City Council Work Session (Boards and Commissions), 4-7PM   10/6/2020

How is everybody this afternoon?

Welcome to the Charlottesville City Council Work Session on Boards and Commissions, October 6, 2020.

If you'd like to download the packet and agenda, you can go to Charlottesville.gov slash agenda.

We got Kenya and Max here today, wow.

Hey.

So we really got the 18th.

She got back up.

Well, I've gone into this technology where you can send zaps through people's computers.

Oh, wow.

All right, on that note, I call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Walker?

Present.

Ms.

Magill?

Yes, I'm here.

Ms.

Here.

And I'll turn it over, thank you.

And I'll turn it over first to Counselor Hill, just to go over the schedule for today.

One second, let me just pull that last thing up.

So we are gonna start off, we have from four till, what time did we go till?

Seven.

Seven.

Seven.

Oh my gosh, in my head, I think I told my husband six.

We're gonna start out with just reviewing the current set of boards and commissions that we have and evaluating their status, considering council appointed bodies specifically, and among them, those that have legal obligation to continue to maintain

and then scope of the applications that we seem to receive for some of these boards and commissions and thinking about the effectiveness of that engagement as well as the use of staff time and just maintaining those outside of the COVID world, but just in general.

And then we'll transition to the composition and the council charge for boards and commissions, you know, considering

of these bodies, you know, what, what are we able to do to work with them most effectively and the more formal role that council may or may not take with each body's charge.

That's kind of considering what's on our plate as well as what's on the commission's plates.

And then it's kind of building into then let's looking at specifically wherever we've decided these first two sections.

And if we've done any adjustments of the boards and commissions, we want to continue to maintain.

What does it look like to support those boards and commissions during the rest of the pandemic as we see fit?

Because obviously it's creating additional work on our staff.

And I will just briefly add,

Good afternoon, Mayor Walker and Councilors.

I hope that as you go through today, obviously, it's important to keep in mind that the boards and commissions there are, as Councilor Hill stated, some that are legally required.

But I would just offer that I hope you think about the boards and commissions that are not legally required

How do they assist you as decision makers?

I think that's really important to keep in mind when you have this discussion is that these boards and commissions that aren't legally required, they're really set up to assist you all as decision makers in

taking facts and delivering recommendations based on those facts to you so that ultimately when these decisions come before you, you're receiving counsel and advice from these boards and commissions.

And that's really what the only opening comment I would have is that I hope that you all think about your decision-making process and how these particular bodies help you

Thank you, Mr. Boyer.

So we're only having, okay, I thought we had public, I didn't review this before, so I thought we had public comment at the beginning.

Yeah, so, you know, I think council shared just a summary of, the public also had just a summary of the boards and commissions that council establishes, and then followed by that summary with the council's information that we have is just the one-pager that kind of comes along whenever we make our decisions on boards and commissions that

talks about the show is just the composition of the board and where there might be current vacancies, also highlights if there's any counselors that sit on that board.

And so we can, you know, those are all in alphabetical order afterwards, but they do include both council and regional boards that we're a part of.

And so to Mr. Blair's point, I think we have to recognize that number of these are asterisked because they are legally required.

And so of those, I guess my other question then, Mr. Blair, is do we have any flexibility on the size of those boards or the charge or all those things are pretty prescriptive?

I think there's some leeway, but I think that's probably your better course of action at this point is you could come back to that.

I mean, if you wanted to make an adjustment, perhaps in the number of board members or commission members.

And we have a whole other page that are non-council established, but we have people that we might appoint to those boards to represent the city.

But those are also, in my view, out of scope for this conversation.

Right.

Does anyone disagree with that?

OK.

So if we're looking just at the council-established boards, and we're not looking at those that are legally required,

I'll just quickly just read through them so that we all kind of run the same page.

And some of them I'll have comments on.

The Belmont Bridge Steering Committee, the Charlottesville Area Transit Advisory Board, the Charlottesville Community Scholarship Program, the Historic Resources Committee, the Housing Advisory Committee, the Hydraulic Road Planning Advisory Panel, the Legislative Committee, Measurements and Solutions Group, the Minority Business Commission, the Parking Advisory Panel, Parks and Rec,

Advisory Board, the Piedmont Housing Alliance, Friendship Court Committee, Place Design Task Force, School Capital Projects, Sister Cities Commission, Streets That Work Code Audit Steering Committee, the Tree Commission, Vendor Appeals Board, Water Resources Protection Program Advisory Committee, and the Youth Council.

And I guess the question is, as I'm going through that list and what wasn't in there,

I know that we have had some conversations even recently as last night about the Human Rights Commission.

That's locally legally required because not every jurisdiction has one.

Correct.

And that would be the same then as the PCRB, correct?

So just to, there are a few boards that I just see that I don't even know that they're really active.

So what is the process by which we can kind of sunset those and if there is, so for example, the first one on this list, the Belmont Bridge Steering Committee.

I was a part of that steering committee before I was on council.

I don't, you might have met one time since I've been on council.

I feel that that project is far enough along that wouldn't the council, at that point, does the council kind of take the role of the steering committee when things are that far along and basically at an implementation phase?

And right now, I think it's just administrative.

We're not being asked to have them meet.

There's a website that monitors this project.

The same is true of the hydraulic planning.

Well, I would advise that legally, if the council wants to look at, and again, those are two good examples.

If you feel like that the projects, you know,

Aspect of the projects that you needed advice and expertise on have passed.

If the project's further along, I think it would be appropriate for council to kind of designate those boards and commissions today.

So I am on that committee and they meet very actively at least once a month, often more.

And I just wasn't sure if there was another body that was broader than council appointed body

Yeah, and I should say, I think their understanding of it and how it operates is it is that much.

It's really their body, not ours as a city.

And when I joined it, their board, their citizen, the residents there voted to have me on.

It's not up to us to dissolve it.

No, no.

Well, it sounds like we have one.

There's two of them, is what I'm saying.

It sounds like there's two of them.

We have the Piedmont Housing Alliance Friendship Court Committee, which was a council body,

Yeah, so I think that could probably, based on how that came about and that it's probably should just go on the non-council established list now and that we know we'll have a liaison and tell, but they have been pretty

I'm in control of that.

I know they didn't want me to attend meetings at one point.

I made that very clear.

So they have been very much in control of their board.

Yeah, just on the Advisory Road Advisory Panel, that was a result of hydraulic, here's the small area planning,

activity that was conducted about two, two and a half years ago.

The city, the county and the state funded the project.

The city provided $30,000 and the county provided $30,000.

Thomas Jefferson MPO coordinated the project as a result of the multi-party

involvement.

Each entity provided x number of representative on this particular advisory group.

Myself, somebody from the city council, Kathy Galvin was representing the city council.

The county provided also somebody in my

my counterpart at the county level and somebody from the county commission.

And there were also several people from the public like business owners.

This particular project has been completed.

Thank you, Mr. Iacofuna.

I think in the interest of completeness, we should add that there's a smart scale project that is like all smart scale projects, probably five or six years away from being implemented that is going to affect that intersection as well.

But it's probably if it's six years away from getting funded, it's probably five years away from anybody having to do anything serious at the local level.

So if we want to just tick through, I mean, I know we don't go through all the legal ones, but just to kind of say them out loud and just know, so if we go

The packet that Max put together has just the front page that has the composition of every board, membership terms, purpose, that type of thing.

And so if we wanted to just look through that just to kind of refresh where we're at, we can do that.

And so I'm on that document.

And it's like page 13.

It's like Board of Architecture Review is after Belmont Steering Committee.

Just says when they meet.

the requirements of those folks.

So I just wanted to, as we just tick through it, just kind of know that we've at least given a brush thought about all of these things.

Does that make sense?

So board of architecture review.

Is there any questions or comments there?

It seems fairly straightforward.

Yeah, we, um,

No, no, because we haven't had any up here.

It's part of the international building code that each jurisdiction that complies or uses that to guide its building inspection and operations, you know, we have to have a board of

It's truly an ad hoc group.

Okay.

The next one is the Charlottesville Area Transit Advisory Board.

So I know Lloyd, you've commented that we have this plus we have the other transportation related boards.

Well, this, this is a committee or advisory board.

It certainly has not met during the during the year.

When I first went to a meeting, I had received a notice that it was supposed to meet on, I don't know, the second Wednesday or something like that.

I went over to the MPO office or the Planning District Commission office and they looked at me like I had two heads.

What was I doing there that the committee hadn't met for some time?

And anyway, I know that the county

would like to have some, would like to breathe some life into this in part because they see it as an effort to get CAT, to give them a voice into what CAT is doing and to give them a voice to say, let's get CAT doing more.

Let's look on transit as a regional prospect, both city and county.

How this fits in with various other, like the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee.

I'm not a hundred percent sure I understand what the relationship is supposed to be there.

And there is at least one committee that meets through TJPDC.

I think there's a Regional Transit Planning Committee or something like that.

that clearly is the place for a lot of regional stuff to go on and real planning to be done.

And there's actually some money that they can tap into.

So I don't really know what the purpose of the CAD advisory board is in that whole ecosystem or where it fits uniquely.

But I do know that the county regards it as something that is important to them.

And I would be reluctant to just go ahead and cancel it without

Can I make a suggestion here?

Can I have a... Sure.

After you, ma'am.

You can go ahead.

I was thinking, you're right, Councillor Snook, I do think there are a lot of bodies related to transit and maybe it would be a good idea.

I don't know the agenda yet and obviously UVA is involved as well at the joint meeting on the 28th between the city and county and UVA.

And I can say part, you know, my conversation

Well, there's also a proposal that has been put in for funding to do some regional transit planning, again, through the Planning District Commission.

I'd sent a memo to councilors a couple days ago, reminding them that this was out there and that they were expecting a commitment of, I think it was

So $87,500 over two years is my recollection.

And I think we had agreed, or at least perhaps I'm only remembering a conversation with Dr. Richardson.

I can't be clear right now who had agreed, but seemed like a good idea a couple of months ago when the issue first came up.

If it is to be funded, if we are willing to do all of that,

It would probably be in next year that this planning study would be done.

But just personally, since I think that the long-term future of downtown has to be based upon some notion of transit on a regional basis to bring people downtown, because I think we're going to have more jobs than we have parking spaces, and certainly more jobs than we have places for people to live

within the handy distance.

We're going to have to rely on transit and that's going to require some planning and that would be greatly facilitated by the grant.

So you are correct that was discussed several months ago.

Good.

I could just mention the terms.

We do have five recent appointees to this board, three that were made in June and two that were made in September.

If we're going to push out, I guess the initiation of this board

I support that.

I would as well especially that way and since they've all started so closely we might want to

have some of them doing the full three, the two year term and some doing a one year term.

So it's starting to stagger them.

Yeah.

So are we going to have the conversation with Mr. Williams about

Would you prefer before we go to the regional that we have Mr. Williams present to council on again sort of not only just not only just the not only just these bodies but also you know transit moving forward

Meet with the county for the discussion with the county and the university.

Right, and one UVA writer.

Yeah, so before there has been conversations probably the past year and a half, two years,

led by board of supervisor member about the fact that we definitely need to make sure that there's space for an Albemarle rider on there.

There's also been discussions about enhancing the board to put a business member on it.

That's one of the positions that Mr. Williams has talked about quite a bit to, you know,

encouraged to figure out how to encourage businesses to get their employees to actually use CAT.

I might mention one other idea for council.

As you look through this list, another potential avenue for any of these boards, if you don't think, if you're on the verge of dissolving one of them, for example, another option is to have it be a staff advisory group.

So if you have a staff director, in this case, Mr. Williams came in, said he wanted to reactivate this group, which has gone dormant.

And I don't know the exact desire for why he wanted to do that, if it was a best practice, if it was something required for federal grants.

There are various reasons a director might want to have an advisory group.

And it may be something that works better today at the staff level than at the council level.

So that's another

And it's something you've talked about, for example, with the Housing Advisory Committee.

That was something John Sales was recommending to council.

But I think that's a little, it'll get a little tricky if we don't allow staff to probably build that.

Because if we are just saying take what is already in place,

Yeah, I mean, if Mr. Williams

So I've had conversations with Mr. Williams, and if you want to get him on so he can share, if that will be helpful.

But he would like to meet with us.

But I think it's really important to look at all this holistically because we do have these other groups that there's just a lot of overlap.

Well, and I think we could equally, with anything, say we would be interested in being a staff directed board contingent on the staff member

I wonder if you all remember the citizens that we're dealing with when you all are just making suggestions.

It's just important to keep that

in mind and things that we may be able to back out of, staff is not going to have that same ability.

So just be mindful of that also.

All right, so just to share and, you know, I ended up, you know, CCing Ms.

Shelton on an email chain this morning with HRC.

But I was asked if I had a right to meet with Todd at HRC.

And that's just to keep in mind, if people are okay with asking me that question, what do they think they can say to staff?

And so I'd just be aware of the climate that we're in.

We want to staff to come back to us and say, this is a disaster, then we can do those type of things.

Well, to me, if things are a disaster with between staff and this group, so we have to rethink, do we even want to engage these groups?

Because we certainly don't want to create that kind of climate with our staff, which I understand that some boards and commissions have been that way.

So should I just kind of keep ticking along here?

The next one is the scholarship program.

I'm looking at the details and it looks like that actually is one that we appoint a counselor to participate in, but it is not ours.

So we should probably just, Ms.

Yeah.

And then the next is the

Charlottesville Economic Development Authority.

That is legally required, has specific memberships.

Any questions there?

The next one is CRHA.

Did we skip over the airport authority?

Those are ones that, so in the backing, it has both council appointed and none.

And so I'm only focusing on the list of council-established boards, but you're going to have a more comprehensive one-pager for everything.

I'm just following the list because that's out of our control.

So CRHA.

Those all require interviews by council.

Looks like there's seven members.

Yeah, with at least one city councilor, two

Presidents.

So that's a legal requirement.

Same with the Community Block Grant Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood Task Force and the Community Block Grant Task Force.

We have two things here that says that are vacant, a parent rep and a private provider rep.

It's the Albemarle CMPT.

OK.

Correct.

But we apparently haven't appointed anybody recently.

yeah I just want to go you know just when you say what is it they do as you know you each year you appropriate Comprehensive Services Act funding for schools social services and

I believe it could also be part of the juvenile court system as well as eligible for CSA funding.

But who's kind of the lead for this?

because I don't think it's a council appointed board.

I think that would be good if they were able to identify people who could apply for the board.

This may be one of the ones that staff can

Okay.

Doesn't mean we can't appoint who is recommended by.

I did not explain to him what we were talking about.

He did not.

He did not explain, but he said, get on.

It will only be a couple of minutes.

Some nagging questions.

We're talking about boards and commissions, and among them is the CAT Advisory Board, which council appoints.

There's also the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, which is regionally appointed.

So we're just trying to understand what role, what scope you would want that CAT advisory panel to take and what role you want to have in it.

We're considering boards and commissions that aren't legally required for council to appoint them, and a staff wants to be

That kind of point person and it's more of a staff advisory group than a council appointed advisory board.

So the CAT advisory board is my understanding that

and this is kind of your advisory.

It's not necessarily CAT because you're appointing those individuals.

I do think we need to particularly look at how it's constructed.

I think it doesn't have the mix that we particularly need if we're trying to really move it to a more of a regional model.

There's no business, the individual from the business community on it at all.

There are individuals from the city.

We may need to add, I think we got one from the county now.

Maybe to add another one from the county.

I think it's just the mix of it.

And then what is it that you as council, what was it constructed to do?

I mean, is it really designed to just be an administrative function, meaning report back to you about certain things, or can we use this as a model like Richmond did to really galvanize the community

long term about getting it positioned to undertake dedicated funding.

Well, I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but the conversation that was before you got on doesn't seem like we have a huge heaviness to feel like we have to oversee this body.

So I'm more inclined to letting you drive

And another question that I hadn't imagined all this had is just.

I think we all share the goal of being able to have a body that can mobilize the community more and move us in that direction towards a more regional approach.

But with multiple boards and transportation, are there any redundancies or is there an opportunity where we collapse multiple boards into one board that would more effectively achieve that outcome?

And I'm just not sure whether this CAT advisory board

would be the place for it or if it's the Regional Transit Partnership or how their missions are different.

So I think they're both advisory, right?

So the question then becomes long term as CAT

gets bigger and potentially we introduce collective bargaining into this model at some point in time.

What happens to your power?

Meaning I'm thinking that this advisory group is the group that's really reporting to you.

that's advising you on how to make CAT more functional and how to make CAT more a regional component.

The RTP is designed to have coordination between the three units.

You really don't have oversight over the university transit system.

But you have total ownership over CAT.

And I think we just need to position CAT, if we really dive into it, figure out how we can position an advisory group of peers and individuals in this region to really put CAT in a position to go to the legislature three to five years from now and say, hey, this is what we want because we've done the hard work.

I would say that the purpose that's stated right now for this board does not reflect that from what I'm reading.

That's what we would have discussed in the meetings to decide if that's the direction we want to go.

And the other body that we've got here is the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, who is listed as the designated Citizens Committee of the MPO.

Has that been meeting at all, you know, Mr. Williams?

I'm not aware that they've been meeting.

OK, so I am I don't think I'm on I'm on the MPO and it's basically a subcommittee of the MPO.

and it's really, at least from my understanding, it has been meeting, but it really deals with primarily like smart scale applications in that world.

And from my understanding, very little involvement at all with transit or planning around transit or bike pet or things like that.

It's really focused on that as a citizen advisor to the MPO when it's dealing with smart scale.

One of the things, if I can add a couple of things here is,

One of the things in my time in Richmond is when the business community gets involved and understands the model, then you have an opportunity to really galvanize and focus our energies at the General Assembly.

And I hope that's kind of really where I want us to kind of focus our energies, having an organization, an advisory group that reports to you

but it's designed to strengthen your request to the General Assembly three to five years from now.

So we are doing the hard work underneath.

And I guess the question I still have though is the composition of that board is largely dependent on what that role is and what that scope is.

And so we probably need to relook at that.

We're not going to follow that right now.

So maybe we'll just, like we talked about before, we might just do some two to ones and just talk through some of that.

And then we do want to get the input from the regional partners on all of this holistically, all these boards and how it relates back to transit.

Let me offer one other point here to piggyback on what Mr. Williams stated.

He stated this again, and it goes back to my initial comments.

This is your board as a council.

It's great to talk about composition and the like, but ultimately it also, you need a deliverable for your charge for this.

I mean, this is to advise you.

What do you want?

A written report every year?

A presentation?

But correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Williams, but they really, the council needs to,

Yes, I mean there's already kind of a model where transit has to do a number of reports to the state and to the states.

There's a transit development plan which you guys actually approved when I first got here last year.

The first place where we can start to dive into what their model looks like, making changes to that, getting this this advisory group to kind of walk hand in hand through kind of what that looks like, making recommendations to you guys.

So you would know kind of what the implementation plan looks like in the fiscal

restraints that we're under also.

And also, it would also provide an opportunity for this advisory group to be in the community and talking how CAT gets funded.

And I think a lot of people don't know that CAT also gives us a piece, the county gives us a piece.

We get a portion of our funding from the state and the feds.

We get a small bit from our fare box, meaning what people actually give us when they're getting on the bus.

That model needs to kind of be explained a little bit more, I think, because it'll help people understand transit is a very expensive endeavor.

It's a necessary component, but it's really expensive.

Okay.

I believe I could, yes, we would be able to meet with me, maybe, you know, I'm envisioning every other month.

So we don't take up too much of their time, but it would allow us to really kind of get them to understand how CAT works.

And then we can go into, this is what it looks like to add service and how much more it's gonna take, where we potentially need to go for more service, how we're gonna pick up additional ridership to make the state model work,

That's up to you guys.

Really, I'd love if you're okay with it.

We've got a little bit of funding in CATS model right now.

Bring on a consultant.

I might be a little confused, but I didn't see a council liaison.

on the board, but... It isn't right now, no.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, Lloyd is on there.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

So do we need to have the two to ones to have a discussion about the consultant, or can, do you need, they just okay to just go ahead with the consultant and then do the two to one?

Okay.

All right.

All right.

We need the consultant in re-keeping in mind that there's this transit planning grant that's hopefully coming along.

Very little.

So

Okay.

So that that larger one is looking at how the three work together, the three separate systems.

And this consultant will work on how CAT positions itself to take advantage of a dedicated film source long term.

Okay.

Okay.

So we are now at

H's, Historic Resources Committee.

That is council appointed.

I agree.

They have plenty to do, and I'll be honest, it's just, it's really, it's a group that's really, you know, taken its charge and gotten into subcommittees and doing some great stuff.

Which board is this?

Historic Resources Committee.

They actually want it to be this Friday.

Isn't it?

It is this Friday.

Yeah.

I think they didn't even post it, right, Brian?

OK.

And council assigned them the task of reviewing the honorary street designations.

OK.

It's my understanding that we don't have to have a counselor on this board.

Is that correct?

Correct.

and if you would like me to not be on there.

I mean, I'm just trying to say if, if do we feel like we need a counselor on there?

There was a former counselor who wanted to be on it.

And I think right now there's just a lot going on that even if I'm not on it, I actually will probably attend while they're working through some things that we're charging them with just to keep the communication going.

But I don't feel strongly that there's a need for a counselor to be on this board.

And it sometimes I feel like it could be distracting.

Um, but

That is anybody else feel about?

When you next appoint a counselor.

Yeah.

Okay.

The next one is the housing advisory committee, which we have discussed at length in past meetings.

So this one, the most of the representation, we don't appoint a lot of people directly, but there are 21 total members, but there are a number that are appointed from representation from other organizations.

So there's only four that are appointed in addition to the counselor who's on there, which is Michael.

So this is needed to talk about the scope and membership.

And I think that discussion, we don't have a person in that position now, but when we get a person back in that position now, whether it'll be

Council advisory, or whether this new potential staff advisory board model is best for it.

Mr. Blair, do you know when we're going to have that candidate identified?

Or do we know where we are in the recruiting process?

Okay, so we're in a table.

I'll just say there's no need for us to get into the discussion again.

I do think there's clear value added as a council advisory body, but I think at an absolute minimum, and I think the HAC agrees with this, is that the

They need a clear direction and charge from council and the composition of the board needs to be clarified and probably reduced.

And for my time on the hack, the most meaningful work was coming out of when they were in smaller subcommittees with a very specific task in front of them.

They can knock that out of the park, but a lot of the other bigger meetings, it was just a lot.

And I agree with what Michael is saying.

And the only reason I'm saying I think that we need to have more of that connection directly with staff is because for the two years I was on it, it was sometimes negotiating to try to have one voice coming to council versus council on the dais hearing these two different perspectives.

This is probably one of the ones like the decision we made with HRC is to when someone is hired to have that work session immediately

Yeah, I understand that, but it should be one of the first priorities because this is something that we've been putting off to.

and that brings us to the Human Rights Commission.

So very similar with what Mayor Walker was just saying that there's been some interest on council for waiting for there to be some important hires made to help drive the future of that commission.

We have Mr. Niemeyer on with us.

Hello.

Right, and I do think this is one of the great advantages of a work session to have these candid conversations and like the mayor stated, both with HAC and HRC.

You know, when you look at the staff model, right, a staff advisory versus council advisory, it's probably best

to wait for staff to be hired.

And that way they can work with both the existing commission as well as the council to best determine where this is gonna go.

And again, I don't wanna sound like a broken record, but you all as a council need to also say, I mean, what is it we want?

And this is probably more for the hack because that's purely advisory, but what is it we want from them?

And what is it we want them to provide staff?

Because as you know, they're two different things.

If it's advising staff, that's one thing.

If it's advising you, that's another.

I would again, if every one of these that you keep that's not legally required, but that's purely advisory, my own advice would be that the charge, like we discussed with Mr. Williams is that they at least provide a written report on an annual basis.

In terms of just

To recap from the communications this morning since I was primarily the one responding, the HRC feels like we haven't been very, I guess, respectful over the past two years, staff and council, and that some of our decisions are preventing them from doing the work that the community needs.

I thought that when I went to the meeting and met with them that this kind of holistic view of hiring hopefully these two positions with even replacing

Charlene's position that we would have those discussions and we would have those discussions with them.

Somehow that is translated into, you know, some messiness.

And so there are some decisions I think they desire for us to move forward without this kind of, you know, holistic plan and just taking what they have presented and

just voting yes on and I hope that we all have the best interest of getting this right this go around because it hasn't been right and I think we all acknowledge that and to make sure that it serves the community needs which I think is why we are paying and investing in this in the first place so that's where

and there were two questions on the list that came this morning that I didn't know the answers to.

So I added Mr. Blair and Chief Brackney to respond to those particular questions about a request from two years ago regarding some policing work that the board put in that email that they attempted to do.

And then the other one was two

issues that have been investigated that the city manager hasn't made a determination on it to date and that those things seem like something that if we can get clarity on how even if

If HRC feels like policing conversations are moving forward without them after they sent this request two years ago, if that's what's happened, then if we can resolve that in some way, then let's do that.

And then if there are some investigations, which means that there are citizens who are not doing very well as a result of whatever occurred with them, that we can get that resolved, then those are definitely two things that I don't think that should, you know, wait either.

But that's,

and I think you all got those emails.

So that's where we were as of earlier today with that.

And so the question now is whether we are going to wait for these hires or whether we're going to appoint the board members that have applied and allow that work to continue and not have, I guess, conversations around board compositions now

and Wade or maybe not have them at all.

And then whether some of these other decisions, I think is if the deputy city manager position is going to be filled first, or if we want to go ahead and hire to replace Ms.

Green's position.

And if so, then if that position is a manager or a director level.

So there are a lot of pieces that fits into

And I know that we definitely had some questions around just the size of the group, because it was like, what, a year and a half ago where we just appointed this whole slate of people.

And I think with any of these boards and commissions, I'm not speaking to this one on its own, but just all of them, the reality of too big of a board and commission really can get in the way of the productivity of that group.

And also matters that what skill sets are being brought to the table.

And so I wouldn't mind if Todd could just remind us of,

Sure, thanks for the opportunity.

Just to clarify, in the most recent Human Rights Commission meeting, the Commission was considering some potential amendments to the ordinance, especially around board size and composition.

Those are just, they've adopted some recommendations that they'd like to bring to you after Mr. Blair's review, but

Just to give you an idea of what they have voted on to adopt, they proposed, there's a current, in the current ordinance, the minimum size is nine members.

They proposed, and it had no upper limit.

They proposed an upper limit of 15 and voted on that for adoption.

In addition, they voted on some changes to the language in that same section in the ordinance that would allow for the appointment of

Commissioners outside who are not city residents.

The current language in the ordinance leads to just being able to appoint people who are city residents.

And I think that was an interest of the commission to expand that pool of applicants.

And that actually prompts another question that I know we have touched on at some point.

I know I've raised it as

Is this a board that might be better served if it's a regional board given, Todd, all the people that reach out to you who that fuzziness of like, do I work in the county?

Do I live in the county?

It seems like we're fielding a lot.

And, you know, is it worth us exploring with our regional partners, whether this is something we want to be taking on regionally and not just with the city?

I'm just curious if that's been discussed, especially when you bring up the idea of changing the membership to include

One of the clarifying points there might be that in the language in the ordinance, and forgive me if I misquote it, but the basic idea was

We're looking at city residents and others with demonstrable ties to the city.

Obviously, our jurisdiction in terms of enforcement is limited to the geographic boundaries of the city.

We can't, for example, if someone were to bring a housing discrimination claim that occurred

with a landlord in the county.

That's outside of our jurisdiction.

We could provide some guidance and referral service to that person, but we couldn't do any investigation work.

So that idea that there is demonstrable tie to the city, as far as a broader regional effort to combat discrimination, I think there's great potential for that.

However, the ordinance doesn't really address that at this point.

And again, our limited

enforcement is within the geographic boundaries of the city.

But by all means, I think conversations around how do we combat discrimination on a regional level is a welcome, welcome conversation.

But I think it speaks to Nikuyah's point that that would probably be something driven by perhaps that new deputy city manager.

But again, we're always in conversation with people throughout the state about what's going on.

Just to be clear, the ordinance section 2-432a says the commission membership shall be broadly representative of the city's population with consideration of racial, gender, including gender identity, transgender status, and sexual orientation, religious, ethnic, disabled, socioeconomic, geographic neighborhood, and age groups within the city.

I'm not sure where we get the notion of

city, maybe county residents who are kind of like city residents.

Indeed, I was referring to proposed amendments that the council, or the commission, I'm sorry, the Human Rights Commission has adopted to be brought to council at a later date.

We have not finished all the revisions

Okay.

Well, I think the issue emerged, and correct me if I'm wrong, because there was an applicant who's not a city resident who the board members felt had a really useful, powerful skill set that could help the board in addition to that individual, while the residences in the county

to really be part of the Charlottesville community.

And those boundaries are pretty fluid, I think, in terms of how you are involved in the community and whatnot.

Is there any idea of the timeline for hiring either of those two positions, rather the deputy city manager or the director of the Office of Human Rights?

I imagine it's not short term, but is there any kind of sense of,

Well, we have applicants for the deputy city manager.

In that process, this group would be one of the groups that would participate in the panel for that hire.

And then after that person was hired, which again, we have to do the whole

interview process.

And after that point, then, unless there's a different order that this is going to be done in, then that deputy, I mean, then the Office of Human Rights position and director or manager, whatever, I guess, I think would be determined by that work session that is had with the deputy city manager, then that position would

would be posted.

And then, so I'm assuming, I mean, if we actually stop getting hung up on everything but doing the work, we could probably have these things done and maybe, and Mr. Blair, Ms.

Shelton, you can chime in, but it looks like something that could possibly be done within, you know, a four month or so timeframe or less, but we keep,

I would just offer this and Ms.

Shelton, feel free to chime in.

I think it's realistic to think interview process, ultimately making an offer as well as having a person start maybe by

December, it's conceivable at some time in December you could have somebody start as the new deputy city manager for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

At that point, as Mayor Walker stated, probably the first part of the year you'd want to sit down, work session with the Human Rights Commission, the council, and that individual to talk about their analysis of

the Office of Human Rights and Staffing, and then there would be staffing decisions made at that time.

Yeah, so I guess my only thought then would just be, especially with the timeline of from if the deputy city manager is

that happens first before hiring the Director for the Office of Human Rights is just the board, which they've already expressed to us, but the board feeling that they're sort of just like in purgatory for that time when they want to be working on things.

And I think, I think obviously the challenge with a lot of our boards is that there's a lot of

Human capital and resources there and work being done, but we don't have a clear mechanism to one give a clear directive with deliverables we want to see and then to have their work incorporated

either at the staff level or the council level incorporated into our decision making, which I know just the past month we've heard from the PCRB, Human Rights Commission, Place Design Task Force, I think all having that exact same problem of just not sure exactly what they want us to tell them to do and when they do work they feel like

It doesn't get to us and I think the reality is is like at the moment like the a lot of that work isn't getting to us and it's not being incorporated into our decision making.

I think that's definitely a key, maybe the key thing that needs to change which obviously connects to lining up the staff as that conduit.

I'll offer an opinion and not to belabor this, but

I think if the boards had clear directives that they could operate regardless of turnover in staff and for continuity of operations, you know, that would possibly make staff and the boards feel a little better.

But just having some type of direction, regardless of which staff are in place, would at least keep operations moving forward.

And then boards can pivot as new

Certainly, and I would also state to Ms.

Thomas's point, and I do know schedules are made to be broken, but

Five to six, there was an item on your agenda about board charges.

And that is kind of very important in these conversations.

I won't belabor deliverable any longer, but to Ms.

Thomas's point, and I think Councilor Pinn, your point, it's also important that the council look at charges for these bodies.

Now, I think Human Rights Commission's a little different.

because that's in an ordinance.

There are some aspects spelled out in an ordinance, but it's also true.

I don't know why it sticks out in my mind.

I think the last time the council met with its Human Rights Commission, I remember there was some sort of storm outside.

It was the fall of 2018 over at TJPDC.

I remember that meeting and it's been a while since the council's

I think normally that point works.

No matter if there's a charge, no matter who is there, they should be able to come in, understand that.

But we are also at this point talking about revisiting those charges and the decision now is whether we

do that, whether the board is just able to tell us what the charge is, whether it's a conversation between the board and council, or whether since we're at this point where we are going to have these individuals who will be hired shortly, whether it is a partnership where all of us are establishing what the charge is moving forward together, and then

that should be in place no matter who's on council, who's on the board, who's a staff member.

But we know that now based on the fact that they are looking at the ordinance that they've sent recommendations to us that it's not, there's not agreement for what has been in place to date.

And I don't think that it's, if you're looking at the,

form of the type of engagement we have in the community and that I hope we keep that no one body is making that decision on their own about what, I know it's our advisory board, but we still should be doing that in partnership instead of just saying these are the things that we want at this time.

I mean, all of us have a decision, but we know that

But I don't want to get sidetracked too much and we should continue on.

The final thing I'll just say is I do potentially see some utility in terms of the functioning of the board.

to appointing those board members and having a work session before the staff comes on.

If that is able to, I could see the utility of that helping them tee up to hit the ground running, but just throwing it out there.

I just want to just say in general, I also don't want us to forget, and I sent some emails that was earlier, like the capacity that we currently have and our staff has right now and that

We're looking to build capacity so that we can take these things on in earnest.

And I just, the thought of putting, I mean, I already sent an email about this.

Like we need to just be really diligent about the meetings that we're prioritizing just right now.

We're going through a tremendous amount of transition and we certainly need to kind of be rebuilding in terms of just the staff capacity that we have.

And I just

I don't want to delay your ability to move on, but I did have a few questions that were raised in the last commission meeting.

Not, not anything super technical, but just a few questions, if you don't mind.

I guess the first one, just to note that typically the commission would create a nominating ad hoc committee of three or more members in October because they need to nominate officers in November or I believe it's December for election in January.

And I know that we still have a restriction on how many meetings we can hold that are publicly noticed.

And I just wanted maybe a little guidance on how you best suggest that the commission proceed on that.

I know there was some suggestion that perhaps communication staff could train me to run the webinar that might facilitate that if that is a concern about overtaxing communication staff which I totally respect.

And so that was one of the main questions.

And I guess also,

You know, if you're thinking about council liaisons, I know that there is some interest in that on behalf of the Human Rights Commission.

And I just, before we answer, I also had Brian

brings Chantelle on as a panelist for this part of the discussion.

So if there's anything that you want her to chime in on too, she's there.

Yes.

if they have more than two people.

Well, I think it would be valuable for just the basic continuity of the board.

In our recommendations later in the meeting,

I do address the subcommittee issue and that's something I do think we can support for perhaps up to six boards a month is how we worded that.

So this nominating committee is just for the actual board's officers and it's not closed session?

Supposing your nominating committee is only two members.

So this is based on what you might term as the bylaws, but the rules and procedures document that governs how the commission operates.

So the commission itself could vote to reduce the number.

And it's not an ordinance document.

It's just an internal document.

Well, again.

Are we comfortable with moving on and getting back to that when we get to that part of the conversation?

Okay.

So we already said that the hydraulic road planning advisory panel is going to dissolve.

The legislative committee, my understanding is that's just staff and two members of council.

So that shouldn't be a public body, right?

How do I want to categorize this?

So I have a question about this.

Now, being on that committee, and we are trying to get some stuff together, but they're not

There's not a lot of other places that have a legislative committee from what I understand.

A lot of other places.

So I guess I'm wondering, and I like this, I'm not saying I don't, but is this really, I mean, why did we, why do we have this committee if it's not necessarily always a standard thing?

This is something that stemmed from a, um, Mr. Blair came out as a city attorney.

It was a recommendation that we just have, uh, two counselors kind of focus on the heavy lifting of this with staff, obviously engaging other counselors.

So by the time that the full legislative packet gets in front of council, we're certainly all well versed in it, but it's just having a couple of people identified as the point persons.

Now I don't consider as much of a formal, it's kind of more of an informal thing.

I think it's true of any of our initiatives, one of us or two of us to kind of take the point and try to

go work it through, but this is something that's ongoing.

And so I don't know that we have to have it in this, or, I mean, I guess because we choose who goes on it, that's why it's on this list, but it is much less formal than that.

And I'll just briefly add, and I know Ms.

Robertson's on this call and she can chime in if she wishes.

I think it's more

As you've seen during the year, you just hear 110 different things about, well, Dylan's Rule, Richmond, we need a state law change.

And it's just a way that two counselors can stay informed and sort of help staff, advise staff when they're putting together the legislative packet of

you know this is that these are things we've heard we'd like to see included when it goes before council.

It's just instead of that you know one email in September or October from the city attorney's office hey what did you hear what would you like to see where you might forget things during the year this is just a way for regular checkup to make sure we're capturing

Cool.

Thank you.

The next one is the Measurements and Solutions Group, which we have recently formed.

And it was to meet starting last summer through the spring.

Obviously, COVID impacted that.

I'm less aware of

Yes, this is supposed to be the group that helps determine or advise council on issues related to funding outside organizations and how to make sure that we are doing that well.

So I think we've only had one meeting.

And we had a meeting scheduled, but then there was a meeting notification that hadn't gone out.

So that was counseled.

I don't remember the resolution.

I know that we set that timeframe in hopes of having the information we would need to help go into our next year's budget cycle decision-making.

I don't recall a formal thing.

I see that it was sort of directed specifically towards the vibrant community funding process.

We'll take a look at that.

Good point.

And to the mayor's point, I think this is just something where COVID

Yeah, and we need it to meet.

So the next one is the Minority Business Commission.

That's still in TAC and they are still meeting and it seems to be going well.

Is this one that we support as far as telecommunications and everything?

Or should it be in the other group?

This is ours.

Keep going?

So this is one where we talked about whether the, I think, towing advisory and parking, if that could become one thing.

The towing, is it like general assembly mandated?

If you like, this is Chris Engle with the Office of Economic Development.

I could give a little insight on the panel.

It was really started a couple years ago when we did the pilot program with the parking meters as a way for the council to have a feedback mechanism.

That obviously started and then stopped.

The panel has stayed in place and now has a full slate of members.

And we're gearing up to re-engage them in a meeting with the new members here shortly.

But the real reason for the creation of that panel was the parking meter pilot.

which has obviously not come back at this point.

There's probably still a reason to have citizens advise staff and or council on parking related items or issues they haven't gone away.

Mr. Engle, you kind of opened the door.

This could be maybe a staff advisory group that we don't necessarily need to be intervening with.

I mean, it's currently functioning that way.

The parking manager manages the meetings.

There's no real liaison to the council on a regular basis.

The panel has on its own, on occasion, penned a letter of, you know, they wanted to make their thoughts clear and

I think they've only done that once or twice.

Once again, this panel has only been around maybe three years and the last six months have been fairly disjointed.

I would be in favor of that for an interest of simplifying things.

The problem I've got with the Parking Advisory Board as a general proposition for council is that about every five to 10 years for the last 40 or so, council has had a parking study done and some grand new philosophy of parking has been adopted that balances in some slightly different fashion the interests of long-term shoppers, short-term shoppers,

people who work on the mall, people who work downtown, et cetera.

And every five or 10 years, we go through this process and come up with some different balance, but that's always been a council kind of a thing.

And I don't see this particular group as necessarily changing that philosophical bent that we need to be thinking about in terms of,

What is our theory for what kind of parking we intend to provide at what kind of expense?

And I'm a little bit, I'm frankly trying to figure out what it is the Parking Advisory Board would do other than advising on the kinds of things that are kind of uniquely ours to do.

Well I think once again it was really to allow perhaps a buffer between the public and the council with respect to the parking meters to allow a feedback mechanism so okay take that issue to the to the panel let them let them know your thoughts so to speak

That never really happened.

The pilot only happened for 60 days or so.

I guess in terms of thinking of potential function,

I guess it would have emerged because the last parking study, as I never tire of mentioning, did not recommend building new parking spaces, but instead engaging in parking management techniques.

Mr. Engle, do you feel that it's worthwhile to keep this body active at this point?

Or do you feel like it's something we could just even put on hold until it's more of an ad hoc need in the future?

And why are they meeting coming up?

Well, just kind of updates, regular updates on the other aspects of the parking program.

You know, what's happening in the garages, on the streets, parking enforcement, there's been an initiative.

The meters are one way to manage parking, enforcement is another way.

Many cities have moved towards

private enforcement or outsourced enforcement of which we have that option.

And the parking advisory panel was supportive of that.

We haven't gone much further with that, but they would endorse as they currently are constituted, endorse pursuing that as an option.

Given that you just appointed six folks to it, I think it would be

unfortunate to disband it at this point I think there is some value in it there may be continuing conversation as to you know what the interface is with council on an ongoing basis and as Councillor Snook was suggesting you know large outlays of parking studies or major projects certainly ought to not be generated at this level but certainly the council would

would want to initiate those type of things.

But perhaps a panel could say, hey, we think it's time for another study.

We think it's time for this kind of review and tee it up for the council on an occasional basis.

So I do think there's value in the panel.

And I was just going to say that in terms of the frequency though, do you feel this is a panel that does not need, I mean, you're going to meet and kind of give an update, but could this be something that could be paused while we're in this COVID, we'll get to that at the end of the meeting, I guess, but I'm just trying to get a sense while we're on the topic.

Is this a group that we can kind of say that we're not going to be meeting every month is what's outlined for us is the frequency of those meetings.

Yes and no.

I mean, it has not met since February and we've been able to just kind of email updates to the panel and they've understood and there hasn't been an urgency.

You know, there's no action that the panel's required to take on a monthly basis.

However, it's now been enough months that, you know, they feel like they would like to meet and get a more personal update even though it would be a virtual meeting.

So it would not need the same level of support.

They would just use Zoom meetings.

Invites don't have to be made to the public.

It doesn't have to be advertised on the website.

So we're going back to the point Heather was making earlier that this should be a staff advisory committee.

It seems to be more fitting into that.

considering it's moved from its original inception into something else but does still have value as far as informing our economic development staff in particular of how parking was really kind of integrating downtown in particular.

So it has a value but

It's not really advising counsel to things.

It's more, it seems like it's advising our staff.

I'm fine with that.

All right.

So next is the Parks and Rec Advisory Committee, which I will go out there in a limb and say that I feel similarly here about that.

I would note we've got an email today from Lizelle Dugger, who's the current chair of it.

And she talks about wanting to meet with Todd.

It is important for Todd and his staff to meet with and discuss priorities with the advisory board.

So that seems to be their concept of their job as well.

And the only thing that I will share with any of this is just to keep in mind that what happens on these boards and the makeup of those boards once we take it out of public purview, what happened just between staff and based on probably limited span within the community.

And one of the things, now Todd is a different

leader of Parks and Rec.

And again, if your leader does some things differently, then things will happen differently.

But the master plan that they based what happens in Parks and Rec on, I think had less than a thousand.

And I want to say it was four or 500 participants, citizens participate in that.

And every decision that has been made regarding where money goes within Parks and Rec has been made based on

that data, which is not a lot of people.

So that's my only hesitation with, I think if you have the right leader in place, you don't have to worry about those things because they are gonna make sure that whatever they are doing is aligned with council's vision that we are hopefully working on at this point.

But if it's not aligned, then you get very limited participation and that participation drives

So if we end up doing this for these last couple of boards, that means that the communications team doesn't need to be involved.

Staff can basically coordinate, the lead staff can coordinate with these boards.

So when Lizelle was specifically asking, I think that they'd be permitted to meet as though virtual meetings would have to be cleared through communications folks and so on.

They could meet whenever they want coordinating among themselves with staff.

Okay.

And could I just for one minute, I've asked Ms.

Ponce to be added.

As you may know, we have a bike and pedestrian advisory committee.

and that is more of a staff committee and staff advisory committee.

And I just thought it would be helpful if Ms.

Ponce, since she's joined us, do you all have questions about how that works and how these committees advise staff?

I appreciate that point because I honestly, until you just said that, didn't realize that they were distinctly different in that way because I've kind of always considered the Bike Pet Advisory Committee to be very similar to the Parks and Rec Advisory Committee.

Hey guys, I'm sorry.

Hopefully this works.

So, I mean, I think as far, we tend to operate similar to all of the other appointed committees, right?

So we post meeting notices in advance, record our meeting, well, not record our meetings, but take notes that are posted on the website.

So, you know, I think from an optics standpoint, we do look like just any other city boards and commission, I guess,

That being said, there maybe is a little bit more flexibility in terms of some of the, you know, not having to require or follow every single thing to the T. We meet monthly.

How do you engage with the public?

So, you know, I do notice them and they're posted on the website.

Same, you know, we meet the three day advance notice, but always try to do it more than that if we can.

And the agendas are also posted in advance as well.

I mean, I guess maybe a little bit different than some of the other boards and commissions.

We do do more outreach in terms of tabling at events and things like that.

So we try to get out in the community a little bit more.

And I guess it sounds like being a staff advisory committee

doesn't restrict the ability for the community to participate and be a part of it.

Cause I think that would be the relevant concern, but it sounds like, you know, functionally in terms of the ability for the community to see what happens and participates, it's functionally the same.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

All of our meetings are always open to the public.

We welcome people to come at any time.

And I just want to bring up just something that was just stated about the lack of diversity on the board.

And so whatever we do, I think it's important for us to figure out how to have that discussions.

And that's something that we have even discussed about our appointed boards.

But

Every, most of the conversations that came up around the strategic plan discussed equity and race as a factor that needs to be considered around climate change.

And when the bike pad discussions come up during our meetings, equity and race comes up there too.

And if there isn't any members of those groups that are being discussed, talked about a part of those discussions, then it's back to what other people think is best for us.

And that is to be considered when we're talking about taking a step back because when these proposals come to us, we are usually just saying, hey,

Thank you for your work and yes.

And that is something that we have to factor into the equation, whether we think we should or not.

And I'm not saying that they shouldn't be advisory because we are not doing well as a council either with getting a lot of diversity on the board.

So I don't think it matters whether it's staff or a council, but just understanding that the boards weigh in on a lot of decisions affecting the city.

And that means council will not

make appointments going forward.

We said the same for the parking advisory panel.

All right.

And then the Piedmont Housing Alliance Friendship Court Committee, we mentioned earlier, Michael was chiming in that there is a group that's broader than the city.

We're just, is there, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting.

I think this is how this started as part of the redevelopment program.

Initially, they requested 150,000 for pre-development study.

As part of granting that money, there was an agreement that the 150 units

on site will remain for low-income households.

And the existing tenants will have the first right of refusal.

And when they completed that project, they moved forward with the design phase.

And because the city was committed at that time for ongoing investment to ensure redevelopment initiative,

I think at the top management level it was decided that the city should be invited and Kathy Galvin and the assistant city manager then, Mr. Murphy were appointed to serve on the committee, the planning committee for the design.

I think the design work has been completed

And at this point, I'm not sure that committee is continuing, but I know that their resident committee may still be on.

Well, I'll just say this.

When we initially

appointed council members to boards and commissions.

I was appointed to this boarding commission and then Sunshine reached out to me saying that I think the city's understanding of it might've been a little off and that it's really their board.

And for example, as I mentioned earlier, their residents voted to have me on.

And so I think it really, it functions kind of like the leap board, I guess, and not really, it's not our board at all.

It's not.

So I guess, Ms.

We recommend, sorry.

Yeah.

All right.

The planning commission.

I don't know that we need to discuss that one.

Place Design Task Force.

As you know, we've had some resignations from that.

I'll just be pretty candid.

This is a board that I've had concerns for some time hasn't felt like they've really had a voice at the table and that the recommendations we make just wondering like where did they go?

What's their role?

What is their charge?

Well, I'm the council representative on the Place Design Task Force.

And I know a couple of their folks, including people who've been on for quite a while, recently got off with sort of the same feeling of they're not sure why they're here.

I do think that they represent an impressive collection of people with a set of skills that

the council doesn't usually get.

I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm clear on where I think they ought to fit in the process.

But I think that there is, I mean, part of what they are looking for is some charge from council, some mission to go forth and, and do something.

And if, you know,

I know the last discussion they had was about the Preston Avenue interchange and so on, or intersection.

And they weighed in at some point, but they're not, again, not really clear what their role is and when they should be weighing in and what they should be doing.

So I think they're an impressive group of people with an impressive group of skills.

And I certainly agree that there is a lot of great resources there.

I just don't want to be not utilizing these great resources in the most productive way.

I think the place, when it was set up probably seven years ago or more than that, I think it was originally set up as a task force to address a specific concern the city

at that time.

I think they've addressed those concerns and usually task force, they have some state.

At this point, I'm not sure going forward whether the city has a need for the task force.

I know some of the things they do, the planning commission can equally do that.

If they have such challenge,

So at this point, I'm not sure exactly going forward what they should be doing.

I will say one of the things that they were specifically talking about doing was making some recommendations and perhaps proposing an ordinance dealing with the form of lighting.

That one of the issues, one of the design considerations that often comes up

in terms of various projects is what should the lighting look like?

Should it be pointed up or down?

What considerations should be given?

And there are some localities in Virginia that actually have fairly detailed ordinances on this topic.

I think Alexandria may be one.

Certainly Charlottesville is not.

And one of the things that they were, well,

One of the overall tensions that they've got is that I think that they would like to be doing some things that are perhaps longer term, general, like this question of a lighting ordinance, rather than reviewing specific projects.

Often they find that within the reviewing specific projects function, things are on shorter timelines or they're not necessarily in the loop as much as other people might be.

but that things that would be broader in concept would be something that they would like to do.

And because they just use the lighting as an example because they've got architects and they've got a developer and they've got various other people in a lot of different disciplines that they might feel they would have something to offer in that respect.

I mean, frankly, at one level if we're looking for ways to think about it

It would be a kind of a committee that might well be advisory to NDS or advisory to the planning commission.

Uh, or if we're thinking about it in terms of designating or asking them to, to go explore something like a lighting ordinance, uh, I mean, frankly, that's the sort of thing that I come through the planning commission anyway, rather than coming directly to council.

But that's the kind of thing that they were talking about at the last meeting.

And I, when I think about like, obviously the last council expressed interest and I know staff and community members have been talking about us having, um, that long range planning function well fulfilled.

And I could see this, the composition of this type of a group really helping to support those efforts as Lloyd, you talk about that more longer range vision that we have for the city, which, um,

I really would say we just sometimes don't have the time to really kind of pause and look at that, especially with the comp plan now really well underway and some of those more longer term things.

So, I mean, I can see it being an advisory group to that component of the staff that clearly we still are working to recruit as well.

I'm just struggling with seeing it given like if it's on council to kind of create that charge

Well, and I reached out to the board members who had resigned and I know that one of the conversations I had, I mean, they were just mentioning that I guess they saw the ideal vision as relatively narrow in terms of providing

advice and expertise around the built environment and urban design that isn't just architecture, it's a little bit expanded beyond that, which as Lloyd mentioned, I think isn't a capacity that's really fully incorporated into the city at this point, but that the board's composition and mission had expanded so much that they felt it had almost become meaningless because

To be effective, it really needs to have a specific charge and specific composition geared to that charge.

So yeah, I mean, I guess I'm in a similar place.

I feel like the skill set of, you know, some of the people on the board and that goal of having urban design and built environment is something that I think matters and planning and development incorporated more is important.

But certainly at this point, I don't think the board is achieving that.

And the only way would be if we give it a very specific charge and make specific changes to the board composition.

I think the other thing to think about is that on the one pager that we've got on the place design task force, the purposes

There are eight purposes listed for the task force.

And many of the things, most of what they have done recently, I think, would be under number six, review of special projects as requested by city council of the planning commission, though that's the kind of thing that they don't really feel that they're really as well equipped to do.

Sorry about that.

They would see themselves more in terms of advising on urban design aspects, reviewing the design of city capital projects, less so.

I don't know that there's anybody who has the charge of reviewing proposals for public art or whether we even are doing any of that anymore.

reviewing the status of landscape improvements, develop best practices for urban design guidelines.

I mean, these are the kinds of things that the identifying best practices and so on are the kind of longer range projects that I'm certainly council isn't well equipped to do.

I'm not sure the planning commission is even terribly well equipped to do.

Alex, I would just ask an operational question.

I see Mr. Oberdorfer has joined as well.

Based on the discussion here, it almost sounds, again, this is

almost a site plan sort of, their talents and their expertise might best be suited towards advising staff on site plans and issues like that.

Well, I think on a single issue like lighting, you know, that kind of a single issue charged, you know, give it to them, let them pursue it and then study it, develop the regulations if necessary and present it for staff review.

But in terms of site plan, you know, we operate site plan, rezoning, SUP or what have you, we have a structured schedule.

some of which are statutory in nature.

And if you add, once you get the application, if you get them involved, staff may not be able to meet that particular statutory timeline.

So you have to take into consideration that delay.

However, before the application is submitted,

If the developer can go to them and then discuss the plan, so that will be some kind of added value.

And then after that discussion, then the developer can submit the application at that time.

Then the timeline will start counting.

But if you get them after the application is submitted, then the issue of

Time constraint becomes a challenge.

So I think that's where they can play a role.

But going forward, if the group continues to exist, I think we are looking at making some changes in terms of smart scale application, because they have expressed some kind of concern in terms of the application process, not being able to weigh in before the application is

So going forward, I think we are looking at ways to redesign the public participation process so they may have the opportunity to weigh in before we put some kind of concept together and then submit the application.

So it seems like we're kind of looking at this as maybe being a staff advisory board as well, and that that scope may change over time, obviously, as initiatives come up.

I really can see the value in these types of expertise being available to staff.

I just don't know that we have to force it.

I think it should be more of happening organically.

What is Dashboard effective on?

Yeah, so I'll give you an example.

You know, when we have some transportation projects that overlap into what the BAR considers their realm of authority, I think there's a disconnect between, again, trying to create a sense of place, but then also trying to meet our obligations in terms of transportation engineering in the

the obligations that we have in terms of creating a safe environment for the public.

So, you know, to me, that would be an opportune area where you could get some creativity and still follow the MUTCD engineering opinion, you know,

and things like that and still have them weigh in on more of the aesthetics of what the transportation project looks like.

Belmont Bridge would have been, you know, I think a nice project to have a group like that work on that, you know, they would give consideration of the context of the design and, you know, certainly look at lighting features.

In working with staff, you know, talk about important things like maintenance and upkeep and future costs, you know, to maintain the structure.

So I would see, I would see that is a beneficial thing.

Yeah, or even working on, you know, we have the standards and design manual and there's a lot of things that are in that that speak to overall development and aesthetics and feel of creating, you know, a community that may be, you know, engineers, you know, and I'm not an engineer, but I know

I think this way a lot too is I'm very industrial because I want to get the biggest bang for the buck.

But that of course doesn't lend itself to having, you know, historic softness to it that leads to the old town charm and the historic nature of things.

I would just note that half of the current membership obviously there's some vacancies are people who are appointed because they serve on other boards and commissions so it's kind of like a central

place where a lot of these groups including bar, tree commission, bike pit, planning commission kind of come in and weigh in in one space which I think can be very valuable.

I just want to make sure that if we're going to go that route that we do feel that staff will continue to kind of keep that momentum going when it's necessary to engage this group because like others have said, I just think there's a lot of valuable resources on here but I want to make sure that we're using their time as most efficiently and it's actually

So I do have one recommendation.

You know we have a brand new public works director that's over engineering and soon we hope to have an NDS director on board and so we'll have two new seats at the table that are going to bring a perspective in that

So Lloyd you mentioned there's an upcoming meeting do you

Uh, yeah, sure.

All right.

And we kind of were talking about charges for going through here, so it's kind of overlapping.

So once we get through this list, I think then we'll just go right to Brian's part.

But we have the PCRB, which I think right now has an opening that we're holding off on.

I thought it was because we're waiting.

The General Assembly.

Hopefully more direction.

The General Assembly session, I guess you never know, but it should be over in a time period of two to three weeks.

It shouldn't be too much longer extended.

Obviously, this has already received a ton of discussion, but I definitely think, especially after the General Assembly session,

is ended like these other boards and commissions.

We're just going to need to be intentional about giving very clear direction and having a very clear conduit towards setting up how their work informs us on council and in staff.

I guess I don't understand in terms of this one.

I'd like to add that this particular seat has an expiration date of August 31 of next year.

So that person in that seat would have an opportunity to apply again to serve full terms after that.

To answer the question a moment ago, if the General Assembly

passes either the Senate or the House bill, and there's some differences between them, so it'll have to be reconciled.

If they pass either one essentially unchanged, then the PCRB would be given final and apparently non-appealable disciplinary power over the various police officers.

To me, that suggests that at the very least, we would want to have somebody on the PCRB who's got, for example, some experience with personnel matters.

That's the kind of thing that we would wanna, there are some other skill sets there that we may decide we want, depending on what the General Assembly authorizes.

And because the bills that are presently pending

go substantially farther even than the initial draft of our PCRB, the one we have been asked to please go to.

These bills that are in there go substantially farther than we had been asked by those proposals, including getting a subpoena power, for example.

So then we're committing to having a

Right.

Right.

I think having that conversation collaboratively is obviously vital.

And I know I'm meeting with some folks in a week or so to discuss after the General Assembly session has ended, what if anything has passed.

But I definitely agree.

I don't know exactly what it looked like or mean, but I think it

could definitely open up potential opportunities.

We're going to try to scoot right here on here.

The Retirement Commission, I don't think that that's a legal board.

I don't know that we can really do much there.

School capital projects.

I feel like we have counselors that we appoint to that, but staff is included as well as schools.

So I'm not sure.

No, no, no.

I was trying to clarify.

I don't even know that it's one that's a council appointed group.

It's just one that we happen to participate in as councilors, I think, more or less formally.

Yeah, no, I wasn't proposing anything different there.

Sister Cities Commission, I don't know.

Ms.

Thomas, do you have any thoughts on that group?

I don't.

Okay.

Social Services Advisory Board is legally required.

Can we also go back to the Social Services Advisory Board for a minute?

Oh, sure.

We do not, I was reading, we don't have to have a counselor representative on that board.

I don't know about that specific board.

I haven't attended any of their meetings, so you would know much better than I, but I tend to think having a council liaison just creates a much clearer structure for the board's work to be incorporated into our decision-making and remove that gap, it seems a lot, the frustration a lot of our boards are having of feeling like they

don't have a liaison that's giving clear direction or recreating what they do into the city's decision making.

So this board is probably like watching a pin drop in a haystack.

And I know there's some other boards like this, I'm not just singling this board out, but

Anyway, moving on.

I think that we should, we really have to determine like, what is the purpose?

And this is probably one of those boards while it's mandated.

I think, you know, a few years ago when there was a lot of pressure on social services, like we are now getting that's being

directed towards the police department and last year the schools.

Then I'm sure the advisory board was doing a lot more, but right now, or when I was on the board for a while, you know, we met I think like the fourth Monday or something of the month.

It was really an update.

and you spend most of the time just attempting to get the presentation, the annual presentation to council together.

And so this board should be good.

Council members should be on this board and this board should be a lot more active.

and it should be addressing some of the major concerns within the department and that wasn't happening.

We've only, I've only, because of COVID, I've only been on the board three times.

And it's been very difficult to kind of figure out what it would normally be doing.

That, what's happening?

and how we could be more active in it.

I just wanted to get other counselors' perspectives.

Alright, and the next one, Alex said, is faded out.

So that's the Streets at Work code audit steering committee.

Towing Advisory Committee we've touched on earlier, it's required.

I will say I've been attending their meetings and they have been meeting regularly and I think they've actually been doing, you know, a lot of work focusing on

tree canopy and heat mapping.

So I think they're doing work and there's a lot of value there.

But I do think that we probably need to figure out ways to incorporate it into our decision making better.

And I think there may be really big opportunities with our climate action plan.

You know, I know part of that involves

Our tree canopy as it relates to emissions.

Don't know what that necessarily looks like, but I think there may be an opportunity there to incorporate what they're doing in a better way.

But I know they've been really focused on, again, the tree canopy issue from both an emissions standpoint as well as an equity standpoint in terms of heat mapping and neighborhoods that have

Mr. Blair, I see that there's a reference to that they are referred to within the city charter.

Does that mean that they can't be a staff advisory group, that they have to be council appointed?

I do not know right off the top of my head, but I would also offer this.

I think to Councilor Payne's point, your strategic plan seems very, very centered and your priorities seem very centered on equity and climate.

And a board like this, I do think has a lot of opportunity to help you with your climate goal.

And so as a council,

they can play a part not only with staff, but also with you.

I was just kind of curious what limitations we might have.

I wasn't necessarily proposing that.

All right, vendor appeals board.

Is that an ad hoc?

It's on demand, like when you need to deal with something.

Sorry.

OK.

All right, the Water Resources Protection Program Advisory Committee.

We're into the W's guys, almost there.

Purpose of making recommendations.

I know, like passionate people who just kept going.

Alex or Palma?

And they also meet with Lauren.

So does this seem like one that makes sense for staff to be the interface with?

Especially with all these term limits.

I mean, I think if we let this go, maybe these people can continue to advise until their heart's content.

And I don't know that we're going to find a bunch of new people.

taking this on, but that's just my guess.

Any opposed?

All right.

Youth council, keep that going.

Yes.

OK.

Just making sure.

Yeah.

All right.

So in my notes, we are going to be revisiting at the pending different some resources changing as Housing Advisory Committee and Human Resources Commission.

Does that say that?

Human Rights?

Human Resource.

Human, sorry, Human Rights Commission.

Then we're going to also be revisiting the CAT

advisory board after we're doing two rounds with Mr. Williams.

Then we're going to direct staff to take on those advisory groups, the parking advisory panel, parks and recreation advisory board, place design task force, and the water resources protection program advisory committee.

That's what I had written down.

So we were just alleviated, at least Brian, a handful of things that he has to cover.

And then we also have established that the streets that work, Code Audit Steering Committee, is dissolved.

The Piedmont Housing Lens Friendship Court Committee is actually a PHA board, not ours.

Right, other list.

And the Community Policy and Management Team is more a regional thing.

I missed that one.

We may not have a council rep moving forward.

Alright, so Brian, you want to just take us through your stuff?

Yeah, no, council just did a lot of great work and

which was not related to the pandemic.

I'll just point out that that was work council needed to do anyway and is a good exercise to go through.

I've got just a handful of slides just to put in front of you.

These were sent in advance to council.

And the first one here is just to, and I have to ask, usually I'm not the one presenting slides like this.

You can see them, right?

Good.

Yes.

About 24 boards and commissions have been authorized for virtual meetings by council.

You've been increasing that during the pandemic since March.

Right now we're about an average of 15 boards are meeting monthly and most are allowed a two hour meeting each month.

We've had 87 public meetings via Zoom.

Again, we're averaging 15 virtual public meetings and that gets us almost to where we were pre-pandemic.

So when we started this process,

I did a little analysis of the three months, March, April, May, I think it was.

And I told you that in the previous year, we were doing about 16 public meetings a month.

So we're right back at about the same number.

However, many more of our meetings are now accessible to the public because of the streaming approach and because we're replaying some of them on television.

Public engagement, while it dipped initially as we switched to virtual meetings, has returned to pre-COVID levels, i.e.

we're filling up all 16 slots in community matters.

We're also finding additional ways we can use Zoom in our streaming and broadcast platforms.

So neighborhood development is using it for public site plan conferences.

They're doing that on their own.

That does not involve communications of the school board.

is now streaming live to TV for the first time ever.

Used to be we'd have to wait for a file to come and the next day or two we would get it uploaded and it could be seen on TV.

Now, like a council meeting, it's live.

So that's, again, one of the benefits of us having to figure out all these tools.

You know about Seville 360, we've done 20 of those programs out of the downtown mall studio.

And we have producers doing other programs at the media center and staff doing training videos.

So when we do a Zoom meeting, like when we have public comment in a few minutes, you know we've integrated timers.

That was something we didn't have initially and we can do that both with a virtual timer and then in the case of me in chambers, just point a camera at our old fashioned real timer.

This is that matrix that I showed Council and it's been refreshed and updated a little bit based on our

experience running these meetings.

And I tried to show you some colors to give you a sense of level of difficulty.

The bottom half of this chart is what we did pre-pandemic.

So traditional board meetings were not broadcast, they were not streamed.

The big four meetings as we call them, Council Planning Commission, BAR and CRHA, those were televised and streamed.

The upper half of this chart

represents the different approaches we can take for virtual meetings.

And this one, for example, is a webinar only meeting that's being streamed and all the participants are remote.

So this one is easier on the scale of broadcast production, but the hybrid meetings get into going into different venues, different meeting rooms, and whether we do things live on television and how much production you wanna have, multiple camera shots,

of people in a room, et cetera.

Some of that is to preview some steps we think will be necessary as we get into the reopening of City Hall.

So just to recap how we do our Zoom webinars, we have a dedicated webinar host who's usually not a participant in the meeting.

That person schedules the webinars, invites participants, manages the attendees, facilitates public comment.

We start and stop the streaming services,

and we toggle the video throughout the meeting to sort of give a sense of some production.

So for example, when you are taking public comment, we switch it to a gallery view so the public can see all of your faces when they're talking to you.

We do require registration for people to participate.

We've had some of our modules in Zoom deactivated, chat and Q&A.

because of some vandalism that we've experienced as we've used Zoom.

We are training staff liaisons or board members to act as hosts.

Todd Niemeyer is a great example.

He can run the human rights meetings with us just sitting in the background.

Phil Duranzio can run the hack meeting.

So we've been open to training those people to help them use these tools.

We now have the capability to broadcast any meeting live to TV.

So that's a new skill that we've learned.

And then we can also, as I mentioned earlier, air these programs on TV later and make them available on our streaming service.

So what does it take to do this?

We've had a vacancy in my department the entire year.

We hope to fill that position next month.

We're doing the interviews in the next few weeks.

The webinar only meetings, as I mentioned, take the fewest resources.

Right now we're doing 15 to 16 meetings a month shared by two hosts, myself and Joe Rice primarily.

And in November with a new staff member, we could support another two more meetings a week or eight per month.

Now you might ask, why couldn't we do many more than that?

Well, we could if we didn't have other jobs.

So I just want to remind council that this was not what the Communications Department was doing until there was a pandemic and we needed to support virtual meetings.

So this is an add-on to work we already have on our plate.

Key question in the middle of this slide, as in-person meetings resume, a question to council will be, do we still offer a virtual option?

Everyone's thinking about work differently.

Do we all need to congregate?

And at what point will we feel safe to get together?

and I know we can't answer those questions now, but I want you to know what we're doing is figuring out a way to support a hybrid approach where there may be some people in a room and there may be others remotely, whether they are members of a board or the public at large.

And finally, we are running the Charlottesville Community Media Center in York Place and that does have staffing needs for us.

And I'll finish with some recommendations about what I think we can accomplish.

I think the simplest thing council could do right now is just approve meetings for all the boards and commissions you just went through.

You know, it's not worth worrying about two or three that you think don't really need to meet.

Just give them the message it's okay to meet.

That I think will simplify things and then they don't need to come back to you and ask permission.

So that'll save us time in future meetings.

So during the remainder of the pandemic and state of emergency, we would support one meeting a month for these boards.

And we would recommend allowing some subcommittee meetings.

As Todd Niemeyer pointed out, some of those boards have a real need to break out into smaller groups and get some work done.

The ones I hear that the most from are Human Rights, Housing Advisory, Police Civilian Review Board, Historic Resources, Sister Cities.

Sure, yep.

And then I think the duration can be up from two hours to three hours.

Once we're mobilized and we're in meeting mode, I think most of these groups don't want to meet for more than two hours, but just go ahead and give the authorization for up to three.

So in general, I think that's what we're prepared to do, especially as we bring on new staff

and then just to point out that some of these ad hoc task forces that council is putting together right now, those won't need support from communications.

Those can be done by staff with existing tools in much the same way we were talking about, you know, Chris Engle supporting the Parking Advisory Committee.

They can use the Zoom meeting and just have those meetings take place.

They don't have to be advertised.

Again, when City Hall reopens, we're going to have to revisit this and figure out what sort of capacity is needed for these more complex, blended, in-person remote meetings.

That's going to be a challenge for us.

We can do this right now because most of these are all virtual.

Again, that's the fewest amount of resources.

Sorry.

When we're thinking about council chambers as part of a hybrid model, is that easier to do in council chambers, a hybrid approach than any other venue you can think of because of all the infrastructure already there in place?

Council chambers is easier in that the equipment's already in place.

I would say that what we call the remote package is when we take the cameras and follow you to another location, City Space, Jefferson School.

That has been well received by the public and by you, and we've gotten those meetings broadcast and streamed, but it takes a lot of work to get those things set up.

One of the things that was in the CARES package that you approved last night was funding to outfit City Space with

a similar setup to what we have in council chambers so that the equipment is there, it's fixed in place.

We can just walk in, turn it on.

So that's a way we can sort of replicate the ease of use.

And then IT, Sunny Huang and his group, they are working to outfit other meeting rooms to make them like the second floor conference room where they will have built in, you know, big screen, zoom camera.

It won't be as nice as having, you know, multiple cameras in a room.

but for a small meeting room, that'll be suitable.

So it is easier.

However, where it gets more complicated and into that last tier of complexity is when we're trying to do live television and add titles and your names beneath you as you're talking and the topic you're talking about, things like that.

Again, we do that with an eye towards television and wanting to have a polished product.

We tend to focus that only on the topic

for boards that we work with that have always been televised.

We really appreciate the work that your team has done tirelessly to kind of keep us above water with this to date.

And I'm really glad to know that the dollars that are allocated are going to help to

You know, support your team and providing a lot of other options for us to hold meetings.

And I also just appreciate the simplification that if you really are saying that you're comfortable with us going in this direction, like kind of giving the blanket to all boards and commissions, obviously, minus those that we've just given this more staff advisory group role.

I think that does simplify and it's really been a goal of mine last couple months for council to kind of get out of that process of

really kind of holding people back from, groups back from having a meeting and the subcommittees, as I've mentioned a couple of times, those that I serve on, that's where some of the best work is done and those subcommittees.

That's a great point.

Especially if you allow up to three hours for a meeting, then they could add in, you know, an hour committee meeting and we'll just call it one.

Right.

I do have one question for Ms.

Thomas and Ms.

Robinson.

It would be, I think the council should be aware, I know you all staff Sister Cities and the Police Civilian Review Board.

Are there other committees you're staffing because

We're talking about communication staffing on these committee meetings.

I'll just note that recently I have not been able to staff Sister Cities meetings because of council meetings.

So Ms.

Robinson has filled in.

And I want to thank her for that because we just kind of pick up where we can and keep moving.

Yeah, so that's just it.

I am serving as the kind of the full-time liaison for the PCRB and then stepping in as needed for Sister Cities.

I know that the PCRB, and we may hear from them later, is requesting to meet once a month or possibly more.

As well as with their subcommittees, as Brian mentioned.

And I know especially their grants subcommittee is going to start meeting soon.

I think historically our staff has, the Sister Cities Commission is the head from council meetings, of course.

The only one I feel like our own council staff has had to regularly kind of represent us and the PCRB is kind of a holding point until we actually have the staff person who's going to be the main interface with those folks at that point in time.

Well, I can't remember exactly where I read it, but

It says that the staff liaison to the Sister Cities Commission is supposed to be appointed by the city manager.

And I wish I had kept that paper, but so you're saying that the staff liaison is council's representative for the board.

I just remember our former clerk sat on it.

as the staff person, but that could have been that that was, she was appointed by the manager at that time.

I actually don't, I don't know.

Okay.

And that's fine.

It honestly just could have been that that appointment just happened to be our clerk at the time because she had an interest in it.

Yes.

Yep.

I mean, typically we have a staff liaison present to take minutes for the boards and commissions.

They use our civic clerk package to advertise the meetings.

And so some of the other bodies like the Police Civilian Review Board that have a public comment that's robust, that's something that I've

and more involved with that type of meeting.

But I think a subcommittee meeting doesn't necessarily need detailed minutes.

And I know that in the past, some of those subcommittees of various boards and commissions probably met without staff being present.

They would just gather in a room in city hall and have a meeting.

Again, if we're not in a pandemic and pulled in a lot of different directions,

that's something staff, it was probably easier for people to be involved in those meetings.

And that's where I just wanna make sure we're making sure that we think through the whole thing so that both our communication staff as well as our clerk staff are not

being overwhelmed and having to then work late into the night or working multiple meetings like this second one in a row at nighttime after having worked long days as well.

So the Grants Committee, the Sister City Grants Committee, would that require staff representation and from the Clerk's Office, Ms.

They began to establish their subcommittees, their last meeting, well, their retreat last week.

And I would take my time and hack because I always participate in a lot of subcommittees.

There was some member of staff there, but it was not the same expectation in terms of just like the notes that were taken.

But at the same time, it was important to capture that and to have a staff member attending.

But again, I think that A, let's look at

what this liaison role on the Sister Cities Committee side is historically and what, you know, what, if there may be a more appropriate staff person to take that on, I certainly can see that.

And then for the PCRB, it is more of a stop gap because at the time we just really didn't have other staff capacity.

And so that's why Ms.

Robinson was tapped to help fill in that very important role as a staff liaison for PCRB.

And just for staff, I just let relay, like we are renewally committed to trying to be more efficient in our meetings and to looking at our calendar of public meetings, recognizing the toll that it is taking on everyone.

And namely those of you who are looking at right now.

So really appreciate your patience and your commitment.

But we also have the onus on us to just be realistic about what we all can take on collectively.

If you'd like to address council, you can click the raise hand icon in the zoom webinar.

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine to participate.

Each participant will get up to three minutes.

Good evening.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to chime in earlier.

I was on my way to Pearl Island to get some food and I just I could not.

multitask.

But I just wanted to say I did enjoy listening to this meeting today.

I know that we've had a couple email exchanges, and I'm not sure how the tone of those emails came off to folks.

But it has been a little bit frustrating to work in the city at this point in time.

I know that we all kind of feel that.

So

I just wanted to start out by saying I appreciate you all for meeting and hearing us out today.

And, you know, I was actually impressed and feel a little bit relieved by this meeting and the things that were discussed.

I do have one just quick question.

And forgive me because I cannot see if there's a time limit or anything on my cell phone.

Okay, so I have one quick question.

There was some back and forth around appointments to HRC commission meetings.

There are people live tweeting and so something came up about potentially not appointing anyone for four months as a conservative figure until the other staffing

Decisions are made and just from my perspective I don't know if this is right or not but I was under the impression that our role as the Human Rights Commission was to really help in co-governing the city and so one of the things that Charlene Green did really a good job of is

You know, she provided direction for us, but at the end of the day, we're a volunteer board that's appointed by you all.

And I think there's a delicate balance when it comes to accountability and how the city does have these different boards and commissions that's holding it accountable, but also needs to kind of work in a way that is a little bit autonomous.

and even ever since Charlene Green has left, you know, that has really stuck with me.

Our commission has continued to do work after she has departed and I actually think that's the strength of the city to have commissions that are self-driven and that can continue the work.

And so I'm just going to ask one more time again about the appointments of our

commissioners that there are some applicants on because I'm really not understanding.

I do get what was shared here about being able to take a holistic approach but at the same time I think we can balance that out a little bit and it doesn't have to apply to every single thing that we do especially if we want a board to be

autonomous and have that ability to co-govern with the city and alongside the city without being completely beholden to the direction of any internal staff, whoever they may be, if it's a city manager or whoever that person is.

I think council does a really good job

from time to time of appointing and selecting applicants here.

And we would like to continue that work with our commission.

And then also Todd brought up the fact that- Thank you.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

If there's anyone else who'd like to click the raise hand icon, you can have up to three minutes to address council.

Right now we have 13 people in the audience.

No hands are going up.

I hope we have one.

Hey, good evening Council and thanks for all your work.

I just wanted to say I'm sitting here listening and I'm a little bit horrified by this idea of what sounds like is happening to a big chunk of commissions as part of

their fate here, unless I'm not understanding it right.

But it sounds like they're going to be turned into staff advisory boards, which gets council's workload out of the picture, which I think is a good thing.

But as part of doing so, they're going to continue on, but just happen in secret with the meetings not noticed and without posting the Zoom link to get in.

And I got to say that's kind of a baffling way to go, I think.

I'd love to see maybe this still happen without Council's involvement, but for it to be transparent.

And I hope we can find a way for the communications department to help committee leaders, like Brian mentioned, a few committee leaders were already doing, to be able to manage those Zoom calls by themselves so it doesn't take as much staff workload just to make them happen.

but not for a whole bunch of committees to just happen kind of in the dark with no way either for the public to see or really I think for members of the committee to know that their voices are being heard.

So I hope you'll really think through what those mean in the future.

One other point quickly, if I have time, I can't see a timer.

For the Parking Advisory Panel, while it's moved on from its original purpose of the meters that don't exist anymore, we now have, over the next three years, we're going to be making this big

you know 10, 15 million or 14 million dollar expenditure on a big new garage that's going to be kind of shaping marketry and I think it makes sense for you know part of that to at least happen openly for people to see it and I think that actually you know for once the makeup of the parking advisory panel makes a lot of sense for that for downtown business owners to be able to weigh in on you know how that shapes

or is shaped over the next couple of years as it's designed, which I think an RFP is going out pretty soon.

So with that, and in many cities across the country, you have small parklets for outdoor dining for restaurants on the street as a response to COVID.

I think that would be a great thing for the city to do, touching on what you heard last night from some restaurant owners who don't have any outdoor patio space.

Well, we can make room for that.

and I think that would be a great option and perhaps something for that panel to consider.

Just real quickly, we discussed earlier in the meeting that issue of accessibility for staff liaison boards in all those meetings and the information we received from the Bike Pet Advisory Committee, which is an existing

staff advisory board.

They're publicly noticed.

They're open to the public.

They welcome public participation.

I think we also have to, Ms.

Ponce's report

of what they're doing.

She also, without hesitation, said it's not a very diverse board.

So she's somebody that we wouldn't have to monitor just based on what she gave us.

And if we have staff members like that, then we have fewer worries.

And if you have staff members that are not like that, then there's cause for concern.

And so I think based on if what we heard from her

Certainly.

And as was mentioned, I think our council boards have the same, if not more of a problem in terms of diversity.

I think it's definitely

I want to comment on Ms.

Bingham's feedback.

I guess my biggest kind of what's weighing on me is just the size of the Human Rights Commission and whether we are going to bring all these folks in.

Obviously, there's also just the scope of what's going to be charged with that commission.

But just I'm hesitant to just

kind of invite everyone in that supply to fill up these spaces, because there's many vacancies in that board, only to turn around and kind of determine, you know, a more nimble, smaller board is going to be the most effective.

And so I just, I'm hesitant.

And I'm sure it can be said about other boards too, that we've recently appointed, we might actually restructure, but given the timelines here, it was kind of where my hesitation is at the same time.

If they feel that the work that they need to get done is inhibited by not having some voices at the table, I'm certainly open to understanding like what

What are some of those skill sets that are going to be most impactful for them in the shorter term, these next four months ahead?

I guess my thought would be is, particularly if they're getting ready as they would annually to appoint officers, to me it just seems like the simplest thing, if the board is requesting it and feels like it's something that they feel is very important to their work, to just appoint those members with the understanding that

You know, it is going to be a longer process in terms of getting those new staff positions in place in order to really rethink the full direction and how it's incorporated into the city.

But at least my perspective, that just seems like the simplest thing and helps give them some continuity.

And I think, at least from my perspective, would help tee them up to hit the ground running once those staff members come on.

Especially, you know,

Do you have any thoughts about the size of the board though?

Because it's pretty big range right now.

It's like a minimum of nine and up.

I mean, it's just almost like there's a minimum versus a maximum.

No, and I think the issue of board size has come up as an issue with the Housing Advisory Committee, Place Design Task Force.

I just know in terms of the board right now, the perspective they share with us is they don't see it as a problem.

I'm not uncomfortable with it in the interim, recognizing that longer term, once those new staff positions come on, that there may, there's going to be a deeper rethinking about our direction for the future of the Office of Human Rights and how the Human Rights Commission fits into that.

So I definitely, I hear the point and it's definitely something with many of our boards and commissions with the size is something that

You know, if it expands too much, it sort of loses direction.

So we need to be realistic.

If we appoint the board members, they are going to be board members.

Their request is for us to have 15 board members, and that's what we want to approve.

So there is no reason to beat around the bush that if we appoint these board members today, that these are not going to be the board members and the composition of the board

the number of board members moving forward.

There's no way that we then in four months say we're scaling back.

And this wasn't a point that I particularly cared one way or the other.

I just know that we've been getting a lot of feedback from public members as well as the board.

And so whatever the decision is made needs to be the decision and not,

No, and I think that's right.

I mean, I guess where I come down on it is at this point, I trust the leadership of the board to trust if they think as they've told us that these appointees are gonna bring expertise and experience

they believe is gonna help their board function better.

I just trust that that and sound judgment in terms of how they're operating.

Whereas like with the Housing Advisory Committee and the Place Design Task Force, like the chairs of those committees have raised the issue that I think we can't operate because it's too large.

And I had one other thought, but I lost it.

I do, yeah, the final thing is I do think

In the interim and the longer term, once the staff position comes on, I do think the critical challenge for us as council, which we probably won't be able to fully resolve until the staff positions come on is, my biggest worry is that like with the Human Rights Commission and several other boards and commissions are doing work and a lot of it is good work, but it's just not, we just don't have the mechanisms to incorporate it as much as,

I don't think that regardless if we're in a position to appoint anyone tonight, because I don't even have those applications in front of me, just to clarify for the public.

We just mean that we're going to be willing to consider them in our next opportunity.

But I am still hesitant about it, given the openness we're creating for this board and then the ability to not really retract from that.

considering the feedback they've gotten on sides of the boards.

And I think boards tend to have longer meetings as well.

And I would like to add to Mayor Walker's point, not taking a position on nine or 15.

However,

One thing, and I know that Ms.

Robinson and Ms.

Thomas and I have talked about this before on a couple of occasions, we do need to remember these are volunteers, right?

These are people who are coming to us as volunteers who want to help our city and make it a better place.

And

Once it goes to 15, the mayor is absolutely right.

We should not ever tell a citizen who's volunteered, put in an application and been appointed that, I'm sorry, staff has made a recommendation, we're going to cut you down, you know, the size of your commission down to nine.

And so I just I just ask you to remember that, that these are people when they're putting in their applications, they're truly

the good-hearted folks in the city who are really trying to help you all and help their fellow residents in the city by volunteering.

And so we want to make sure once we apply, we do not want to go back.

And I agree.

I think that's right.

And I certainly heard the other side as well.

And so whatever the decision is, I just want to make it clear, since I'm