected treasurer.

The commission is going out to bid now for a investment firm and so it makes good sense that we might include that as part of the scope in the RFP so that anybody who responds might be able to advise us on that particular issue.

So I think there is some

Complexity in unpacking as the city has many different investments, right?

But it certainly could be done.

I would be on the lines of that.

I would be interested if any of my colleagues would also have the appetite to place Mr. Vandiver on a council agenda maybe late April or early May.

I would like to second Councillor Bellamy's request and I believe that our attorney is also looking over the resolution.

So I do agree with that.

And to Mr. Swanson, six years ago you brought forth a resolution where it was about tactical decisions concerning the use of military, where the city of Charlottesville was weighing in whether or not to bomb certain parts of the world.

I couldn't agree with that.

I didn't think we were qualified to make a decision about military tactics.

This, however, is really something we can look into.

So I really appreciate what you've done because it does get to the point where, as a local elected government, we can make these kinds of decisions.

And yes, I have always been

Strong about the environment and weaning us off of fossil fuels.

To do that is going to be expensive.

That's why we've been having these challenging conversations about changing our streets so that they're not so auto-centric.

Something's got to give.

Something's got to be at taxes or be it taken away from other priorities.

The principle is really sound.

So I really am very, very, very interested in looking at this.

Well, that's two of us.

Thank you.

And I guess my contribution to this, and I also want to thank the activists and Mr. Swanson for bringing this and all the passion.

I've done some research into the divestment movement also.

I would think, especially going forward,

There's a whole spectrum of how you can view your investments.

There's even social impact investing where you have a much more fine filter.

To me there are two different things going on here.

There are stocks and companies related to energy and there are ones related to defense.

In my view we would, those are two separate resolutions because we may in the future want to divest from another problematic industry and I would prefer that we view those separately and we just

there are two different objectionable classes of industries that have been put together into this one resolution and I think we're looking at two different ones and they could be evaluated separately and then we could even look at other you know there's a lot of there's a lot of you know municipalities that are looking at gun like the gun industry that's a whole separate industry from ones involved with weapons and nuclear weapons I just you know I found a

Oh, right, sorry.

First meeting in May, more than likely.

What do you think?

Right, because we have the budget stuff.

No.

You've had yours.

Either way.

Okay.

Either?

Okay.

So then if there's appetite for it in that regards, I guess the other question would be, since there is currently, or is the RFP currently out, Mr.?

Yeah.

I think we should probably message the council tomorrow when we can investigate what the potential timing of the RFP is, see how that jives with council's desire to have it come in front of them.

Okay.

Mayor Walker, it does seem like Mr. Swanson wants to respond.

Would it be possible for letting him respond to the point that Counselor Signer made?

Just less than a minute.

I just want to respond very briefly, if that's OK.

I respect the notion that there are two separate issues here and I included them both because I think they're both important but also to make the point that they're not really separate issues, that the military is one of the biggest destroyers of the environment, that the wars are fought for fossil fuels openly, explicitly in many cases, that the money that's needed to protect the environment is sitting in the military budget, that it's very hard to really separate these two.

and I would also strongly encourage avoiding the notion and the word defense when talking about weapons dealers that deal weapons to dictatorships and democracies alike around the globe, the weapons that are used on both sides of most wars, which side is the defensive one.

I don't think there's any need to use that particular word unless it's really explicitly justified.

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.

And tonight I am speaking on behalf of FAR, of which I am an employee.

FAR is the Public Housing Association of Residents.

We are the federally recognized, federally mandated resident council and resident advisory board for all 376 homes, all 376 families living in public housing here in Charlottesville.

and we just want to encourage you tonight to approve the critical slopes waiver that's in front of you.

This is another one of these seemingly small and seemingly simple steps that you all have taken over a number of months to really make the redevelopment of public housing a reality.

We are on the cusp of making historic change in this city

after never really seeing it and having the opportunity to change the course of history and really do something spectacular.

It's not a done deal yet, right?

But this very simple step is quite meaningful.

What this will do will lead to a tax credit application getting in and the

very near construction of 60 new homes at South First Street along with the renovation of Crescent Halls to begin the redevelopment effort here in Charlottesville which will not only provide a brighter future for nearly a thousand people who live in Charlottesville but will also provide additional affordable housing for thousands more as we move into the next decade.

And that is meaningful and we really appreciate your political support.

We appreciate your staff's time on this critical slopes issue.

They put in a lot of work and we really appreciate your financial support of this effort.

It's been a long time coming and let's keep it coming, right?

On the issue of the critical slopes waiver,

Originally, when the site plan was submitted, there was some thought that it wouldn't need a waiver because it wouldn't disturb the slopes.

After working with the staff, come to realize the safe thing was to get the waiver and work really close with the staff to get that.

And it went to the Planning Commission, got unanimous approval and some additional conditions.

And what I think is really cool is that in terms of stormwater and how it affects Pollock's Branch, the way the site sits now

is actually not as great for Pollack Branch.

What will be in place with the new development will actually be an improvement over the current situation where the land is just sitting there unused.

So we hope you support the environment and good, smart decisions about redevelopment and we really hope you'll continue to lend your enthusiastic political and financial support to the effort.

My name is Maria.

I'm from Charlottesville.

I'm 20.

So I just wanted to talk about Habitat and its effect on my life the past couple years.

When you're six years old or seven years old, you shouldn't be thinking, am I safe here?

Where am I going to move to next?

Am I going to have to go to a new school?

Those were thoughts that were on my mind as a child.

One day my family told me that Habitat is going to be building our first house.

My first thoughts were,

Mine, my own house, I was very excitement.

My parents had a great energy and my dad would take us by every week to see the building site, even when it started off with its first bricks, memories I will never forget.

When we went to the dedication ceremony, I remember feeling so overwhelmed, seeing all the neighbors and members of the community come out just for this here to see our house, something that we all built together.

My parents were really relaxed because not having to deal with rent doesn't mean living day to day.

You have a place to be with your family and your house actually becomes a home.

With this being said, they were able to invest into my education because they didn't have to worry about the bills.

I was able to go to St. Anne's and then I ended up at PVCC and now I plan to transfer to Radford.

Right now I'm currently a subteacher at a private school, so I really thank my parents and Habitat for helping me have these opportunities.

Countless other children are like me out here.

Affordable housing is a key facet into ending the generational cycle of poverty.

I encourage you all to think about how home ownership impacts someone's life.

It's really great to allocate money to furthering the development such as friendship courts and stuff that we have, but don't forget about Habitat because, sorry, one second.

because it actually promotes financial literacy, it promotes generational wealth, it gives opportunities for not only family members but their children for generations to come.

I encourage you to look over through your plan again, not saying it's wrong or anything but I think there's definitely wiggle room to work.

Again, I want to thank Habitat, my family and you all for taking time to listen to me.

Many people come from different backgrounds and build a bridge of empathy when they work with Habitat, whether it's volunteering, being a family in need, or just being a community member.

Thank you.

You did a great job.

You did a great job speaking just now.

Outstanding.

Thank you.

And I don't have the figures.

I guess maybe we can share those the next time.

But the city has been investing in Habitat a lot over the past year.

I'll be talking about it.

OK.

So I don't want anybody to think that there hasn't.

There has been a commitment, even when there wasn't a commitment, in maintaining home ownership in the traditional route, which I think is really key and something that we are working on.

Mr. Murphy will be talking about that but I think that's important especially I think we've had three comments.

My name is Garrett Trent.

I live in the city.

I'm going to give my time to Dan Rosenzweig.

Good evening, Mr. Murphy, Mayor Walker, and members of City Council.

My name is Dan Rosenzweig.

I'm speaking on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville at 919 West Main Street.

I very much appreciate city managers' commitment to affordable housing, $32 million projected in the CIP over five years, especially insofar as it seeds a few incredibly important initiatives, such as Friendship Court and Crescent Halls redevelopment, Sixth Street, plus the city voucher program.

It's an excellent down payment.

on addressing the lack of access to safety and affordable housing in the community.

At the same time, I strongly urge you to direct staff tonight to revise the CIP to include 1.55 million in the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund for this coming fiscal year.

Here's why.

This budget zeroes out funding for affordable homeownership.

We don't just have a housing unit crisis in this town.

We have an equity crisis.

On average, an African-American resident of Charlottesville has one-tenth the wealth of his or her non-African-American neighbors.

and the reason is very simple, lack of home equity.

But this equity crisis didn't just fall from the sky.

A majority of Charlottesville owner occupied homes are in neighborhoods that had anti-black restrictive covenants.

Much of Charlottesville that was torn down in the name of urban revitalization was African-American owned and it must be replaced.

Not just with rentals where equity accrues to investors but with opportunities to own and build equity and build wealth for this generation, the next generation, the next generation.

A full and healthy housing system is a dynamic ladder with mobility from one rung to another no matter where you start out.

This budget has no funds for homeless housing, not enough for rehabilitation to help families stay in their homes, and no opportunity for equity gain.

By zeroing out the CAF, there's no money available for projects and proposals that haven't emerged yet.

The CAF was created when Mayor Dave Norris was in office to provide a flexible, dynamic source of funding that can be leveraged strategically as when new projects come up

This program has resulted in hundreds of housing solutions in Charlottesville from an SRO to numerous LIHTC apartments to rehabs, affordable home ownership, thank you Mayor Walker, and the first in the nation trailer park transformation without resident displacement.

In recent years, the RFP process for CAF funding has gotten more sophisticated, helping council choose the most promising, highly leveraged and impactful projects.

Now speaking specifically about Habitat, if you pass this budget, you would basically

You would basically eliminate our ability to build in the city, where we've built more than 200 homes, helped families earn more than $60 million in home equity, doubled the number of affordable homes in our highest income census tracts, and leveraged close to $30 million in private philanthropy and outside public funding.

In fact, if we are unable to access calf money this year, we would lose up to $60,000 per unit in support from the State Department of Housing and Community Development.

That's a two-to-one leverage.

We have 51 families in our program currently earning sweat equity and working towards home ownership and have applications from 200 more each year.

Please don't let their dreams die.

Would you support home ownership?

Please stand up.

And we're going to be having a lot of conversations over the next month, but I think we also need to make sure that we are thinking about what has traditionally happened in the city, whether that needle is being moved, how to move it.

We need to think even in terms of programs like Habitat, the traditional home ownership model versus not, and look at the number of units that would be potentially coming in as a result of some of

the affordable housing increases, especially when you're talking about the conditions that are

families who've been living in public housing sites that they have been living under and why this investment this time.

And also for people who are coming up to speak, what I think is helpful for us to hear is proposals that may not be necessarily in favor of you or your program or your restaurant or your hotel.

and if there are different options that you would like us to consider other than not taxing you or not investing in you, if you could bring some solutions to the table too, that would be very helpful while we're having this very important conversation.

Peter Castiglione, 1516 Chesapeake Street.

A couple quick notes about the fiscal year 2020 budget.

After chatting with city staff last Friday, I believe that there is no hole in this budget.

The budget can be balanced without tax increases.

The city just received a $6 million windfall from the 2019 tax assessments.

Although 3 million of that is already appropriated to the 2020 budget, it is my understanding that the other 3 million

has been collected and is currently unappropriated.

On top of that, tax revenues are outperforming the fiscal year 2019 projections.

I'm assuming you guys were conservative after 2018 and the tax collections that we've had thus far are ahead of schedule to the tune of several million dollars at the end of this fiscal year.

If there's three million sitting there already and we're going to have two or three million more, we don't have a hole in this budget.

An increase in meals tax from 5 to 6% is not a 1% increase.

It's an increase of 20% that would leave the city at a rate 33% higher than Albemarle County.

We watched in 2015 as city management and some city councilor tried to shovel the logic that a 25% increase in the meals tax rate was just one penny on the dollar.

Nobody's going to notice.

The restaurant industry slowly sucked an extra $1.8 million out of its customer base, one penny at a time.

We can look back now and see how that log has played out.

The county has opened 39 new restaurants and hired 740 new employees, while the city has shown no growth in restaurants, lost upwards of 200 jobs in the same time period, and in fiscal year 2018 reflected the worst growth performance in recent history.

Tax increases have consequences.

These proposed increases are always, at this point of pre-budget talks, sugar-coated, is this necessary step that must be taken to champion one cause or another.

In 2015, it was police, it was city schools, and it was a 2% raise for the city employees.

This year, it's affordable housing and city schools.

The extra money that comes from these tax increases goes right into the black hole that we call the general fund and gets appropriated out year after year depending on who's sitting on this council.

So the idea that it's going right to these programs while we're championing the reason we need these tax increases while I already think we have the money is not the truth, okay?

That is a deceptive way to put this budget forward.

This pre-budget production is slippery, okay?

and for some reason it's become the status quo and I'm begging you guys to stop whitewashing this thing.

Number spinning and dumbing down this magic show for everybody, okay?

The restaurant industry was proposed to you guys and propped up with a report from January the 6th and I gave it to you and that information was incorrect to the tune of 29 million dollars.

Okay, I got the information, I talked to city management, city management changed it, they emailed it to you.

But had I not poked my head into this mix and read that report, you would be up here today making decisions on raising meals tax on propped up incorrect information.

Thank you.

This is 2019.

We're eight months into it.

We've got four months to go.

I do not know the specifics.

I'm not sure how the restaurants are, but don't forget that we took a beating in 17 and in 2018 saw no growth and even if the 2019

The meals tax collections are going up and we're seeing higher revenues.

We all borrowed money just to make it through 2018.

We're still paying back debt that's left over from what happened in 2017.

So if you see this increase of income coming into the restaurants right now, all 265 of us, that's how many we had in 2015, that's how many we have now, that doesn't mean we're doing well.

We've got to cover the cost of inflation, ever increasing

Is that different from normal businesses?

It's the same as businesses, but what you have to understand is our businesses need to grow at least 3% a year just to keep up with inflation.

And they didn't.

They stagnated and dropped.

So if you're seeing an increase now, maybe we're going to eventually get there.

We've seen very little growth since the 2015 increase.

We have leveled out yet our health insurance is through the roof.

Our wages are way higher.

We start people with $12 an hour just in the dish pit.

I have to increase my prices.

If I sell 4,000 trout in a year, it's my highest seller every year.

I can't just raise the price from $22 to $23 on that trout to know I'm going to get $4,000 more a year out of it because it doesn't work that way.

But if I raise the meals tax, I'm automatically charging my customers more and you're forcing me to raise our prices on our menu.

And don't forget the 20 percent

1% of every 5% of the meals tax we collect goes straight to debt service.

So Peter, may I ask a question?

No.

Go ahead.

You're fairly good.

Go ahead.

So one comment that you made really stuck out to me in regards to how a certain portion of the funds, as you were alluding to, they go straight into the black hole of the general operating budget.

So if we were to pass a resolution that stated that these funds, if we were to increase taxes, went specifically to i.e.

affordable housing or schools or whatever, right?

100% of those funds, well, a portion would have to go to the debt service and then the remaining went strictly to that issue.

It wouldn't make me feel better because we don't need to raise taxes because there's already money in the budget.

But if we were going to do that, we could do what Rono did several years ago.

They raised the tax.

They said the extra money coming from that tax was going to go straight to schools.

And they did it for two years.

And as soon as that two years was up, they sunsetted it back down.

But be careful with the sunset.

Well, here's the issue with that.

Here's the problem with sunsets.

You'll say we're sunsetted, but a new council can come in and say that sunset is not going to happen.

Agreed.

Well, that was the suggestion that you brought up.

I was just asking specifically in regards to, well, let me finish, as you were breaking it down, because your apprehension was, or apprehensiveness was rather that you did not want to see us taxed to bring in monies that would not go to the actual issue.

But if we were to

If it goes to the tax or it goes to the general fund, I'm okay with it as long as you're telling everybody that money is going to the general fund and not pretending like these tax increases are going to put this money into these programs because that is attaching

Hi, I'm Joan Fenton.

I have businesses on the downtown mall.

First, I'd like to thank you all that there are now signs on the crosswalks at Second Street and Fourth Street that say to stop for pedestrian crossing, which is a great improvement.

And I'd like to suggest that at Fourth Street, when you get to Market Street, I mean to Water Street rather, that there be better signage as well there.

Secondly, also on a traffic issue today,

They closed Water Street and all the traffic was routed down Second Street.

When you get to Market Street, there should have been a police officer to speed traffic up because your traffic was backed up on Water Street at five o'clock like you wouldn't believe.

And if you're going to close Water Street, you have to figure out how you're going to route your traffic.

On the issue of taxes, I think for many of us in the business community,

We are all in support of all the efforts that you're making in housing and equity and all those issues, but we feel that the city has better ways of getting income.

There are projects, I know Oliver Kuttner told me it took him four years to get the permits together for his building.

That building had happened in six months, you would already be getting taxes from it.

There are other projects which are by right can happen,

and if that process speeds up you can get funds for it without having to raise taxes on anybody.

I also believe that one of the issues that we've been trying to make tonight is that it's proven that when you invest in tourism you make back six dollars for every dollar you spend.

And what's happened is many of the businesses in town and everybody that's concerned is saying, my business isn't strong right now.

I've lost because of tourism.

That loss of people locally coming down because of tourists not coming here means that a lot of businesses feel fragile.

They feel threatened.

They're going to pay the increase in property tax is going to go up 5%.

They're the ones that pay them.

If they're a restaurant, they usually absorb that extra 1% tax because if you're paying $2 for a cup of coffee, they're not going to raise it to $2.02.

That the tourism tax will scare away tourists

and if they don't stay at the Omni, they don't come downtown and if they don't stay at one of the other hotels by UVA and they stay in the county, that money gets spent in the county.

So you have to look at the overall picture which is how do you bring those tourist dollars down here and those visitors' dollars down here because that's what I think is probably the biggest industry in Charlottesville is tourism, whether it's from Monticello, UVA, the downtown mall and so there has to be some support

so that we're all working together to get that income to happen.

And it's not simply just taxes.

There's other ways.

Roy Van Dorn, my office is on High Street.

I'm bringing a gift for each of you, which I think Mayor Walker took a version of that last year to your trip to Africa.

This is the lodging, this is in every lodging room, 6,000 rooms.

It's what we do, one of the things our industry does to help build our industry and that is repeat visitation by our visitors.

It's an important industry because let's kind of look back at how big this industry is.

Here in Charlottesville, the greater Charlottesville area, which is the five county area, we have two million overnight guests.

If you add in how many people here come here for day trips and surprisingly a large number how many people stay with friends, that number is five million people.

The economic impact of that is huge.

It's the single largest private business organization or group

in our community and it's mostly comprised of small business people like Peter that live in town, I live in town, we all live and work and have small businesses.

Inside your book I've got a chart and I'm just going to, sometimes we kind of gloss over the numbers but there's a chart here from the state that just came out a couple of days ago.

I've highlighted Charlottesville and you can see that our occupancy compared to last year has been down 11%.

That has real consequences for people that have to work day in and day out in properties.

We don't have people that go to restaurants.

Ours have to be cut.

Hard decisions have to be made by general managers and it's just not the time to tax an industry that's going through a little bit of a stumble.

There could be a lot of reasons for it.

And I urge the council to kind of embrace industry and say, how can we grow the pie bigger?

On the other side is a slide from the Convention and Visit Bureau.

And it kind of gives a thumbnail sketch of how much we are actually spending as a community compared to our city budgets.

And as you can see, compared to places like Williamsburg or Chapel Hill,

We're spending a fraction of the dollars that they spend as a community to make next year and the year after grow and be vibrant.

And with my remaining time, is Charles, are you ready to come up?

Charles Friend, 611 Rugby Road.

Good morning, Mayor Walker, good afternoon, and city councilors.

I want to touch base on what Mr. Penny said with Donahue Companies and the hotel.

Our industry actually gives a lot of folks a new chance or a second chance.

One of the best chefs I ever worked with was convicted of a non-valent federal drug felony.

He actually cleaned up, came out, and he was one of the best folks we ever had.

A lot of folks come out of our industry.

They open up their own restaurants, their own hotels.

They start off like Mr. Penny.

I did the same thing.

I started off washing dishes as a teenager.

I don't know many other industries that will do that where you can just start off at the bottom and continue to better yourself.

They're few and far between this day and time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi everybody.

My name is Annie Stupp.

I'm a resident of the city and I'm a member of the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

So thank you very, very much for committing funding to affordable housing, especially to a public housing redevelopment and friendship court redevelopment.

These are really critical.

I do just want to address a few concerns.

The Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, we still don't see reflected in the budget money for the CAF and it is really critical to fund every aspect of the housing spectrum.

Homelessness, housing vouchers, public housing, home repair, home ownership.

All of these are necessary.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't see anywhere in here home ownership or homelessness.

And as Louisa and Maria have noted tonight, home ownership is really, really critical to a healthy functioning community.

And it changes lives.

And it's a critical tool for preventing displacement of long time, low income residents.

And we, of course, cannot forget about the homeless population.

We are far too wealthy a city to have this grave human rights violation.

This is not okay.

We cannot have this problem.

So we really need to commit to every aspect of housing.

There is enough money in this city.

We know there's enough wealth concentrated amongst a huge population of very affluent people.

It's just a matter of priorities.

And that brings me to taxes.

We've been talking a lot about taxes tonight.

So just on a personal note, this is not the Housing Coalition's stance, but it's my stance.

The reason people stopped coming to Charlottesville and stopped being tourists here is because of August 12th.

It's because the Nazis came here and in order for us to rectify this reputation,

We need to actually show the entire country that we are committed to racial justice and to equity and stop victimizing low-income African-American communities that the Nazis came and our own Virginia residents and UVA alums came and victimized.

We can start to do this through affordable housing.

It's just one piece of the puzzle but it's a huge piece.

We know there's a huge concern about property assessments and they've increased and that is a valid concern and so we really do need to provide expanded tax relief to low-income homeowners to ensure that they're not at risk of being displaced so they can pass on assets to their children.

That is absolutely critical.

But property assessments are going up because the demand for housing is so great.

We're not building enough and we're especially not building enough for the lowest income, for the most vulnerable citizens.

And so we really, really need to commit money to this.

And so the CLIC stance, the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition's stance, we support increasing taxes for affordable housing.

We support both the meals tax,

and the potential for a real estate tax increase specifically for affordable housing projects and for expanded tax relief for low-income homeowners.

We have not discussed the lodging tax in depth so I won't speak to that.

Charlottesville has a lower real estate tax than the state median, but we have a much higher area median income.

It's time for the very wealthy here to start paying their fair share to offset the cost for deeply affordable housing.

We have to protect our most vulnerable citizens in this community.

We need continuous and reliable streams.

of funding, CRHA and PHA for Friendship Court and Public Housing.

These are still only in phase one.

If we don't commit these funds long-term, where are we going to get the money in the future?

And in the budget tonight, part of the presentation and part of what council is still having a discussion on is the

Um, CHAP program and expanding that, and for the first time, um, we have included, um, a category for 100% tax relief.

Hopefully that'll go up to $25,000 and you, I think there's over almost 400, um, families who are homeowners who earn less than $25,000 a year, but right now it's in the budget of ha- at half of that at 12, um, 5, and even that is, uh, what is it, 289 families?

I think at that, so that's pretty significant, but if you remember last year we kind of revamped that program to add more in terms of the, there were only two categories as of last year.

You would either get a grant amount of 375 or 525.

Those grant amounts were raised last year to 1,750.

and this year we are adding the 100% tax relief and we're still having conversation about up to what income amount and then the $7.50 and $500 is still included in that and that's you know again just

a beginning, but it's one way that families who haven't been able to afford the taxes in the community and the increase that they get some, you know, some assistance there.

Any comments?

Mayor Walker, if I may, what I'm hearing tonight as well is that there is no consistent way to keep the CAF, the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund stable

that it does seem to be something that can be dipped into at different levels from year to year.

And several months ago, I introduced to the council the notion of what they call a synthetic tax increment finance district, that what that is is that we would identify our high growth quarters.

I gave Water Street as example and we would,

designated a certain percentage, 30% of the increment increase of taxes to go directly into the CAT.

And that way it would be automatic.

It would be something that would be somewhat predictable.

And I did present that idea to the Housing Advisory Committee in November.

It was part of the

Bigger kind of memo I wrote about affordable housing strategies in a comprehensive way.

But at that meeting, I did get the Housing Advisory Committee to say that they were in agreement with that approach.

So I will bring this up again under other business to see if we have agreement on getting that on an agenda after this budget cycle.

We're not ready to do that now, and I understand that.

Any other comments?

No?

Okay.

So we'll take a break until 8.15.

I just want to say thank you.

.

I'm

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I'm

Good evening, Mayor Walker, Vice Mayor Hill, City Manager, all of you City Council.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Jennifer McKeever, the chair of the Charlottesville City School Board.

I want to introduce Dr. Rosa Atkins and Kim Powell, Jim Henderson's here, Renee Hoover,

Dr. King, Dr. Kendra King, and then our school board representatives Lisa Torres, James Bryant, Leah Puryear, Sherry Kraft, and me.

So thank you for having us today and we are delighted to introduce our 2020 fiscal 2020 school budget.

So we are just kind of just highlight some of the what the investments that you all have made in the schools over the past several years have really led to

some great progress including our excellent on-time graduation rate of 92.6%.

We're very pleased with that and want to continue to grow that rate.

We've also expanded our honors options courses so that if you are in a language arts class in ninth grade, you have the option to take the honors and you are with all sorts of

your peers in that class studying the same material.

Our family engagement and outreach efforts, you'll see we've also asked for additional support for that this year, but because of the growth and excellent work of our family engagement coordinator, we really feel like we need to duplicate her because the work is really outstanding.

She is doing great things with advising parents about how to approach a parent-teacher conference

She's engaging parents at the bus stop.

It's just been really extraordinary to see how that redoubles into the classroom for our students.

Of course, our suspension rates are declining.

We are committed, of course, to equity that takes many forms in this particular budget.

And then we also have our trauma, which we call social-emotional learning and mental wellness.

We have trauma-informed classrooms at two schools, three different classrooms.

It's really extraordinary to see the efforts that the teachers and the students and being able to focus on learning instead of the kind of hierarchy of needs at that point that we can meet them where they are and then they can actually learn from there.

And it's an extraordinary process and an extraordinary commitment that the city has made.

to these students to get them to where they need to be academically.

We're very excited about the Clark School of Modernization.

You guys, I think, saw the video at our work session.

It just really makes a difference to see the modern classroom and how that affects our children.

And we're very excited that the CIP for next year supports modernization of Jackson Via.

I just think that's a really great initiative.

that we want to thank council for all of these initiatives and supporting the schools as you have.

Our commitments for this particular budget is to attract and retain the best teachers.

As you know, we have a nationwide student nationwide teacher shortage and we have a very

We're seeking to hire the best teachers, particularly teachers of color.

And we have very significant pressures on our teacher in our division.

And so to remain competitive, you'll see that what we have asked for in this budget includes a raise that we hope will support additional investments in our teachers so that we can keep

keep them to come to our division.

So we're also this budget also plans for growth and we also kind of looking ahead are trying the school board is seeking to reconfigure a plan that has been on the books since 2009 at least.

which involves creating a centralized preschool and then a unified middle school of sixth through eighth grade and then the fifth grade returning to the elementary school.

We are, we just believe that students, this vision that the school board has will serve all of our students better and particularly will serve the students in the middle years because it's such a tricky

age, and having less transitions during those particular years, the research just shows that that supports students better.

And with those relationships over the years, the sixth or eighth years, like just having the two-year schools really is an impediment to achievement for our children, and having one

Unified Middle School, we believe will serve all of our students.

So that's just kind of looking ahead, what we're hoping as we move forward, that is the vision that the school board wants to see implemented sooner rather than later, although it has been on the table for a long time.

So this budget, we're very proud, is an opportunity

The main thrust of this, of course, is the non-discretionary expenses, the contracts, and the health insurance is always a huge increase.

So that's a lot of the non-discretionary funding is there.

But then what we're really proud of is to move eligible teachers up one step plus 3.75%, so basically an average salary increase of 5%.

and then move other eligible staff up about 4%.

But the living wage for custodial instructional assistance and nutrition staff is where the heart of the school board really lie.

We really want to see that happen for our staff.

And the living wage and our wage package for teachers and maintaining our benefits helps us to retain and attract

quality teachers.

So we are keeping the health insurance increase at 8 percent.

You know, we're just going to make some tweaks at that.

And then some of the budget changes that we have are requesting on this page is continuation of grant-funded programs and that these were formally funded by grants that we are asked that we, in order to maintain the level of services, this is

what we need to support that, including the AVID program.

All of these support our students who need support the most, and so we're really proud to continue that support.

The other school-based program supports and improvements include that trauma-informed classroom that I was talking about was adding like the SEAL, which is the Social Emotional Learning class at Clark, adding an IA there.

The request for the Pre-K to Family Connections Facilitator is that kind of duplicating that engagement person.

And increasing tuition reimbursement is another one of those areas about supporting and retaining our teachers that is to double the amount of I can't remember the

Yeah, for IA's.

OK, so it's basically to support professional development for our staff.

And then the rest of the teachers are basically all due to enrollment projections.

And then we are also increasing both the daily rate for substitutes and the long term rates for substitutes.

Again, a very significant issue is having

Quality Substitutes and we're hoping that this will support that effort.

And then budget changes here are mostly just the as school operations like all of these things are needed because our increased usage and reliance on the internet and our kind of computer things which I do not speak that language obviously.

And then based on enrollment projections, we are probably going to, this is just kind of a net.

We're going to have like, we're actually going to be plus two teachers, but this is where we're going to have also one reduction.

So the request from the, the next slide shows our request, which is 3.368421 that we are requesting from the city at this time.

And we were asked to reduce our proposed request by half a million dollars, which is about 500,000.

So we were asked to reduce our request by 500,000.

And as you can see, some of these are really near and dear to our heart, some of the things that we had to take out in order to meet that request.

And some of that was

supporting equity in our schools, including I feel like the math, AVID, and iSTEM teachers in particular, and also the Family Connections materials.

Actually, all of these really affect equity and are things that the superintendent and the school board feel really strongly that we would like to see funded, but we recognize that

Did you have a question?

Yes, so the 3.8 was your, obviously we remember your original request, and now the 3.3, you're just saying that's the delta, like this is the things that we have pulled out to get to that 3.3.

Yes.

I'm just making sure that I was understanding the order.

And you can see our commitment really was to the wages and salaries of our staff, because we, sure, you know.

These would actually also serve our students.

So we're always looking for ways to kind of note that if there was an extra $500,000 around, we would really like to fund an AVID teacher at Buford and a math specialist that goes vertically, lines between Walker and the high school.

And the iSTEM is something that, I don't know,

I have an elementary school child, he's in second grade, and every day when he comes home after iSTEM, it is dramatic.

He tells me exactly what he's done, and every student in that school has an opportunity to take that class.

And we don't have one at every elementary school, so they travel, which is fine, but to really support that engagement, I think our goal is to have one at every

at every school.

But we'll get there.

We have a lot of other priorities, too, and we understand that.

Good evening.

I made this graph.

So this is simply, it takes the details that you saw on the previous slides

and it breaks it down by percentages and subtotals.

I know that when we've met with you previously, I think the first time during the workshop, I caught some of you trying to do the math and add up those sections and I was like, oh, I should have put subtotals on there.

So anyway, this just gives you the, when you're looking at the overall ask, how much is in non-discretionary expenses, how much is in compensation and so forth, you'll see 70 percent of the request is associated with the compensation actions.

When you look at that total of 3.8, you're looking at the total budget change, including changes in state revenue and other revenue sources.

Number does not reflect the request of the city at this point.

I'm just trying to establish, this is representative, just this incremental thing, because there's a whole other big part of the budget we're talking about.

This is what we refer to as the changes document.

So every year when we work with the board, we certainly discuss the overall budget, and that slide is coming up.

So this is the overall budget summary and I think that is the changes document that Ms. Powell was referring to.

Yes.

This just gives the grand, grand total of the budget.

It's important that everyone understand that the total funding that's reflected in our annual financial report and so forth.

The general fund represents our core operations, special revenue funds,

our money that come in for a specific purpose and they go out for a specific purpose so it's enterprise funds like our school nutrition program it's also any type of grant because all of those monies come in for specific purposes and so we have to take any type of enterprise fund or grant program and those are accounted for under special revenues

This is still reflecting the 3.8, which then you showed us how you got to the 3.3.

Are you clear?

Okay, because on our page, let's see, page 5, the, no.

So you can see on page four, state and Medicaid is going to add half a million dollars to our budget and the local other is like subtracting 75,000 so that equals 3.3.

Yes, because the numbers are similar, the state is just creating confusion, and when the constituents are reaching out to us, I'm confused personally as to whether they're really, I mean, I know everyone wants more, but are we showing support for the amount that you're putting in front of us, or are they still showing support for the amount you put in front of us a month and a half ago?

Well, the only thing I want to clarify is you make a good point that $500 differential, it really is... $100,000, yeah.

Right.

But you guys are already planning on that today allocation, even when you met with us on the 3.8.

So a month and a half ago, we were talking about 4.2.

Okay.

And now we're talking about 3.8, but 3.3 coming from the city.

Right.

Okay.

And again, you all have been very generous with those schools.

We really appreciate your investments in the schools.

We want to continue that trajectory.

That 3.3 is the budget that you are asking for our support for.

Yes.

Just trying to differentiate that between the four.

Well, I would, yes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

We are asking for the 3.3 million.

However, if there is additional revenue, and we do know that there are limited funds, if there is additional revenue, we did cut the 500,000 from the budget.

So if that could be replaced, we would welcome that.

But we do understand after talking with Mr. Murphy that our request is 3.3.

It depends on the school because in our elementary schools it depends on the percentage of free and reduced lunch.

It also depends on the class size reduction formula that comes to us from the state but somewhere right around 18, 19 students we do go up to 22 in some of our grades and in some of our schools.

I was on a trip to, I was in California last week and I was, I went to a meeting with some, with the members of the teacher's unit.

It's amazing what's happened out there.

They had an average size of 45 students in classes in the LA, in the LA school district and they were just cutting it to 39 as a result of this, of the latest.

Well, the State Department of Education, our standards of quality will allow us to have our classes up to 35 students.

Wow.

It's very nice to see you all again and thank you for the presentation.

That's correct.

So the local composite index of ability to pay is adjusted every two years and so we're now in the second year of the biennium with this new local composite index

And Charlottesville's index moved, and I didn't include any of that material in this presentation, but around 2%.

And so in terms of dollars, we originally lost around $350,000, $400,000 in state revenue because of that movement in the LCI.

So you think about a one or two percentage change in that number, and you think, well, what's one or two percent?

But it does cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in state revenue, so we'll look

for the index will move again for the next budget, not fiscal year 20, but for 2021 we'll be looking at that index again and seeing the impact that it will have on us.

And if I could ask, the local composite index is a measure of a community's capacity to pay.

That is correct.

And Ms. Galvin, one of the things that we're dealing with in this budget is at the end of last year when our composite index did decrease, so what the city is expected to contribute increased, we were funded $300,000 less than we had anticipated.

There was a whole harmless clause in the budget that was removed at the last moment.

So therefore, our funding was decreased by a little over 300,000.

Thank you.

And the amount that we contribute automatically increases based on that.

The 40%.

You want me to cut off my time?

So you all recall from the joint work session that by formula we would have contributed 2.2 million dollars I believe for this budget to the schools and at the time of the joint work session we were just under 3.1 million like 3.08.

I know we'll have further discussion on Thursday about this, but thank you for the report.

We'd also like to thank Council with the renovation at Clark.

You contributed $1 million for that renovation, and then you will contribute another $1 million for Jackson Byatt with our CIP.

Thank you.

Well, thank you for all your work.

Capital specifically, but the three million were, okay, where did, some folks have asked me about that, where did that estimate of that cost come from?

So those would, that is an estimate of the funds required to get through a pre-construction which would involve design, preliminary testing that's required, any type of geo-testing, surveying, those types of testing.

All right.

Ah, right there.

Hello.

Yeah, let me just start before we move through the slides by saying that, you know, I feel like the budget document is a real expression of both the council and the community's priorities and there's a lot packed in here and it is difficult to get it all in and, you know, we're going to have quite a bit of discussion about revenues, I'm sure, in order to get to where we need to go.

And while I get to stand here and talk about it, and a lot of the final decisions were mine, I have to acknowledge the work of Assistant City Manager Leslie Beauregard, our budget team with Ryan Davidson and Chrissy Hammel, Chris Cullinan, and support from some of our constitutional officers, Todd Divers and Jason Vandiver.

Let's go ahead and talk about our budget.

So this slide is to tell you we do great work on the budget every year and have for some time.

We get an award all the time, you know, and I expect that we will again this year.

You know, this is a slide to talk with you all about, you know, putting that 5% into perspective.

People talk about the growth in the general fund budget.

You see that over the past, you know, 12, 13 years, this is about middle of the road as far as growth in the budget goes.

It has had some up and down years.

I'm sure it wasn't a fun year to approve the budget.

There is some good news out there in the world and we'll talk about that particularly with regard to hotels.

restaurants and other things, but we have more jobs in our 10-mile boundary than ever.

We have the lowest unemployment in the state.

Vacancy rates are really low and continue to be low both citywide and downtown for commercial properties.

and we have a lot of new developments happening, big developments downtown.

There are some additional developments on the big corridors also.

You know the big budget themes we've talked about and what our focus is, affordable housing, preserving and enhancing quality services, investing in employees, focusing on organizational efficiencies, supporting the schools and the strategic plan and your priorities.

You know, there's lots of little bits of this pie.

This is basically to reinforce with folks that, you know, about three quarters of the money comes from local taxes and that's the combined, you know, effect of things like lodging, real estate, meals, et cetera.

So we get to real estate and you'll see that the budget, as has been discussed in the media, is built around the concept that although council endorsed advertising going to 97 cents, that's not something we took advantage of in the revenue sense in this budget.

So there's about $1.6 million that could be used should you decide that real estate is something that you believe should be in the budget.

and I'll talk at some length about why real estate was not increased starting with this slide here and so you need to understand that real estate already went up many percentage points and so there is new revenue coming into the pot and particularly as we talk about a community that's focused on affordable housing and an average residential increase at 8.7%

I want council and the public to understand there is some impact already on people's budget and pocketbooks, right?

And so what we're trying to show in this slide and unpack a little bit is, you know, even at a house that was only assessed at $150,000, taxes would have gone up.

or on average $10 every month or more, another $13 a month if we change the tax rate.

Of course, you know, when the house is worth $600,000, it would have gone up $45 or, you know, $58, you know, depending on whether you did it, the point being that people's

pocketbooks are already being hit and when we compare that to what would mean to out of your expenditures pay more in meals there's a drastic difference so next chart please so you know you all are aware that part of what we're doing on the expenditures for meals is talking about these deciles that are in the compute consumer

expenditure survey through the Bureau of Labor and Statistics that came out about four or five months ago.

We tried to parse out all city properties into deciles, as that does, and so, you know, this reinforces kind of what the chart said that I just talked about in a different way, basically saying that when you raise taxes, the minimum, it would be 230 up to 1238 on top of

the tax increase which was the 8.7% already.

This is just talking about, you know, why real estate isn't in here right now and to talk a little bit about the gap going forward, we give this slide where, you know, they kind of veer apart every year.

and one of the reasons that happens is we're usually pretty conservative projecting you know one or two percent growth at the most and sometimes we grow a little bit more than that sometimes not quite as much in a year like this you look at

We're adding new debt, $850,000 every year, like a new mortgage payment of $850,000 if you can imagine such a thing.

that is the equivalent of as we go into future years raising real estate a penny every year.

It's one of the reasons we held back this year.

This is not a gap that is showing big new things in the CIP.

It's just carrying out the current plan.

It doesn't include the reconfiguration of schools.

That's a whole new conversation that's going to need to happen with future councils.

based on what you learn from the $3 million you're planning to invest in the design and planning for the schools.

We don't talk about operational requests in here.

They're really unknown, but we do know the operational budget does grow on occasion.

And, you know, this gap does grow over time, the next three or four years, to about $6 million.

Meals.

So I would remind folks that the last time we changed meals was in 16, just so you see that.

I know that it does suit people's purposes at that time to talk about how it's a 25% increase or a 20% increase right now.

I just say,

It's a penny on the dollar and it is quite different than 25 or 20% when we get into the actual math behind what happens when you pay your bill.

I would say also that these are taxes that are collected after the price of your meal.

And so it's just collected and handed over.

It doesn't impact the price of anybody's meal in any form or fashion.

We created this chart to show a couple of things.

First of all, this 6% meals tax

still has us situated quite fairly with our other cities, right?

We're still below the median as far as that goes and we do think that it is a fair tax that people have the capacity to pay.

And so imagine that you went out for a sandwich.

What we're saying is that staff believes that your current bill on that $10 sandwich and a Coke, instead of being $11.03 after taxes, would be 10 cents more.

If you decided to buy the trout at Maya, we believe you'd spend 20 cents more, 22, because I think it was $22, right?

If you were to take your family out for sandwiches, 50 cents more.

and it's a big night for your family a dollar more.

I think that, you know, the simple psychology behind when you go out to have a meal, you're deciding it's discretionary, you're going to pay that dollar and the fact is you're deciding about the price of the meal more so than whether there will be 20 cents extra on tax.

So, I don't know that we've ever in these discussions over a couple of different fiscal years

heard any research that said people had decided where to go based on the tax add-on.

Meals tax rates return.

Part of the other reason this is in here is that when we look at expenditures out of people's income and we compare that to back to real estate is that you see that in the folks who make the least and also expend the least

You know, we think that this is only going to impact them by $1.25 a month, right?

That's drastically different than if they're homeowners and we just reassess them.

It's drastically different than whether they are renters and their landlord decides to pump their rent.

And I just want to say that, you know,

I never had a rent increase from somebody that was, you know, $11 when I was renting.

It was $25 or $50, right?

People tend to have these round numbers on rent and I think that that's what's likely to happen in the market based on some of our real estate increases.

And you see down the line,

Even for people who are at the top incomes in this survey by the Bureau and Labor Statistics, it only impacts their budget by $6 or $7 a month.

Those folks own homes more than likely that are probably paying at least $50 or $60 more per month based on our real estate tax assessment.

So it can be many-fold difference in the impact of choosing meals over real estate.

So we wanted to add here just a little additional information about obviously this is discretionary.

People do it.

I'm not saying that nobody does it and you could rule this out completely, but it is a choice that people make.

We always require people to pay their taxes, right?

And they do get passed on to renters.

Council?

I'm just curious as to the issue that was brought up about the processing of the credit card that the county somehow extracts that

Yeah, it's the first time I've heard it tonight, but I imagine that, you know... No, I'm pretty sure it's credit cards on the... On both.

Visa or MasterCard, when you swipe the card, the vendor pays, let's say, a 2% fee on your $50 bill, and so that's an extra dollar that they pay that's invisible to you when you buy the meal.

And I think that that's what they're referring to, what the county's policy is.

I should probably mention, you know, one last reason that isn't on the slide that we built this budget around meals rather than real estate was that we have data that shows that 35% of meals tax is paid by people who are in our local residence.

And so unlike the real estate tax, it was less burden locally.

Lodging tax, we've talked a little bit about this.

Over time, we know that we'd still be situated right in the middle of the pack here with our peer localities.

It is a small difference in the overall bill.

I believe most consumer choices in our region

are made on proximity to walkability and being able to walk to UVA or walk to the downtown mall.

And that's why Charlottesville revenues, despite the chart that's been given to us by Mr. Van Dorn, have continued to go up.

That's not to speak to occupancy, right?

Because occupancy can still go down because we added almost 400 rooms last year, right?

I didn't take a whole lot of the economics classes, but I do know about supply and demand, and I do know that it did have an impact on what they talk about at CACVB a lot, which is revpar, right?

And so their average per room is down a little bit, but

We have continued to grow revenue in this area.

We have not had any dip.

I know that the county has had an actual revenue dip in lodging.

First of all, thank you.

Yeah, no dip.

So how do we get this message out?

I know tonight is the first night.

We're going through everything.

We've seen your Facebook Live.

We know you're getting it out for those who didn't hear.

But I mean, seriously, because many of the individuals who were here earlier, they've gone.

They've left.

They didn't hear this.

And so be it.

And I'm not sure if they will come on Thursday.

But how do we?

Without disagreeing with our friends behind me, I'm sure that the restaurants will be back, right?

So I think that there will be plenty of time to share that message again.

And you know, we want to work productively with them.

Small businesses here are important to Charlottesville's economy.

And I would just point out that by their own presentation to council,

There's exactly the same number of restaurants as there was and you know why?

Because there's nowhere else to put a restaurant in Charlottesville and every time one goes away something else pops in there, right?

So I do think that the restaurant industry is quite healthy in Charlottesville and our revenues continue to grow.

If we went backwards

and looked at the slide about meals revenue, you'd see that we revised it in the year we're in and we revised it even during the last two months that we've been talking to you about the possibility of tax increases because we know that it wasn't going to be 2.2 or 2.3 million dollars per penny, it was going to be 2.4 plus.

So that's because people are out buying meals.

Okay, personal property tax.

You know, this is going up a little bit.

The economy's been a little bit better.

People are buying new cars.

Sales and use tax, also slight increase moving up a little bit.

It adds some revenue to the projections that allowed us to balance the budget.

So this is basically a slide to talk about where does the money go.

You'll see that the largest expenditure is, of course, to the schools, then to public safety and justice.

That includes both our internal services, but also some major expenditures out to jail and detention, which totals another, what, $7 million a year.

And then Healthy Families and Communities follows that.

along with infrastructure and transportation, many others blended in.

The strategic plan is something we try and continue to revisit and so we do represent that for you both on council agendas but also in the budget presentation so I just want to quickly talk about how that ties in here.

So affordable housing, you know, this budget talks about $3 million for public housing, the supplemental rental assistance program each year, the housing rehabilitation, and a total of $5.9 million for friendship court.

Later I'll talk about what's not in there.

I do want to point out that

There's a lot of emails floating around that you've received that talk about give $9 million, $9 million.

Well, they had a little bit different way of spending it than we did.

But, in fact, this budget is proposing from staff $10.3 million in investment.

We'll talk about why those choices were made a little bit as we go forward.

So something that the mayor's already referred to and that Commissioner Divers has worked really hard on is to talk about that I think what almost 70% of houses in the city are under $375,000 and so this had would have some applicability to all those houses as far as tax relief goes but to create these new tiers in here possibly even a tier of full relief depending on your income

and it would cost about $285,000 to do that on top of what your investments have been in the past.

Race and equity, certainly a very important issue in the city and important to me.

First thing I did was convene an advisory work group on our organization.

We talk a lot about other organizations and how they're doing and I'm expecting that in the next couple of months we'll be able to report out on some changes that we'll recommend to you all and perhaps to the new city manager.

You know, there's lots of ways that we're invested in race and equity, affordable housing is one of them, but also the minority business program, workforce development, Office of Human Rights, the list is long and it's one of the reasons that I'm happy to be here working for the city.

Workforce development, economic development, you know, this is really something that we've been working on ever since the growing opportunities report.

I think it pays great dividends, moves people into living wage jobs, creates a lot of partnership with both places of business and educational institutions and it's a real strength of what we're doing here in the city.

There are a couple things that are new positions in here, not nearly as many as our staff would have liked.

I'll talk about that in a moment.

But I will say that one of them is a position in risk management, will serve the entire city and will provide some training and policy work, making sure that we have best practice in the way of safety in all and city environments.

A security manager, which we decided to house in the police department, also a city-wide position, and that is really to look at security throughout the city, to talk about building safety, to look at our policies and practices, some of our event planning,

All of this is really important and we've been convening a committee on safety and emergency for about a year and a half now and it is enough work that we need to staff it with somebody at this point.

One of the things the budget does is continue to invest in our employees.

There is over two and a half million dollars in employee investment.

We do take the next step in living wage.

We've been on this journey a little longer than some other folks and so we're recommending that we take that next step, get to $15 an hour from $14.40.

That is a movement of about 4.17%.

I didn't create that note out of the air in the COLA for the other employees.

And I just want to say that we're aware as we look at our folks and compare them out in the marketplace.

While I've talked a lot with you how they've fallen behind, for example, in police, that has become true in more and more departments, and this is really just the first step.

We need to continue to do more to talk with you all about where people are placed in the market.

We need to talk about all public safety with regard to

their compensation.

And we need to do that as far as total compensation goes, right?

We give some rich retirement benefits, but in recruiting today's workers, maybe they're not planning on being here until retirement, so we're not as competitive talking about how great it's going to be in 20 years.

So we need to think about that as we move forward.

One thing is that because of some good cost experience, we're not having to pass on any healthcare premiums this year.

This is different than the presentation you heard from the school system or some other localities.

So we are quite lucky in that regard.

Of course we do a lot in the way of wellness.

New online benefits and self-service.

This is really just a new program.

This was talked about in the efficiency study.

We're trying to be more effective in the way we get people enrolled and have them interact with their benefits in a more effective way.

City schools.

So I talked with you all briefly during the school presentation about how we got to the 3.37 or 3.368 million.

We're really doing all we can as a staff to support the schools and their mission.

We know it's an important priority to both the council and the community, but in some ways we had to make a lot of choices in this budget.

And so in a very collaborative effort, Dr. Atkins and I talked about, you know, the management of that half a million dollars and had agreed

that that was something that they'd be able to manage, understand their advocacy tonight.

So, in the CIP, basically, you know, we have another, what, six and a half million dollars dedicated to the schools.

Some of it, those big classroom changes that will happen as they do each year over a million dollars.

Some of it the big preconstruction planning that we need to do so that if council in the future says we want to do this reconfiguration and it's going to cost somewhere between 55 and 80 million dollars to deal with these two facilities then it will really be grounded in new data.

So the strategic initiatives, this is just a little highlight to talk about.

You've done a lot of great things with the fund that you have over the last several years.

And in particularly in the last year, you've dedicated over a million dollars that you had in that budget.

In looking at all of the variables out there, we did not add any new funding to the council strategic initiative fund.

However, we still have just under $600,000 at your discretion in these funds right now.

I wanted to tell you that Mr. Vandiver is going to, I believe I might have said this

in a public meeting before, but for the purposes of the budget, I want you to know that we'll be realizing this cost of DMV select.

It's going to be a great service in the city hall lobby where you'll be able to do a limited number of the DMV services here rather than out on Pan Tops.

We are the second busiest DMV at the state and I can tell you from experience you can sit there for a while.

Support services manager.

at NDS is a position that was recommended in the efficiency study.

The assistant director Missy Creasy does a tremendous job in NDS but she also has 15 direct reports which is kind of outside any norm in this line of business and this will help greatly by taking some of that burden away.

Stormwater operations is going to move out into the utilities fund, it was in the general fund before, be absorbed in the current rate structure and we'll get some good service and coordination out of that move.

One of the things that's in here in the way of new positions, and I'd like to see more of these, but is to transition four relief drivers into full time.

And we're looking for, you know, consistent drivers out on the road not having, you know, messages about this route's canceled today or we're going to have four routes instead of five.

And the fact is that I think when we start having this discussion, there is 40 to 41 full-time drivers, right?

And that accounts for just over 1,600 drive hours a week.

Well, they have, in fact, I think over 2,400 hours a week of drive time.

And so for me, I looked at that just on the efficiency

I have to find in little bits and pieces with relief folks, and maybe not in little bits and pieces, maybe they work a lot already, right?

This, you know, a third of our scheduling capacity, right?

And I'll just say, while I was never a transit director, I did run 24-hour care facilities and we tried to run ours at more like 85 to 90 percent was taken up by the full-time people because even when you do that,

They get sick.

They take vacation.

They get training.

All those things happen.

And, you know, I think we need to really change this over time.

Four is what we thought we could afford for right now.

We'd like to continue to see this grow in the future.

I believe that we are trying to get, yes, yeah, we are trying to get this up to 14 more over time, and that's before any route additions, which, as you know, there is some discussion about that going forward.

The more drive hours that we put out on the road the more we're going to want to see this go up in the future.

Outside of nonprofit agencies, you know some budget years we spend a lot of time talking about this in work sessions.

This is a frozen year.

I'm not anticipating this is going to be in the budget a whole lot.

We're going to be back in front of you at the end of April, beginning of May.

Ms. Thomas is polling you about the date for the work session, so we'll be talking about this process for the future years.

One thing that we are looking to fund here because you're funding it now is you launched with some monies that a previous council appropriated for diversion this therapeutic docket which is in the Charlottesville General District Court.

Yeah, I don't know if you were on council when they appropriated the $99,000, but you did take part of that $99,000, $55,000 to launch the program in the year that we're in.

So agencies evaluated by Office of Budget and Performance Management that aren't really ABRT because they're more either quasi-governmental or contractual agencies.

There are some increases out there.

You can see that some of them are large.

However, there are some decreases in there because we do have less share of the inmates at the regional jail.

We do have less share of the inmates at the juvenile detention center.

And relative to our partners at the city and county, we are having less of a share of the overall calls into 911.

Not that we had less calls.

a big uptick in calls and so our share is less.

So as I said before in a different section of this, debt service is going up about 850,000 every year, big new payment.

The general fund will be contributing 1.46 million to the CIP and of course part of this is from your year-end appropriation that we did in December.

Some big highlights from the CIP, you know, this accounts for I think we, maybe 29 to 30 million of the 35.

And a lot of the other stuff is like paving and maintenance kind of things.

But you can see that there's some big items in here.

I don't see, you know, like the future general district court.

This is just 2020.

Those are out further.

This is just in the year that we're in, which is a big change from previous years.

So, this is what people really like to talk about at this time of year, what didn't make it in.

The school's full operating request.

So this is something that had been studied and I believe the design was put in by previous councils and our facilities folks have worked on it for a while.

It is the modernization of those areas, changing the inside of the station, but I believe also some changes in the structure of the station to accommodate larger trucks.

It's a bonded project on the capital improvement program and it would be projected to be completed, or the expenses are all loaded into 2020.

Excuse me, does that mean like the debt service, is there any notion with the debt service, which is what we then pay in the operating budget?

Yeah.

We could certainly provide it Thursday night.

You know, I mean, imagining that a lot of times when you take the debt, it's like what, two and a half, two and a quarter of what you're looking at there.

So let's say it's $9 million over 20 years, $450,000 a year ballpark, but that would be a guess and we'll confirm on Thursday.

All right.

What's not in here?

So the school's full operating request is not in here based on my discussions with the superintendent and basically

in understanding that we ourselves weren't putting everything in here that our departments had requested either.

It's not that we ever asked anybody to make any cuts that we weren't making also.

Obviously, school reconfiguration council did decide that for now what's in the CIP is the $3 million.

This is for a future council to decide what goes in here for the reconfiguration.

There's been a whole lot of discussion tonight and I bet there'll be some more about the affordable housing fund and the flexible dollars.

So for me, there's some language that's out there about we zeroed out things.

In the past, you know, the year we're in, I think there's $3.9 million in investment in affordable housing in the year we're in.

We're taking it from 3.9 to 10.3, so I'm not sure that we zeroed anything out.

We may have been a little more prescriptive than some people cared for, but that is not exactly accurate to say anything went away.

Is there a grant fund that anybody can apply to?

Not right now.

It was my opinion that if council wanted to add that in based on the Planning Commission recommendation or the feedback from citizens that there was going to be ample opportunity to discuss that through the work sessions.

I think you heard tonight reiterated several times that there's two big concerns and they would be my concerns too.

Where is home ownership in this and where is homelessness?

Both very important.

On the home ownership front, Council's been generous on the home ownership.

allocations in the past three years, nearly one and a half million dollars during that time and we still have almost 1.1 million dollars of it left to give out specifically to Habitat.

So, you know, the CIP is a one-year budget and a five-year plan.

And so, did I think it was urgent and important to put in more funding for 2020 based on all of the needs that are out there?

No, it's true that it's not put in, but I do think that there are still ample resources to fund another year of affordable housing for home ownership.

The homelessness is a slightly different issue.

It hit us at a funny time in the budget process.

I was literally approached about it on the day that it was already public and we were presenting to the Planning Commission.

And while those discussions are advancing, and I will be the first one to advocate, I stood here and told the Planning Commission.

I believe in SROs, right?

I think the single greatest thing we did for homelessness in this community is the crossings.

But in order for an SRO to happen here, there needs to be a clearly identified parcel.

And in the discussions I've had with folks on this, the parcel has changed at least three times where it's going to be.

And also on this front, what's that?

Well, as of last week, I was told it would be on Avon.

I've heard it was going to be on Sixth Street.

I've heard it was going to be other places.

So, I'm happy to... Yeah, we'll have that discussion.

Yeah.

That all said, the other thing that is absolutely critical that is a non-starter for bringing in an SRO is a commitment of the vouchers that will be needed for the residents.

I've taken up this topic with Mr. Duffield several times and you know it really would take a vote by the Housing Authority board in order to allocate those vouchers so when I hear about a project that might build beds and need 50 vouchers for people that's exciting to me as a homelessness advocate and somebody who served on the TJAG board for a long time but

For FY20 funding only, which is my concern in presenting you with a budget, I don't think it's ready for the million dollar request or the two million dollar request that may be coming.

And it's only that reason that it's not in the budget today.

So if we were here a year from today, I would hope that we'd be talking about where it is and that there's vouchers.

But for this budget only, those are the two big topic areas and I think that one needs to wait

and there are resources for the other.

You know, our departments throughout all the funds, general funds and otherwise, ask for a lot of things in their budget, new requests.

And there's 5.3 million dollars worth of those new requests that we did not put in.

In fact, on their operating budgets, what they originally submitted,

because we said we have to be a part of this process too.

We cut $1.39 million from those operating budgets.

And we talk about the CIP and, you know, what's in there and I just want to remind folks what's not in there, right?

So while the CIP is the largest it's ever been,

There's also almost $110 million worth of projects that staff thought were important or neighborhoods thought were important that we couldn't put in, right?

There's only so many things you can pay for at any one given time.

Now, if you want to add to that the $55 million, you know, and get us to $165 million worth of projects we can't build, I just want to put into perspective that while we're spending a lot in the CIP, there's still lots of other work that people have identified that would be worthy and important work to do.

So we will have lots of meetings.

I don't know if we need to say what the dates are, but starting with this Thursday night.

And I think there are some tweaks I would want to reinforce with the public.

Council is certainly aware of this.

There was some feedback and we wanted to make sure we maximized counselor availability.

The work sessions did change from the very earliest times that we started talking about this.

It's all accurate on the city website now.

But, you know, the 7th and 14th have always been there.

The 16th is a new date.

It's a Saturday.

It's 2 p.m. Yeah, 16th is 2 p.m.

It is going to get changed right while we're standing here.

Well you know we've been hitting the median on all this other stuff.

Work sessions are a little later than they have been in the past, six to eight instead of five to seven on the two Thursdays that are coming up here.

The budget forum is happening on the Saturday for the first time, I think, in probably 10 years, right, to get some different folks an opportunity to give voice.

The next time that we're here at council, we'll have a public hearing on the budget.

I imagine there will be many signed up.

And then on the 19th,

We'll have another work session to hopefully get close to wrap up.

We have held, there were originally two dates that next week, the 27th and 28th.

We're holding the 27th in case we have more work to do.

The 28th is off your calendar right now.

We also had the 4th of April originally.

That is also off your calendar.

So we're hoping that April 1st we'll have the second public hearing on the budget.

and that Monday we will have one of those what are usually five minute meetings to approve the budget.

So that's the process going forward.

Just one point of clarification for my colleagues in regards to the homelessness piece.

There will be more information provided to you all this week specifically in regards to budgeting as well as some alternatives for funding streams and for those who are listening this is specifically in regards to

The potential idea of a Crossings II in which would provide 50 units for those who are chronically homeless and 30 units for those below the 40% AMI, 50% AMI, excuse me.

So you all will get that information this week.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy, outstanding job.

That's how I read it the first time too and I lost some sleep and then I realized it was an increase of $35,000.

Okay, good.

The delta was 35.

Okay, so that was just the way it was written?

So the correct way to understand this then is the City Council's budget increased by $35,000.

Yes.

to 609, 683.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, I will just say if you two were confused, then the public probably was confused.

I don't have any further questions.

We have a lot to talk about.

Thursday.

And I think we can think about this and be ready for questions and discussion Thursday.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All right.

We were so close.

Can we just do the one eye?

Five minute break.

Ten.

She's the mayor.

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