City Council Strategic Planning Work Session for FY22 Budget, 1-4PM   11/20/2020

All right.

Good afternoon.

I call this meeting to order.

Thank you all for joining us.

Yes, Mr. Blair.

Sorry.

Ms.

Mayor Walker?

Present.

Vice Mayor Magill?

Here.

Councilor Hill?

Well, first, I'd like to thank Council for gathering here today.

Obviously, Friday afternoon meetings, I'm sure there's a lot you'd rather be doing.

But what I'd like to say to begin the conversation is when we had our first budget meeting last week, I talked about the term fiscal clarity.

And today you're going to hear presentation from a number of our public works and budget staff concerning two major projects, those being school reconfiguration as well as the West Main Streetscape project.

And it is my hope that when you hear staff's presentation, they really worked a lot on getting you hard numbers for this presentation to help you make decisions about going forward.

But when we talk about going forward, not only do I hope this conversation can provide physical clarity, but also operational clarity in the sense that

a number of people on here with both school reconfiguration and West Main Streetscape.

A lot of their work plan for the next few years is gonna be dictated by these projects and the scope of these projects.

And so it's my hope this conversation today, again, can provide fiscal clarity as well as some operational clarity for our public works staff going forward.

So with that, I will turn the presentation over to Ms.

Hammel

And feel free during the presentations today if you have questions to ask staff, and we will do our best to provide clear and accurate answers.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, John.

Good afternoon, council.

Brian, could you bring up the PowerPoint, please?

So we have lots to share with you this afternoon.

And again, as John mentioned, this is as much fact finding for us as it is hopefully for you.

And so we want to make this a give and take situation.

Please feel free to interrupt with any questions as we go along.

And we'll be happy to try to help as best we can.

So if we could look at the next slide.

What we plan on talking about today, I wanted to just briefly revisit the authorized but not issued list.

I'm going to talk to you in a little more detail from a project management standpoint on both the West Main Street project and the schools reconfiguration project.

And then finally, we wanted to wrap up with a discussion about potentially extending the strategic plan for one more year.

Couple housekeeping things.

These are the same dates that we showed you last week.

There has been one date change, though, I wanted to bring to your attention.

We originally were planning to go to the Planning Commission at its December meeting, but given the timing of this work session,

We wanted to take some extra time to incorporate anything that may come out of this discussion, so we've postponed that until January 12th, and otherwise there are no other changes.

So these are the key dates, the goalposts.

You know, the end of the game is April 13th.

And next slide.

And Ms.

Hamel, if we could just add to that initial list.

When we discussed this, we were set to have a discussion about priorities.

Amongst the council to try to provide us some guidance with the budget.

Okay.

So we'll jump right in.

Last week, we talked about the authorized but not issued list.

We supplied you with a list and we talked about that there were roughly $80 million of projects that had previously been approved by council and the funding approval for those were with bonds.

This week, we were able to go through and clear up some things on that list and actually free up some money there.

But before we did, I wanted to just take a second to lend some context to how that list is generated.

It's not just the list that we decide what goes on and what comes off.

There really is a method to the madness.

And basically, it is comprised of a spreadsheet that I keep.

It goes back multiple years, but essentially what I do is as marked on these blue columns here, I go through each CIP and literally list the projects that were listed in the CIP to be bonded.

When we get ready to sell bonds in a particular year, we go through and look at the status of those projects.

And as you know, we typically issue largely on a reimbursement basis, but we don't issue bonds until we know that the project is fairly certain and projected to be underway and the bonds would be spent within the next 24 months.

So the green column here,

with each represents each bond issue, the projects that we have contemplated to sell those bonds for.

And in some cases, the funding changes or our CIP budget comes across with more projects than we actually build in, because sometimes we backfill with cash.

And so that's sort of what that yellow column is, is just the reconciliation.

And then finally, the purple column

is what's left.

So this is kind of a year-over-year summation of projects that again have been approved through the CIP budget and then we just have not sold the bonds yet.

And that's how that list is generated.

So if we skip to the next slide, we were able to go through this list and

look at what was on the list to figure out what could be cleaned up, what could we take off, and just administratively some housekeeping items.

The old Lynchburg project was on the original list for a million dollars.

Since then, that has been removed because those funds, the project was closed out and those funds were moved to the CIP contingency.

Similar with the Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Streetscape and the CHS Fieldhouse, those two projects were closed out as well and so we no longer need to hang on to those in terms of selling bonds.

And then the project housing redevelopment that was on me.

Um, I just failed to take that off the last list.

That was a last minute ad in our last bond issue.

And I just hadn't updated the list when I gave it to you.

So of those things, we were able to remove about $6.4 million off of the list, um, that, that we don't need to hold our capacity for basically.

And so sort of revisiting the quick math that we talked about last week to get you down to your credit limit.

I'm rounded to the nearest million just to keep the math simple.

But on the box on the left, we talked about that you basically had a remaining bond capacity of about $52 million.

Or in other words, that was basically the bond spending credit limit we had to get you to your maximum debt ratio of 10%.

Again, these are rough numbers.

They're estimates.

There's a lot of variables that go in here.

So this is not meant to be a number that you stick on to the exact penny, but rather just a guideline to guide your discussions.

And as we work through the CIP in terms of how to set priorities and where you want to place your spending.

After these revisions, if we look to the box on the right, again, the 10% debt ratio is at $192 million.

Again, rounding to make the math easy, if we say that the bonds authorized but not issued is at $74 million,

that gets us to 118 that we could issue to get to our 10%.

And then with the plan that was put forward as part of the FY21 budget, excluding FY21, which was actually appropriated, there were $60 million worth of bonds that were planned to be authorized for the CIP projects that were laid out in 22 through 25.

So that gets us down to a remaining debt capacity of about $58 million.

And so part of, you know, to circle back of where we started our conversation last week is with the 58 million, again, that would get you to your maximum bond capacity.

We also, along with that, have affordability issues about whether we actually want to spend all that credit limit, how would we pay for it?

That was some of the stuff we talked about last year.

But also, of all of these numbers, the two biggest projects that have material impact on either what you do going forward are both the West Main Street project, which have large dollars that have been allocated to it and are a large part of this

Authorized but not issued, it's a little over 18 million at this point.

And then also, what does that mean and what do you want to commit in terms of the school project?

So we thought what we would do today is to spend some time and let the project managers talk to you about some things that they have found, some key points and direction that they need from the project.

And so with that, I'm gonna kick it unless somebody has some questions.

So we're gonna talk about that a little bit today.

Yeah, so we're gonna talk about that.

There's some key points that sort of need to be answered that help with that process.

Chrissy, a couple of questions.

Finished or these remaining funds are not needed.

Okay.

As we talked about last week, there's some things on there that are, shall we say, rather cryptic.

Lump sum from 2017, for example.

I guess I'm sort of puzzled generally by the notion that

There would be a project that we had authorized in 2017 or that the school people had authorized in 2017 and that we sent them the money for that hasn't been finished yet or hasn't even been started yet or hasn't gotten to the point where it might be bonded yet.

Great question.

Yeah, part of what we sent, and again, it was just before this meeting and we'll also put it out on the web page,

That's part of it, but the general question would be, I mean some of these other projects go back apparently many years to the date of authorization and I kind of can't help but feel that if we've gone four years without actually doing something we thought was important three or four years ago,

I think that's a fair point.

So if we're excluding the lump sums from that, I think you raise a great point.

The projects that are on that authorized but not issued list, they are just that.

The different projects are at various phases.

Maybe some have not begun at all.

And if there are particular ones that we want to discuss, we can pop the list up and talk about that.

There are some that are at various stages of planning.

And so we don't sell the bonds until, again, we know the project is either underway or will be well underway and the bonds spent within the 24 months.

And so that's why there are projects on that list that we have not sold the bonds yet because it has not materialized.

Sure, I guess where I'm sort of having trouble is with the suggestion, and I'll only preface this by saying, I really think it's one of Charlottesville's major weaknesses that we keep going back and rehashing decisions that have been agonized over three years ago.

And I am not anxious to do that.

are there any things in particular that, I mean, has staff attempted to go through and say, okay, this is something that maybe right now we don't really need all that badly.

I'm just looking, assuming that things are put in roughly chronological order on your list, looking at the top items.

I mean, there's things for undergrounding utilities and sidewalks, and we'll talk about the West Main streetscape.

City Schools HVAC replacement plan.

Speaking specifically, one thing to keep in mind is we are always about a year behind in terms of this list.

So there are lots of dollars on this list that were just approved in FY21.

I'll pick on the school HVAC account since that's one that you raised.

Roughly $18 million of that, I'm sorry, $1.8 million of that is for budget that was approved in 20 and 21 and we just haven't sold the bonds yet.

And there are some things that are just our savings accounts.

So that's kind of the conversation that we talked about last year with sidewalks, where we decided that we were not going to put money in there because there was an available balance to spend down.

And so the sidewalks account that's here is that maybe money

They are somewhat in chronological order, but because the sidewalk account is something that we contribute to almost every year in the CIP, it is a cumulative effect.

And so that may be just dollars from the FY21 or 20 budget that we just haven't spent or sold yet, or we're saving up for a big sidewalk replacement, or we were doing lots of studies and figuring out how to best apply those dollars.

And again, I can defer,

If we want to talk specifics, we have some experts on the phone that can maybe speak to some of these projects.

The other thing I would say to you is that before we sell bonds, we do what's called as a spend rate projection and every year we send out a summary to all of the

departments and say, hey, here's what you have in the CIP.

Give us an update of what you plan to spend between now and whatever date we're looking at.

And what is your spend plan for the next year?

And we, I mean, we have that data.

I think the last time we did it was as of January.

And so a lot of what you see here are sort of accounts that get new funding every year.

But again, there are some other things on here that are sort of one time things that haven't happened yet.

And again, to your point, it's a fair question.

Do we want to revisit that?

Well, I don't want to bog us down anymore.

You've got a lot to talk about.

There's some other things I may call you about on the side.

This was raised, I think, in our last meeting.

So are there any more questions on these details or the authorized by not issued list before we move on?

Thank you, Chrissy.

So as it was commented, there are some projects that are out there right now.

that as we're going through this process, two in particular, the West Main Street project and some school projects that are sort what I would define as our big ticket items.

And because of their size and their complexity and the cost associated with it, one of the things we want to do is to follow up with city council to discuss these couple of projects to get further understanding and guidance from city council.

You know, there, as council may recall, a couple of weeks ago, there was a presentation with regards to the West Main Street project where we're at.

And, you know, in regards to the funding mechanisms, one of the directions given by city council for us is to go back and also look at if there is any potential as far as cost reduction through value engineering.

Staff has done that as well.

But when we look at the projects overall and tying into what Chrissy had just identified is that, you know, these projects have some significant commitments to them.

And when you look at the CIP overall list needs for projects, there just isn't enough funding to go along with it.

So what we want to do is have these discussions with city council

to get the direction, but also to get staff's recommendation on what we think might be a prudent means to go for projects and moving forward.

So from this standpoint, I've got engineering to talk about the West Main Street project and also facilities developments talked about the school projects as well.

So from this, what I'd like to first do is to move into the West Main Street project

and for the city engineer Jack Dawson to give an overview of the project, the funding and where we're at.

As presented, this is a multi-phase, multi-year project.

And so let's go into a brief discussion with that.

Sure.

Thanks, David.

Again, as was discussed, we were in front of you not too long ago talking about West Main streetscape project and seeking whether or not this was something we want to proceed with a value engineering study, which we've done.

And that's essentially the, that report has not been finalized, but yesterday we did have a call with the consultant that did that analysis.

And so based on that analysis with the direction that the value engineering study was to maintain the vision of the original project.

The result of that was that the value engineering consultant found what they thought was about $3 million in savings across the projects.

And just to summarize that, we did give them the direction that we want to maintain the vision, which largely was the sense of space, the trees, and as much onsite stormwater management as was possible.

And the result was essentially through changing site furnishings to less expensive products.

eliminating all on-site water quality treatment, and then making some guesses about how water quantity might be made more efficient.

The $3 million is what they came up with so far.

That seems to me to be a little bit of aggressive estimation.

But that being said, the result is that the total project cost is $49,300,000.

Of that, about 20.5 million comes out of what's already been allocated locally to that.

We've already spent 3.1 million, almost 3.2 million of that money on the designs thus far.

We've got a further 3.2 million, or rather from the state so far, we've got 7.2 total.

already allocated of which we've spent $47,000 and sought reimbursement of which would mean were we to cancel the project we would owe $47,000 to the state.

What's yet to be identified are these yellow boxes, which is $2.3 million and $8.7 million for future phases that have not yet been allocated.

which would likely have to come from local funds.

And then the state dollars applied for on the bottom row for phase three represents our smart scale application for phase three, which would pay for phase three in its entirety, which is pending in front of the state right now, the grant application.

Yeah, so we did not include that on the chart.

We talked about that at our last work session that's a total $5 million.

It's not clear to me that that money is going to materialize or could be used, as I understand it, phase four being closest to the university was the intent.

That's not in the letter that I've seen, but that was the intent.

So if that was to be applied, it would be applied against that 8.7 million of phase four unidentified funds, leaving us with essentially 3.7 required of local funds for phase four, if all 5 million were to be

So tying into what Jack has referenced, the project itself overall does represent a significant amount of investment on the city's part.

And so asking council to take that into consideration as we're talking about the CIP items.

Again, Chrissy had identified there's a number of projects out there right now that are requested but are still unfunded.

Phase two is the scope of that is from just beyond the jury bridge to I'd have to look at the exact map, but they're in linear chunks moving west from the intersection with fifth.

Okay, is that towards the university or towards the downtown?

I'm sorry, sorry.

From Drury Bridge going towards university, phase two.

Well, so that's sort of what we were discussing last time a little bit is that

And what I wish I had to answer for you was if we wanted to do the bare minimum on this project, what would that cost?

And is there, can we move the needle from what that is to where we're at now with the design?

And that is not, as these numbers, you know, we've spent $3 million on this project already, and there's not, you know, no asphalt been poured, no concrete's been torn up.

There's a lot of time and effort that goes into putting these things together.

So,

And we already, for phase one and phase two, the projects that already have state allocation, we would have trouble, we would not be able to tinker with the project at this point and use any of the state money because they've already approved the scope, our scope that says, here's our goal.

This is what we're achieving.

The state only pays for certain things.

They don't pay for the betterments or sort of the aesthetics or underground utilities and those sorts of things.

And I mean, we could have a more detailed conversation if you'd like, but

that 4 million covers more specifically the pieces of the estimate for the project that deal with multi-metal safety improvements, the bike lanes, the signals, things like that.

This value engineering, those ideas can be

implemented without impacting state dollars.

Ms.

Magill, to address your inquiry, the way the projects were presented, there is a cost share.

You have the cost share on the state side and the cost share on the city side.

So as going back to what Jack was saying, if you start revising the scope, you're dividing the project into different components and by doing such,

You are now then with changing the scope of work, you're changing the dollars that's associated with it.

And if we start making that reduction, yeah, we could do it, but then you also reduce the state's allocation as well.

So it's not, we can use all their dollars.

And from a coordination standpoint, it's not a sliding scale where we can tinker with it.

Would that be inclusive of if adjustments are made to phase three or phase four that that would impact state allocations for either phase one or phase two in terms of needing that renegotiation?

I think the short answer is no.

Keeping in mind that it's a corridor and it's sort of been considered as a corridor, a four-phase corridor so far.

So what I mean by that is while we've only been working on phase one and phase two, the consultants have generated a lot of information about what phase three and phase four will look like because the sidewalks and bike lanes and all those things are similar.

And so that's why we could do the result of the value engineering study for all four phases because they are so similar.

So we have no, again, we've made an application to the state for phase three.

We have presently have no commitments with with the state in that regard until they give us funding at which, you know, we can always deny the funding once they give it to us as long as we don't spend it, but

So technically, phase one and phase two are not wrapped up with the ultimate outcome of phase three and phase four, but more realistically, they are.

And I know that was confusing.

No, I think so.

And I guess wrapped up as well, and maybe this was your meeting, sort of raise the question of the utility of making investments in only part of a corridor and then just stopping it.

That is correct.

There is utility infrastructure that needs to be performed from my understanding of the project that would be done in advance.

of the road work portion being conducted.

Part of this project also includes undergrounding various existing overhead utility that are owned by outside entities, but that's part of the streetscape beautification portion of it.

It's not being done, but it's not required by the utilities.

It's more for a betterment of the overall project.

So part of this project, when you look at the total 49.3 million, it includes that utility work as well.

That's, yeah, that's my understanding.

Correct.

And just for context, if you were to look at routine maintenance of this corridor in its entirety, including complete milling and repaving, sidewalk hazard repairs, upgrading handicapped ramps, ADA ramps, replacing the signalized intersection infrastructure in its entirety, you're looking at probably a little bit over $3 million to

replace everything and repair everything that's out there right now as it is today.

And so that's just a rough estimate.

I think probably conservative, a little bit more than three million dollars to just kind of revamp what's there today.

Sorry, was that three million?

Three million, correct.

A little bit over three million.

I think it was around three point two.

I mean, if you assume five million

So to put the question that people keep asking me, why can't we just get rid of this $18 million expenditure and do something else with it?

What do we lose if we do that?

Aside from we have $3 million already sunk costs.

We've got other maintenance costs that we would have to incur anyway.

There's going to be some digging up of the street to deal with the utilities anyway.

What else?

Well, okay, I'll put it to you the way it gets put to me on Facebook, which is admittedly not a very scientific way.

But here's the question.

Why are we spending $18 million?

Let's cut the $18 million from the capital budget for the Waste of West Main Street project.

and spend it on schools instead.

And my question is, aside from, I have a gut feeling about what the answer is, but if you've got some specifics, it would be helpful to be able to say, number one, we already know we're gonna have to spend $3 million on maintenance over the next umpteen years.

We already know we're gonna have to spend whatever the other responses are.

Well, if we look at the project overall and you heard staff make a couple of comments with regards to, you know, if we're to go out there and replace it, yeah, it's going to be over $3 million just to replace the existing infrastructure.

Then I do not have the cost for the underground utilities that the city owns, what that cost estimate is.

So, but that is work that would have to be done as well.

So, and that's not reflected in this $49.3 million.

So if we look at overall, you know, the project itself was intended, from my understanding, to just create an extension of one portion of the town that already exists to make it look similar.

And the question I think that is being presented right now, do we want to, does the city council want to proceed with doing that or would it prefer, as you mentioned,

moving those additional funds to other infrastructure that could be expended and do what's basically just necessary.

I think it would be helpful if we had, or at least for me, if we knew what the basic costs would be and how do we get that information.

If it's not,

just how close it is to the local allocation for this overall project.

And I think that'll eliminate some of the questions that we have because then we would know if it's 3 million plus another 4 million and that takes care of everything that's basic that needs to be done in all four phases.

We know that that's a significant difference from the,

the $20 million local contribution that we would be weighing in on.

And then I guess we could still have the conversation with the university about, well, if we are scaling the project down, what would you all still commit this dollars to?

And then we would know whether they are saying, if you scale down, we're not committing anything at all.

Or we are committing x number of dollars.

I wonder if having the conversation before, you know, we make a decision after the counselors are finished answering their questions, because the priorities discussion that we're going to have, I think if you're saying we can do either or, or maybe neither, you know, like whatever that conversation is going to be,

We may need all the information to even arrive at the point of view if we are being told at this point that we won't be able to do both of these projects and what that looks like.

Okay.

So if I can briefly summarize that from what I've heard is that what we can do is we take this scope of project, identify the budget amounts so that we can do an actual comparison to what's presented here with the West Main Street project as it's represented in comparison to what the actual needs would be.

So if we didn't do what's proposed here,

And what you all believe would be possible in terms of modifying the state, the documents for the state review and whether they would approve

I think that would be helpful.

All right.

But when we're talking about that scope, we have to recognize, I mean, this is on a sliding scale of how much we're going to do in this corridor.

Is it going to be this whole thing we propose, or is it just the bare minimum?

And I think that somewhere in, I mean, I just, it's hard for me to look at it as just those two binary options, because there's a lot of other things gained by, the whole reason that this took place was just to

to make this corridor more usable for pedestrians, for cyclists.

And if we're just replacing what we have, I just struggle with just doing it just to that effect.

I mean, like I said, there's one extreme of going all the way to what's been explored and what's been funded up until now.

So I'm just struggling a little bit with it being like this versus that, because I just think that there is some value in us really taking these steps to improve this corridor.

Well, and to tie on to what Mr. Sillman had mentioned earlier, one of the things that we discussed was that 3 point, I think it was 3.1 or 3.2 million just for the existing infrastructure that Mr. Sillman mentioned.

But then he also identified an estimate of 5 million.

So that's taken above the 3.2 to 5.

And with that is looking at the potential of adding those other components that you were just referencing, Ms.

Hill.

of where we do the various sidewalk improvements.

We would do some bump outs for enhanced pedestrian crossings at signalized intersections.

We can look at the pavement widths and if we can accommodate improved bicycle facilities as well through that corridor.

So the objective is trying to achieve the various amenities that are part of the scope of this original project, the West Main Street project, but just primarily

focusing on what do we truly need first and meeting those needs then moving forward with what we can and what that estimated cost was.

So I think that what you're asking for is looking at the basic but also still trying to achieve what was represented here as far as the picture or scope of the initial project itself because you don't want to lose those components.

Yes, thank you.

If we change the Appendix A, which is the initial cost estimate that we submit to the state when we get these fundings, we will have to renegotiate that with them.

It is,

And Jeanette can clarify this.

I believe this is mostly smart scale, which is we're not matching the funding, which is revenue sharing, if you're familiar with that.

There is some federal dollars tied up in this.

But generally, if you look at phase two, for example, where we have 7.1 local against 4 million state, our portion is covering the betterments.

It's matching possibly the states if we have revenue sharing, and then we're covering the betterments.

So it certainly is feasible, and it wouldn't be a short process where we just shoot via email and say, oh, yeah, this is fine.

But it would be feasible to scale that back.

But while these are the correct questions, you could point at any corridor in the city and ask me and Marty how much it would cost to get it up to snuff.

All these things are expensive.

I think that it's really hard for us to quantify, again, that sliding scale.

What about here?

What if we get 30% aesthetics in all of the infrastructure?

That's an extremely difficult thing to do for anybody.

Even these value engineering studies are, this is not a bulletproof $3 million.

This is sort of people spending two weeks on what's been a six-year process to do the best they can to find savings here.

So I think if there's sort of a qualitative, definitive, we want what's on this, then it sells itself.

Anything short of that is pretty hard to define.

You know, it's not like if this project were to go away immediately, we'd give a CIP request for $5 million saying absolutely next month we need to start replacing these handicap ramps as well.

As I understand it, this project started from a planning exercise and while solving a lot of engineering infrastructure problems, that wasn't the intent.

And so while that's a nice benefit from engineering infrastructure maintenance standpoint,

Thanks for the reminder that it has been six years.

So I have many numbers that you all give us against whether we have the dollars, even once you all do that.

Could I ask a somewhat more limited question and that is, I'm not asking that you guys go back and renegotiate anything.

but just recognize that this project started six years ago, none of us on council were here then.

None of us bought into it then.

Some of us have only been on council for 10 months now and have had very little exposure to it.

And so to a certain extent, just speaking for myself, although I'm prepared to assume that you all knew what you were doing and the prior councils knew what they were doing, I kind of need to be sold.

and part of what I need to be able to do in talking with people about this project is to explain to people why it is that we're spending $18 million, why it is that basically $60 million a mile is what this comes down to is an appropriate expenditure of local funds, much less state or anybody else's funds.

And I know that we're trying to do an awful lot of things in that mile.

or 0.8 miles, I guess it really is, if you look at the entire project.

But I need to have some way to tell people why this makes sense other than just, well, I assume the council knew what they were doing five years ago.

So I'm just asking for sort of a reallocation

Well, understanding the question, I would say though,

Counselor Snook, I mean, there are some qualitative and policy level aspects to that question.

Well, but if there is maybe even a simple matter of there's already a document that council got five years ago that needs a couple of numbers updated and you could shoot it to us and we could say, okay, now I understand.

I mean, I've been justifying it to people when people have asked me about it by saying, you know, there are all kinds of things that we're trying to do here and some of them, for example, I know that the water and sewer lines that run up and down Main Street are going to have to get replaced and that's,

that's going to happen, but the cost of that isn't a part of our cost here.

It's being borne by the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

But still, once you're digging up the street, it seems to make sense to do other things that have to be done while you're digging up the street.

I completely agree with Councillor Hill and his suggestion that there are value

aspects to this.

This is perhaps the most important mile of city street that we've got in terms of our connection to the university, in terms of the way that

hundreds of thousands of people a year see Charlottesville in a way that people get to and from the two centers of our economic activity being downtown and and the corner.

So I completely agree with all of that.

I'd really like to have more information that sort of justifies the expenses so that I have a better argument to make to people when they say, just cut out $18 million and let's go spend it on schools.

So I'm not looking for a renegotiation.

I was just going to say, my first two years on council, there were certainly other colleagues who

consistently spoke very thoroughly to that point.

And I'm happy to go figure out like where some of that commentary was because there was a lot of thought put into just kind of even getting us up to speed on these decisions, because every year this topic has come up.

I have a few questions, please.

So the way I'm calculating this is right now we have identified $20.5 million of local allocations.

We've already spent 3 million of that.

We're looking to the design, the value engineering looks like it can cut about 3 million.

We would have to spend 3 to 5 million

in the corridor anyway.

So that drops us down to 8 to 11 million that is actually getting allocated beyond.

Yeah.

OK.

No, but that's all four phases.

Yes.

All right.

So that's going to throw, I don't know how much of that is in phase four.

If none of that was in phase four.

And we would need to spend about three to 5 million in that corridor.

in delayed maintenance, deferred maintenance, repairs after replacing, I mean, that really brings us down to between eight and $11 million that's above what we're gonna have to or already have spent.

Except for another $10 million that is unidentified yet.

Or almost 11 million that's not identified.

And that assumes that in phase three, the state awarded all of what was applied for, which is certainly not guaranteed by any means.

No, that 3.2 million number that I mentioned, that's basically assuming that at some point over the next number of years we're going to have to repave all of West Main.

We're going to have to come through and do hazard repairs on the sidewalk, fixed crack sidewalk, heat sidewalk, things like that.

There's, I think, six signalized intersections out there.

At some point, each one of those signalized intersections should be replaced in its entirety.

Only one is at the point where it needs to be done right now.

I think there's another one that's due for in the next, you know, several years.

The other four are probably, you know, 10 years, 15 years down the road.

And so that, of that 3.2 million, not all that would have to be done

you know, like next week or next year even, we would probably push out paving and the hazard repairs for sidewalks until all the utility work is done.

And so even that 3.2, we're looking at another two years out before we even started.

So to address your question, Mr. Payne, if you think about from the perspective

The project right now, the $49.3 million, encompasses the work that Mr. Silman was just referencing.

And to your point, Ms.

Magill, the situation to remember is if you look at the costs that are presented for phase three and phase four, those are unfunded.

Those are still dollars that the city would have to

get funding for the next phases.

We've only received funding for the first two phases.

This project represents $49.3 million over a longer period of time.

And the situation is that what's going to occur is when you think about that $4.3 million, you are

thereby having the obligation to the city of over, I think it was 25 million or more, and I have to, again, we'll go back to my numbers, that those are dollar amounts of funds that the city is obligated to.

So when you think about debt service, you're not gonna be able to account for that because you've got this obligation.

And this is not only on this project, but it's also gonna be tied into what we're gonna get into with regard to the schools as well.

And that's, again, part of the reason why we want to discuss these two projects because these are two big projects that the city is going to be making a commitment to.

And from a staff standpoint, we want to ensure that we're getting the appropriate direction.

Just one final question, I guess.

The way I flip out the policy decision for us is that sort of the policy goal achieved here is

You have a main sort of artery road for bike and pedestrian connection in that completing those bike-ped connections here would be a significant sort of game changer in the accessibility of the entire city for bike-ped, as well as that sense of placemaking where you have this stretch of road become a place that's geared much towards being like a specific place in levels of urban design that just

transform the character of it and just make it a very different kind of a signature place left sort of to a lesser extent the way the downtown mall is kind of like a it has an aesthetic and sense of place to it and that's the policy trade-off is whether we're just doing

strictly what's needed engineering wise.

But if we do that, I don't see we're obviously, there's no way for us not to sacrifice those policy goals of like the critical bike pad path for the city as well as that sense of placemaking.

So that's just how I'm thinking about it.

And I guess the final question I have is it seems like the major challenge now is with like the budget crunch, the coronavirus and the pandemic has,

given us obviously is delaying the timeline or changing the scope of it in terms of the timeline to better meet like the immediate budget crunch we have.

Is that not feasible to do without sort of sacrificing these bigger policy goals that have been worked on for six years?

Or is that just kind of

Well, there's two.

And I'll ask Ms.

Hanwell to also comment on this.

But from my perspective, there's two components.

The first in regards to the state allocations that we have.

You know, that has a timeline to which we've committed to for constructing these projects.

And with that, that thereby ties up those funding, city funds, to which are identified for allocation to these projects.

And you bring up a very good point, Mr. Payne, is that with the COVID, I believe it has affected our revenue in coming into the city.

And again, I'll defer to Ms.

Hammel to comment on that.

or Mr. Davidson or even Mr. Blair pertaining to this.

But it is affecting, I think, revenue.

But that's from what I've seen in other municipalities and even state organization, everyone is seeing that right now.

And it is having an effect.

So from our perspective, I think, in looking at these and developing an appropriate plan and how we want to address CIP dollars,

It's prudent for the city to take that into consideration.

And I'll, Ms.

Well, I did want to first being absolutely right, obviously COVID-19 has

affected incoming revenues in both the lodging and meals, and we will have to wait for the collection rate for real estate to see how it affects that in December.

But a point Mr. Brown made, and I think, Councilor Payne, I wanna make sure your question's answered.

You know, it sounds like what you're really asking is, is there some deadline

that we have to begin work in order to preserve state funding.

Is that a fair question?

Is that a fair summation of where you're going?

Or I guess just getting a sense of like,

One, yes, whether delaying the timeline foregoes the city money.

But even if we forego the city money and we say like, you know, in this next five years, you know, we're going to focus on what's just necessary engineering wise, does that foreclose entirely the original vision developed under this plan, which was obviously much more expansive?

Well, I think right now, are we just we're kind of deferring some of these other things, knowing that we might be really taking this more in depth look and tearing everything up.

So if I think if we were to depend at some point, there's a point where we just can't push it out any further, very similar conversation we're gonna have with the schools to that you just can't keep kicking that can down the road, because these roads cannot they will, they're not being repairable at some point.

And so I guess

And then, but no, I mean, I think I have a sense of anyway, and then the real final last thing is, is the 10 million, there's around 10 million for underwriting utilities that the state's not, or Dominion's not paying for.

That's in that 49 million, right?

This is the total project cost of Rivanna, you know, those things that aren't in our scope that are coordinated with it.

And just sort of to answer maybe, Mr. Payne, a little bit your question, even going back to Mr. Snook's comment.

The benefit, as Marty said, we have six signals here, one needs to be replaced.

If this project goes forward as is envisioned,

you're gonna have a brand new, everything in that corridor is gonna be brand new.

Of course, phase one will be like five years old by the time the whole thing's done.

But beyond that, that's the idea.

So all of the infrastructure, all the maintenance will ultimately be taken care of there.

Quantifying when that second poll needs to get paid for if we didn't do this or what that immediate maintenance looks like is very hard.

And I think to Mr. Payne, your comment,

The issue with West Main is that there's a defined right-of-way there, obviously, with buildings on either side.

So the primary purpose of this, beyond replacing the infrastructure, is to improve pedestrian safety and bicycle safety.

That's by doing the bulb outs, doing the indicators, and all of those things, which are a benefit.

Doing the bare minimum engineering is not going to achieve that, which would probably, that's what VDOT gives us money because we're meeting with their V-Trans safety scores and all these things.

So that is probably, that's probably unlikely that we could, that, you know, going somewhere in the medium between the bare minimum, what we have now is going to be very challenging to do and negotiate through VDOT, I guess is my point there.

Quantifying how these, that when we pull the trigger on various things, what the expenses are for maintenance is also very challenging.

But the idea, you get a final product, everything's replaced under this instance.

And we have served the goal of improving the corridor for especially pedestrians and bicycles.

And so if that's the goal, this is what essentially it's going to cost.

And something short of that is going to be something different that we can't quantify right now.

Everyone, if I could jump in real quick.

Hey, this is Jason McElwee from utilities, and I just wanted to clarify that the utility work in the corridor or the city will be done regardless of this project, whether or not it goes forward.

We have to do that from a compliance standpoint and from a safety standpoint.

And as everybody has talked about, the

The monies to perform that work is not in this budget, and that will come out of our own CIP.

But at this point, there is no Rivanna work planned in that corridor either.

It's all our work, all utilities.

And just to kind of loop back to that and jump in on that as well, just to be clear, when Jason talks about that that's not part of this budget, that is correct.

What we're talking about here is the general government bonds.

And so that is what's in funded with our CIP utilities have their own bonds that they issue and they are not part of this discussion that we're talking about here.

So

The work that they would be doing would be paid for and would not have any impact on the numbers that we're speaking to here.

And then also, if I can, because I know we get kind of, you know, down into the weeds and the detail, but just to kind of zoom back out from a big picture perspective, you know, what the discussion is here is that

As we look at the CIP and as we contemplate the school project, which we're going to talk about soon, you know, the question does not necessarily have to be either or.

Either we do West Main or either we do a school.

I mean, from the prior slides that we showed you, if you wanted to commit, let's say $50 million to a school project, there's certainly capacity with what we know right now that you could maintain this Water Street project at the $18 million mark.

So if I understand the message correctly, like you could maintain phase one and two, and you could do a $50 million project.

But what that means is, one, there's affordability issues with that.

And so what commitments are you making or what trade-offs, as Counselor Payne frequently talks about, what trade-offs are you making in order to be able to afford that, number one?

And number two, what trade-offs are you giving about the unknown?

Because at this point, if you do them both,

You've spent all your credit limit and you've spent it for quite a long time and so that means that you know other than what's on the CIP right now for years 22 through 25 as was shown in the CIP last year

Unless you shuffle something there, there are no more big projects that we can add because you've basically spent your entire credit limit.

So it comes down, you know, unfortunately, these two projects have kind of we've had these discussions and it does feel like it's an either or contemplation.

That's not intentional.

But as we look at spending, you know, are you willing to commit 30 million dollars to do this from start to finish all four phases?

If the answer to that is no, then are you willing to commit with the 18 million that you've already committed to get you to phases one and two and are you done there?

So I don't know if that helps or hurts, but I know as we talk about these details,

You know, for me, I have to kind of keep track of the big picture.

And I guess I would say also to that is that, you know, of some of these options that Mr. Selmon has brought up and Jack has brought up, like if we decided to do just the maintenance, number one,

Anything off of the $18 million is a savings.

So if you spent $3 million to pave or to do the sidewalks or whatever else it is, you know, that's roughly $15 million you have to allocate to something else.

So I don't want it to be an either or, but just kind of keep track of the big picture and not to pressure you all for necessarily a decision of whether it's phase one all the way to phase four, but

Kind of what we're talking about is, and I think this gets to Mayor Walker's point is, you know, when you set priorities, how much flexibility do you want to give yourselves for the future?

And how much are you willing to do the hard work that even if you decide to do these, you have to pay for it.

And I know you are saying that we don't have to make a decision, but I feel like we keep having this conversation.

I would like for us to make a decision because if you all are not tired of having it, I am.

And I haven't even been here for six years.

So I just put that out there.

But I understand if there is a desire to spend more of our time having the same conversation over and over again.

All right, indeed an excellent segue.

So I want to discuss a little bit about the Reconfiguration Project.

And this bit of the presentation is a lot less numbers oriented than the last bit because we're kind of coming to you asking for a little bit of guidance along those lines.

But I think it would be important for us to go through a little bit about what we're talking about, what the Reconfiguration Project is and what it's intended to be.

and also what our objectives are and to give you a kind of an update on where we are with that process.

So essentially what we're talking about are Buford and Walker.

And these are sort of the main objectives that were laid out in December of 2018.

in a CCS board meeting.

They've also, some of these same points have come up in different times as well.

So we, the plan is to utilize existing public properties.

So no land acquisition would be required just due to cost.

We would like to expand the preschool and provide best in class wraparound services, move fifth grade back to the elementary schools

Reduce middle year transitions.

So by adding the sixth grade to Buford, or assumedly Buford campus, we would make that a three year school.

Fifth grade goes back to elementary, so there's one less transition.

Secure our open campuses.

So both of the Buford and Walker campuses presently require students to go across open ground to get from one building to another.

We'd like to secure that up.

Upgrade the facilities, which are over half a century old.

So if you spend any time on either of those facilities, I think you would agree that they're in need of some work.

And then this is the big one.

And I think the driver for the project really is to undo a configuration decision that was made back in a sort of segregation era planning.

So it basically isn't serving the students best.

It looks so similar.

So these are the planning phase elements.

And so basically at some point we had a conversation where we talked about which path of several paths that we wanted to take in terms of planning this.

There's sort of one path was to simply move the project all the way forward.

One was to do a grand planning exercise where we looked at all of the schools in the system and make some decisions there.

We chose the middle path, which involved a planning process that was limited in scope.

So that process is meant to determine the impacts on the spaces, both classroom and common, from the fifth graders getting pushed back to the elementary schools.

So, you know, when you move those fifth graders in, what you're essentially talking about is moving the pre-K out of the elementary school, moving the fifth grade in.

In terms of numbers, that's a relatively similar swap.

But in terms of how a fifth grader uses a space related to how a pre-K student uses space and what we need the schools to do to accommodate that is something that we decided needs some study.

the space needs associated with if there are any additions at the elementary schools that we have to undertake in order to accommodate those students.

And then the main thing outside of that is to examine cohort size changes.

based on, this is a little bit complicated, but if you think about parents are presently choosing typically to take their students out of the city schools if they are going to do so as they make the transition into Walker and then there's another move out of our schools as they transition into Buford.

If you take one of those transitions out

and you renovate the school that they would be going into and make it a better school, a nicer environment, there's some idea that more students may stay in the system.

So that's something we want to plan for and account for in our construction plans.

We can go on from there.

And then, so to bring you forward to where we are, we've had $3 million allocated by council for us to begin our planning and design work.

We issued an RFP for design proposals, and we're in negotiation to hire an architect to do that work.

Now, we have been in negotiations since February on this, but because of the COVID stoppage on our expenditures, we basically put that on pause and have recently picked it back up.

What we expect to see from our architect as part of this initial phase is a visioning document, which gives us a general idea of what we're planning to do.

A goals and objectives document basically lays out exactly what it is we intend to accomplish.

And by the way, each of these would be considered in the group as opposed to behind closed doors.

A capacity study update.

So basically finding out how many students are currently in our schools and what the projections are for the future.

early childhood and central admin programming documents.

So basically laying out the program for the school, meaning how the space is going to be used, who goes where, and what's needed in terms of increased space.

And then a middle school programming document.

It's the same idea just for Buford.

Then we would move into conceptual design and schematic design for each of those buildings.

And basically

By the time we get to schematic design, we expect to have design to the point of having floor plans, visualizations, meaning you would have some renderings so you could see what the buildings would ultimately look like.

And that's for three layouts at each school.

So essentially we're given a set of options.

So along with this process,

And those three layouts would reach schematic design probably in December of 2021.

But along the way in June, 2021, we should get our first set of cost estimates.

So that'll give us an idea of what exactly it is we're planning on spending for each of the different layouts that they present.

It could be kind of a low, middle, high arrangement or something like that.

and then another revision of those based on what our choices are would come in December.

So, this gives you a kind of a roadmap of where we're headed and what we're trying to accomplish.

I think that essentially all of these deliverables that I'm showing you can be achieved for somewhere around

a million and a half dollars.

So that's about half of our allocated $3 million.

And the reason it's laid out that way is because $3 million kind of ends us in a strange place in our design phase.

So it's also, it's pretty difficult for an architect to set up a plan without knowing exactly or even generally how much the project will cost.

Which brings me to this sort of big question.

I think the number 58 million was kicked around early in the process.

Completely by coincidence, it looks like 58 million is about what our capacity is.

I believe a lot still needs to be determined, but I think that $50 million is approximately the lowest amount of commitment that we could give to this project.

Yeah, thanks, Mike.

And so I think, you know, that's a good point.

And as we talk about the CIP and where we are right now, you know, some of the ideas that the school, this project is only in the CIP for the study.

So we have only to this point allocated $3 million.

So how do we get to there from here?

And some of the things in terms of guidance from council as we talk about this, and as John has referred to financial clarity, is there the desire at this point of this council to make a minimum commitment of $50 million?

And as Michael's told you, that's basically the minimum.

That's one question.

And if you are, then help us understand where you are in terms of how to get that accomplished because there are ways that we can structure this and things that we can do.

So for example, when would you anticipate wanting to start in construction?

Is that something we want to start right now?

Is it something that you're willing to wait and say,

Okay, yes, we want to do this, but we want to wait for five years and we want to take some cash that we would normally allocate to something else and save up, if you will, to buy down some of the anticipated debt for the project.

That's one alternative and we could look at some scenarios there.

Additionally, if you were going to contemplate this project, do you want to look at the impact of any existing school funding that currently exists in the CIP?

For example, we have in the plan a million and a quarter annually for what we call school priority improvement projects.

Would it be your vision that instead of

giving that in addition to this project that those dollars would now for the foreseeable future be redirected to funding for this project.

And then secondly, do you have any expectations from the school for the school to commit to making a way or a path forward to find the funding for this project?

Would or how would the 40% formula be impacted?

Is that a conversation that needs to happen?

and also are you willing to ask the schools on their side that we're gonna commit to this project, but equally are there operating reductions that you can make to help make this affordable?

And so those are kind of some of the big picture questions that if we could get some guidance on, it certainly helps to sort of plan, provide you with more information as a path forward.

Is there somebody?

Go ahead.

So, yeah, I think just being on the CIP committee also, I think that it would be important.

One, I think that maybe when we have our discussion with the school board that this

exact presentation.

I know I saw two school board members in attendance, but it probably would be helpful for us to cover, you know, this as part of that meeting.

And then I think all of the above, if this is the goal, and I've been seeing this in budget meetings for the past few years that we all have to understand that we're not going to be able to do everything.

I just think that without knowing

how the schools feel about that we won't necessarily be able to like make a decision that today maybe about that I will say that I have been having that conversation and will continue to have that conversation about in terms of operation the annual amount.

I've had questions about

as I asked during our last budget meeting about whether there were some things that we have money allocated for that we won't need as a result of this project.

And figuring that out, I think is very helpful for us all.

But I think as a community, we all have to understand that we're not going to be able to do everything the same as we're currently doing if we initiate a major project like this.

So I do understand where you are coming from.

I want to be totally clear about what that million dollars is.

That is a modernization fund.

So essentially, that has been a program where we tried to modernize our classrooms and teaching space for kind of the future of education.

That doesn't go to those sort of, well,

It does a little bit sometimes, but generally speaking, it's not meant to take care of sort of general upkeep and maintenance sort of work at the school.

That being said, we could pivot on that.

We could use those funds that way.

Yeah.

I think what I was asking or trying to say based on what I've seen, if we go in and we do these major projects at the school, like whatever we decide, we're going to bring it up to, I mean, it's going to be current, the new construction will be current.

And so what those dollars are used for, if it's that school's year to get those dollars, then it

Some of that would already be done.

Right.

The one thing about that is that all of those so far

The elementary schools have taken priority.

We've gone through two and a half of them at this point.

So we were not anticipating getting to Buford or Walker for another three years.

So it wouldn't have really changed that, but yeah, that's a point taken.

And to the point about Buford and Walker,

going back to this anticipated construction date.

I mean, for some time they have just been kind of kicking can down the road in terms of putting any investment in those facilities.

And we don't, I don't think we have a ton of time before we do something meaningful in both of those buildings, just from the pure facility standpoint.

And I will just say that also when we think about this minimum commitment of 50 million, I think that regardless of reconfiguration or not, we're gonna need to be committing a real sizable amount of money

for these schools.

My concern, and I've said this in some of these other CIP meetings, is that I don't think 50 million is realistic for what the scope that we're talking about.

And so then what would that mean if it is 80 or more?

That's kind of where my head is continuing to churn on that.

Yeah, unfortunately those numbers aren't too far off.

60 has been the number, right, that we have heard the most.

Is it?

Sorry?

Yes, I think that's about what I've heard kicked around the most.

Yeah, and it seems like a generally fairly logical number, but it really depends a lot on market factors.

And just to kind of circle back, I think that's where that's how the West Main Street project gets into this conversation, because if we really are saying that we're probably closer to 80 or 60, we don't have that capacity.

And so, you know, not at your debt limit or your affordability, because even getting to your debt limit

affordability is an issue.

And so if there really is a strong commitment for the school project, and we really do think that 50 is not the number, but yet it's something higher, then we do need to, as Counselor Snook brought up, start going through this authorized but not issued list.

We need to really take a serious look at West Main Street and set priorities for where you want the spending to be, because if the school project is the goal,

Then we've got to figure out how we're getting there.

To the question of like fiscal clarity on this, as others had mentioned, like 50, 60 million has been thrown around, but

It's conceivable, it could be perhaps conservatively, I don't know whether it's conservative or not, but 100 million, it wouldn't be impossible that it could get up to there by any means.

That's not in, even 50 million is not in any of our CIP projections right now.

If it's in that upper limit, $80, $100 million, even if we cut West Main Street, we wouldn't have the debt capacity to do it.

And then I think the bigger question for us is, even if it's in that debt capacity limit, I think obviously the affordability question is really vital to the realism of any decisions we're making.

And if we're going with this, it seems pretty clear we'll have to identify significant cuts within the CIP budget and then

perhaps other areas as well when we're looking at the realistic probability to handle that affordability question because I think Councillor Magill last work session made a very just rough on the fly calculation that if we were to go to our bond capacity and just assume we only covered it with tax increases

It could come out to about a 20 cent increase in the real estate tax, and that's just not realistic.

If I might just jump in for a moment, Mr. Payne, I think your point is very well taken that this project could grow to a number that is beyond what's even being kind of contemplated now, but the decision around

a number or a range to work with.

In some preliminary discussions, the term, we need some guardrails, right?

As the negotiations with the architecture firm move forward and as that planning phase moves forward, knowing that there are some things that we won't be able to do and that realistically the exercise or the assignment is

to design within some parameters.

I think that's where there's a little chicken and egg, of course, because if there's no guardrails, then the planning phase can go crazy, right?

Then we can try and accomplish, you know, an extended or an expanded scope.

I think based on some of our previous discussions, just until we know what those, like the company is just going to present, like, based on what I've heard, what we need to do this thing that we said, I don't think it's

a situation like just what we were talking about with West Main where we're adding all of these items for aesthetics that we may need to take out.

Like we are not asking for that with the schools, right?

So then within the documents we get, we'll be able to have conversations and a presentation around

We can do X or Y, but we'll be able to do that once we get the documents right.

Just whatever they give us, we'll still have to sit down with staff and the school board and have a conversation about of these things that are presented, this is what we can do at this moment.

And this is what we would either not be able to do or delay.

Yeah, I think that's correct.

I also think just having this conversation and seeing all these numbers laid out is useful to us because it gives us the idea that

This guy is not the limit.

We're going to be working right along with the architect on this.

This isn't something where we give them homework and send them off and they come back having done their homework and we accept it for what it is.

This is more of a process where we'll be in contact with them on a very regular basis, kind of checking in and getting reports on where things are headed.

and giving them those initial guardrails.

I think at this point, we already know that the higher end of what we could have thought of is off the table.

Can we talk a little bit more through the formula and how that would play out?

I know at some points we've talked about if we were doing a tax increase, not this giant one that was being discussed, but even if we did a small tax increase and if it was justified with it's going towards schools, that we could extract all of that 100% of it versus saying it's 60% and then they're using 40% for operating.

I think last week what we used was an estimate of about 850 as a penny based on the tax rate.

If you're not allocating the 40% to school operations,

then you get the whole 850.

And so that's pretty easy math.

If you are gonna comply with the formula, then you're only getting about 60% of the 850.

And so it sort of climbs from there.

I'm just trying to get a sense for it.

Let's just assume we, let's just, I'm sorry, hypothetical.

Let's assume we did like five cent raise of the taxes and it's 850 times five and

Just trying to understand how that might help alleviate some of these pressures that we're seeing if we didn't do something like that.

I'm just trying to explore because that's something that we have told the schools we would need to kind of go out into the community with them and to sell that as like another revenue source for us to try to achieve these.

Yeah, and so I think if the discussion today leads us to, yes, we want to commit, we're looking at a minimum of 50, and please go look at some of these scenarios for us, then it's an easy thing for us to do to run some scenarios to show you what that might look like in terms of tax rate, in terms of the money you would be able to contribute to the school contribution,

I personally am not good at doing math on the fly.

Excel has completely ruined me.

Yeah, I mean, and you know, some of the other scenarios that just off the cuff we've talked through is that, you know, if you wanted to take the million and a quarter for the next five years and set that aside, you know, that's five plus million that you buy down of debt you don't have to borrow.

That means less of a tax rate later, but that doesn't solve the immediate needs that may or may not be present

from a maintenance standpoint or some of these other issues that, you know, the whole reason why we're doing this.

And so certainly we could look at it.

There's lots of ways to structure the, there are different ways to structure the debt.

You want direction from us on these two major things.

And then do you also want us to go through and identify anything that we've found on the bonds authorized but not issued list that maybe we have a different timeline we consider under them?

Well, yeah.

Oh, sorry, John.

I'm sorry.

Before we go there, one other thing that I just want the council to be aware of that we've talked about is

You know, you have a, now obviously with COVID, there are issues probably with fiscal year 21, but typically you have an operating surplus every year.

You know, you can look at a policy change.

If you go forward on these projects that the council says we're going to dedicate

you know, all or a certain percentage goes directly to funding these capital projects and buying down the projects.

I just wanted to throw that in there.

That's another policy lever that the council can employ.

Well thank you for that reminder but historically at one point at some other council there was some percentage or some chunk of it that was allocated for every surplus.

This bit is going to go towards CIP and then the rest is up to council's discretion and we would make decisions.

So we have a financial policy that says anything over and above the 17% minimum fund balance in the general fund automatically goes to the CIP contingency.

As a matter of practice, as part of the year-end process, we have come to counsel and said, you know, here's your surplus number.

This is what's over your 17%.

By the way, here are some things we'd like to use it on.

And then also council at its discretion has spent some of that.

But to Ms.

Hammill's point, I mean, I think

And in theory, that's what that transfer was for, is to provide more PAYGO.

It's one of the things we talk about in the bond rating.

We get kudos for that.

Is that one, we have a policy that we pay a minimum of 3% cash in our CIP.

But within our year-end transfers, we've really historically been more at about a 5% PAYGO.

If the school project were important, and to John's point, if you wanted to dedicate this to schools, then we would want council to take the action to say, first of all, we're gonna follow our policy.

All right, so I guess now we have to figure out what direction we want to give to staff.

Well, I had a couple of other questions that relate to the presentation, not so much to the discussion that we've been having over the last five or 10 minutes.

I was curious, there was a reference earlier in the presentation about the need for this restructuring or realignment or reconfiguration

based in part on segregation era decisions that we're trying to remedy.

Well, I wasn't here obviously, but I don't think any of us were.

The way it's been explained to me is that

Essentially, when segregation was ended, there were two schools, Walker and Buford.

And at that point in time, it was sort of a geographical breakdown that determined which of those schools you went to.

And if we didn't have the current 5-6 and 7-8 split, those were considered, I guess, three-year middle schools, which is kind of what we're going back to now.

either three or four year, I'm not sure.

But my understanding is that the perception was that those geographic breakdowns were essentially racial breakdowns.

Okay.

But the,

Right.

And so at that point, I guess we decided to reconfigure and to get away from that segregationist mentality.

Again, I don't know the truth or whatever that, but

When they did that, they introduced all these new issues, such as the multiple transitions.

which was actually my next question.

Any idea how many students transfer out rather than go to Walker or to Beaufort or to CHS?

Are we talking 10 or 20 a year?

Are we talking 50 a year?

Far more.

I wish I had the numbers in front of me because I don't have them at the top of my head.

Okay.

Okay.

I take it then that the 50 million or 60 or whatever we're talking about is only to renovate Walker and Buford.

That is correct.

And our, our best understanding presently is that the elementary schools can approximately take this switch off of students without any, any serious impact to their capacity.

However, that might not be completely true.

And the underlying issue is that, yes, we still will have all of those elementary schools that were built when they were built.

The newest would be the 1960s.

But what we're being asked for here is not the cost of a serial renovation of elementary schools year after year after year.

No, this is simply Walker and Buford.

And I think there is some consideration that the design phase, that the planning and design phase of this effort will identify the needs

If they do exist, at least on a capacity level at those elementary schools, but no, this does not touch the quality of those schools in any way.

And the capacity concern, and Michael, you brought it up earlier, and it's one I certainly have voiced, is that, you know,

As a parent who just had a child go to start at Walker and just seeing kind of the exodus, if that grade level stays on at the elementary and you have a child that can start in kindergarten and be at the same school with that same cohort through fifth grade, which is what the county does, you're not going to have that attrition until after fifth grade.

And so the number of students that are in fifth grade today does not equal the number of students in fifth grade when they get to stay at their elementary school.

continuously through fifth grade.

So that's the concern and an issue that I raised when we've had these conversations with the schools.

Of conversation, there are still some issues in terms of

like the segregation as it's been said, and one of the main ones is the busing West Haven students still go to Burley Moran when Venable is a school in their district.

Access to the private schools and when is another big factor that comes up and while this has been, you know, discussed as how do we keep students who parents can take them out in the schools,

The conversation has to be viewed as how do we make sure that the students who stay in these schools have quality schools to attend.

And that has been something that has been delayed.

We're having conversations about budget concerns now.

and there's been a significant number of parents who at this time during the pandemic in this community who pulled their kids out because they can and to make sure that what they viewed as a potential disruption to education hasn't occurred.

So that's one I think of the primary reasons in terms of wrapping our head and maybe deciding

with staff today is, or if June or hopefully not, or whatever date, if this is a priority, if you all haven't spent any significant time in Walker or Buford or Jackson-Baya or Johnson compared to like a Venable or Greenbriar,

then it's helpful to just see how much we've ignored these buildings in what we call a world-class city and that we expect for our kids to be able to thrive in them.

And that's only one aspect because you can change a building and we all know based on other conversations that there's a lot of other stuff that we also need to change but the,

I don't know if you all have seen any of the videos with modernization, but the kids are thrilled about when these modernizations occur and it just lifts them.

And if you've seen those videos, just being able to do that at just a much larger scale.

and that the environment that you are in does play a significant part in, you know, how you feel and are able to operate in that space.

I also just wanted to clarify that the bullets in that first slide are extracted from a presentation that was put together and presented by school staff and the school board.

I mean, we wanted to certainly acknowledge the language and the components of the reconfiguration from there.

Those are not the goals of the project team.

You know, we didn't invent those.

We want to bring those to the beginning of the conversation as what was brought to the city to work from.

I have a few questions, just some of its kind of things to think about.

How was it, I mean, so as I understand the reconfiguration moving fifth grade back into elementary school is really now in education considered a best practice for children and for their education and their well-being.

That's correct.

which is why I have been for the reconfiguration.

But a few of the things I want us to think through, I guess, especially before we decide that this is 100% the way that we're going.

And I think this is really also needs to be with the school board on this meeting.

What are we going to be gaining?

from going through the reconfiguration process this way and not putting the money into just updating the schools in general.

I think no matter what, we're going to need a significant amount of money, even if we somehow didn't go with the reconfiguration plan.

We're going to need significant amounts of money put aside to update these buildings.

I've been in Walker, I've been in many of the elementary schools.

We owe it to our children to give them a better place to be learning and staying eight hours, nine hours of their day in.

I want to kind of have that better understanding, I guess, of how is this supposed to be decreasing the private school flight at fifth grade?

How is this supposed to be and what does that do for us as a city as a whole?

Why are children leaving in middle school?

And therefore, how does this help stop that?

And how is it aside from, I mean, is this preschool model

over at Walker with the adult education.

Is that really the best use of that space in that way?

I mean, I know there's lots of other committees that are working on that and thinking through that, and this is not my area of expertise.

Well, do we want to hear from them now?

Because Chair McKeever is on the participant list and is willing to come speak to it.

Obviously, this is kind of off the cuff speaking to it.

Our next meeting with them, I don't think, is till the end of January for a more formal session with the full school board.

Yeah.

I think some families are on here.

Jennifer, I'm getting an error message saying you've got an older version of Zoom.

So I cannot enable you to speak right now.

Yep.

Sena, I totally agree with your perspective.

And I mean, from a budgetary standpoint, it's kind of a moot point, whether it's investment in the school structures or whether it's investment in reconfiguration, it's still gonna be tens of millions of dollars.

no matter which way it goes.

So from a budget perspective, I am definitely interested in some ideas about what like a five cent tax rate increase would look like and what that would get us.

Especially if we could work with the schools to say during that time that this money is being put aside for school buildings in particular, that

100% of that tax increase goes into a fund for school buildings, whether it's reconfiguration or updates and facilities maintenance.

OK.

Hi, all.

Thanks for having us.

Also, thank you for not putting the video camera on.

That's amazing.

Anyway, so thank you all for your questions.

I think they're really important and honestly could cover a whole school board council meeting.

And because, again, I don't know that me and Lisa just solo will be able to do justice to the questions that you guys have asked, but we're happy to try to answer.

that this is the best of our ability.

Sure.

So, you know, looking at this, this very high price tag of school reconfiguration,

knowing that that also doesn't include necessarily some of the upgrades to our elementary schools that might be necessary.

Why reconfiguration?

How does this help our children beyond giving a good facility upgrade?

How does it help

The private school kind of flight that's happening.

Okay, so those are great questions, really important.

and I want to start by saying that you can tell, and everybody who's been in these meetings with me have heard me say this a million times, that every time one of our students transitions from fourth to fifth, from seventh to eighth, I'm sorry, from sixth to seventh, and then from eighth to ninth, the academic opportunities

The need, there's a lot of catching up they have to do.

So if you look at our numbers from year to year, from fourth grade to fifth grade, all of the numbers just go down.

In literacy and in math and all the SOL scores, the numbers go down.

So that is one of the,

particular age group between fifth and ninth grade is already a very well at this point I just want to say interesting time emotionally and socially just

it's just a huge growth time.

So one of the reasons that reconfiguration became very attractive to the school board about 10 years ago was that having continuity in the school to watch over a student as the child grows and changes and develops during this time would be an improvement and allow so that the fallback

would not happen so dramatically, for example, between fifth and sixth grade and eighth and ninth grade.

So if you look at our elementary schools, our kids are there from K-4 and you can tell that the consistency of people in a student's life benefits them.

And we believe that the people,

Students in fifth through eighth grade need that as well and so this was one of the um so transitions being a very difficult thing for that age group but also to have adults in the building who are watching over the students for longer periods of time the two-year period being

As you know, just long enough, but not long enough for grownups to be able to monitor and keep track of what's going on with students.

The main reason the reconfiguration came up was because of an efficiency study.

I don't know how many of you all know that.

I'm sure some of you do.

The recommendation was to close an elementary school.

and so reconfiguration became attractive as a result because to consolidate the middle school and then transform Walker or another school into a preschool center would allow for some savings operationally but also you know be able to close and we did not find as a school board that closing an elementary school was

So those are just some of the reasons that reconfiguration has kind of withstood the past decade as a

as a main idea because obviously we've had conversations over and over and over again where the reconfiguration was something we should continue to advocate for.

But having three years in middle school was key.

And of course, what you do with preschoolers became the question then.

And that's why the Preschool Center came into being as a

an idea.

So and I think to that end, Jennifer, if I may jump in.

So what I think she described was why this was initially brought forward as a conversation back in 2008-2009, so based on capacity then.

and then our capacity has changed.

Everything was kind of tabled and here we are a few years ago looking at the opposite of we needed more room and we needed to do something, not just for the developmental and the pedagogical

Can I ask, I guess, one sort of overarching strategic question?

Well, I know it is.

And I don't know whether that's shared by anybody.

It's certainly the perspective that people in the community would seem to have from what I'm hearing when I talk to people.

Well, certainly getting children reading by third grade is a huge priority of ours.

And certainly, if you look at our numbers, the numbers are not

You know, they're never where I want them to be.

I always want them to be better.

And as is the whole division, the whole division is constantly focused on growth.

Another, you can point to pretty much any variable that you would like in education and say that this is the crisis.

So I would just like to not go into that sort of,

You know, well, what is it going to do to solve this problem?

You know, honestly, algebra by eighth grade is also a huge issue.

So, you know, making sure like having continuity, we are doing, I think we have great interventions in place, and we're continuing to work towards achieving the goal of having all of our students on grade level at third grade.

Having algebra by eighth grade is also very important.

When you have a drop off like you see between sixth and seventh grade, it's very difficult to get to that metric.

But I would also argue that the preschool attention could also be helping towards the elementary need.

with just the right, both programming and facilities for those with the greatest need that aren't necessarily taking advantage of preschool programs or can't afford to.

And honestly, obviously we have a lot of things that we're doing within the public system, but there's still a greater need than what is able to be met, is my understanding.

And so I can see that being part of this broader picture, but what I'm still unclear, maybe Mike can help remind me.

With our current scope, what is, right now it's just evaluating what that programming will look like for preschool.

It doesn't involve a full renovation of Walker.

Yeah, sorry, I had an audio dropout for a while there.

Yeah, presently, our plan is to actually take it through schematic design for Walker, which includes the preschool.

But the cost estimates, does that include both?

Yeah, that comes with both, yes.

OK.

And my understanding too, just for everybody's information, is my understanding is we're also going to get some understanding of the cost of returning the fifth graders back to the elementary schools on part of the scope as well.

Is that correct?

Yeah, it seems like Mike's having a little bit of technical issues, but Jennifer, I think yes.

Okay.

Those are all elements of the planning phase.

And if you, I believe that this morning, Chrissy sent a copy of the RFP, the language that provides the background of what this

Planning and Design effort is asking for.

And so that initial paragraph talks about reassigning the early learning services to the then vacant Walker Upper Elementary Campus, extensive consideration for wraparound services.

We are happy to stay on while you guys have your discussion.

I have one.

Of course.

And again, this is just so that I'm getting a clearer understanding in an area that is very far from my realm.

So we were talking about if moving fifth graders back to elementary school,

that is keeping them in the elementary school one year longer, would that cohort in a smaller kind of, I guess, area where they're still being known by their principal, by gym teacher, music teacher, it would still be that same kind of elementary model then?

Yes.

So they're going to have a lot of teachers at that age that would have known them possibly since kindergarten.

Then moving over to a three year junior high model, which they would start rotating all their teachers just a year later than they are now, which adds some stability, bringing that into a slightly older age.

But also they have the same counselors then for three full years, they have

People, you know, I guess a lot of the gym teachers would still be the same.

The music teachers would still be the same.

So there would, again, be a continuation of some core teachers that they might see for three straight years then instead of all, and it's more about the changing of the people in their lives every two years than it is about the facility.

I mean, it is definitely the main issue are the people and the limiting factor of course is the facility.

However, the facility, as you know, is very in need of renovation.

So it's just combining those two issues.

But yes, the facility definitely needs renovation.

All right, thanks.

So I guess the question for us at this time is if we are in a space where we can say that based on the information that we have to date, whether we are still trying to do both projects, whether we are saying that we understand that the schools and the dollar amount, we're committing to that or we're committing to West Main Street,

and understand that at the current tax rate and what's remaining in the budget that we have the, what is it, 52 million and anything that exceeds that is going to present.

And it sounds like even trying to do both of these things would present some major, like some creative challenges for trying to figure out budget and it will leave no, it sounds like no room for us to think about

Other things that might be introduced that I thought in my head right now is just if something comes up with the affordable housing priority that we continuously say that we're setting and we can't, we have no room to assist there.

And so

where are you all in regards to being able to make a decision between those two choices and then understanding that between now and June or by June and in the discussions with school board that we will definitely have more discussion about the potential scope of this work and what we can do and any other challenging conversations that we might have to have with them about

I think I'll just give my perspective.

I think that it is important that we do kind of allocate this sizable chunk with 50 million seems to be the number that we're talking about out in these future years, knowing that a lot more information is to come.

And also just really do want to explore

I'm with Sena and I really would like us to make a commitment for a significant amount of any surplus to be going towards that purpose to try to alleviate some of that strain in future years.

Because in the same boat, I also just feel that we should be committed to phase two of West Main Street, given the investment that's been made, the dollars that are coming from outside sources.

I just, I really struggled to walk away from that project wholesale, recognizing that if we just do the maintenance of that corridor as was proposed, we're not accomplishing any of the goals of all the effort that's been put into a tremendous amount of community engagement, have you?

And I realize it's not to be popular with some folks, but I just can't think of a corridor that's more important to have us might have that pedestrian and bicycle safety.

And I just think it's just such a,

a really important component of our infrastructure in the city that I just, I really would be hesitant for us just to put the brakes on that fully but recognizing those future phases are certainly up in the air and have gaps to fill.

So that's kind of where I'm at.

And I think that the 50 million is still not enough but that's where I think we have to rely on as we get more information and we see other

other options moving forward, whether it's the surplus dollars, or how do we look at this formula, there might have to be there's likely gonna have to be a tax increase of some level.

And I don't like stretching us this far.

But I just feel like for right now, we almost have to just at least have that as a placeholder commitment, much like we have other things just out there.

And as we get more information, but that's kind of where where I am right now.

Additionally, if I look back at the bonds authorized

versus Issued, I'm not really clear on where we are with Tonsler Park and that infrastructure improvement, that's at 2.1 million.

And I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this, but like our bypass fire station, I know that there's through design, but is that something that we could put down the road further?

And maybe someone can tell me that's not an option.

But when I was going through that list, those are two things that just kind of came up to me, like, do these things have to be done right now when we have these other priorities and dollars tied up in other projects?

And I think it's also interesting, you know, like for us, we have to consider the, you know, the unfunded project for staff, all the things that are coming up, um, at this, you know, moment that we've been spending, like even the surplus on, right.

And we've been, um, like part, I wrote down, like, if someone were to ask me today, I have them, what would be my five goals, um, for now and stabilizing the community

through the food insecurity issues and housing is my one first goal.

So if we allocate the surplus for, and some of those needs come up with no additional CARES dollars, is that something that we even can realistically do?

I know before we had conversations about other infrastructure needs, we had the CPD come out to their employees and talk about,

the maintenance needs and their departments during the last budget cycle.

And then I don't have an update about the fire station project, but I would need more information about like, what are we keeping and what are we placing?

If you say a fire station or schools, I got it.

I get it.

Well, just speaking for myself, there are still a number of questions that were generated by today that I'd like to have some answers on and some further thought given to before I make a

categorical statement of, yes, I want to favor this over that.

I want to do both.

I want to do neither.

There's still questions that I need to think about some.

And I guess the real question that I haven't heard, and maybe you all don't know the answer to this, and maybe that's what this further study is going to reveal, is what

What would be the timeline for any money from the city going to the school project?

It sounds like you're not even going to have a proposal put together until June of 2021.

I assume, therefore, that you wouldn't actually start any construction, at least until sometime a year or so down the road from there.

And is this something where we would be thinking we're going to be spending $50 million all at once?

Are we going to be spending $25 million in two consecutive years?

How is this going to be phased?

That's the kind of information that I think we need to know if we're going to look at.

We know we've got some phasing issues on some affordable housing commitments, for example.

We can anticipate that there will be phasing issues on West Main Street streetscape.

Certainly for the schools.

We need to see how those all kind of fit together to know whether we are truly in a situation where we're trading one against the other.

And I'm not trying to say my position as if like, this is, I'm just saying like, this is where my thoughts are now.

There's a lot more information to be had, but I'm getting the sense that staff would just like some directional, like so that they can start to crunch more of these scenarios for us.

And I think we're on the same page with that.

I just wanted to clarify, I'm not like putting my foot in the ground right now.

I'm just trying to say, this is where I'm coming from.

Yeah, I think your timeline, I can speak to that to a certain extent.

I think your timeline that you laid out is about right.

We would get to kind of a schematic design phase at the end of this calendar year, this coming calendar year, 21.

And then we would go into sort of a bid documents phase after that.

So yeah, I think somewhere mid the following year is when we would get to the point of being able to bid it out.

That would be calendar 2022, yes.

So either the fiscal year ending in 2022 or the fiscal year ending in 2023, to where we would have to start putting money in, is my real question.

Right.

And I can also add to your question of phasing.

You know, in the process of negotiating, there have been some phasing conversations.

It is our intention to bring probably all of council, it sounds like would be a good idea, together as soon as we have a contract in place, which I think should be very early next year, next calendar year, to sort of run through some phasing ideas and that would

be a pretty good way of explaining different scenarios of how the expenditures could be done, the construction could be done.

And I can't speak 100% of that yet since we really don't know what we're doing yet.

First off, I would just like to thank everybody so very much for just within a few weeks time here.

You've pulled together a lot of information and a lot of options and problem solved a lot of things.

And I just I just want you to know I truly appreciate it.

And I just

These are just really hard decisions and we want to say yes to everything and make it all happen and just thank you.

As far as like, I know we're going to have to, no matter what happens, we have to put a significant amount of money into our schools.

I had also, you know, have heard in the past

the school board and the superintendent talk about knowing that the city is not gonna be able to shoulder all of that.

So I am interested in hearing, I mean, that's also gonna affect I think some budgetary issues here is hearing from them how much they're been thinking about going out to other ways or if there's any other inventive ideas about financing some of that

I'm also very concerned about affordable housing.

That's another one, as Mayor Walker said, is a huge piece of this too, that we are being recommended to spend $10 million a year for 10 years on affordable housing.

And is that supposed to all come from the city coffers or is that as a community in general?

Can we look at trying to do some of that in some other ways?

Throwing out, you know, TIFs just as an example of other things out there that we might be able to utilize for some ideas.

I guess, or we can go ahead.

No, sir, after you.

I guess my thoughts are, I guess my biggest consideration thinking about West Main Street is just the amount of money left on the table from the existing matching funds plus $5 million from UVA.

And just leaving all that money that's as well as anything that could potentially come for phase three in that application.

Definitely a lot of, just seems like a missed opportunity for that much money to be on the table that's left there.

You know, a question mark I have as well is, you know, if we're thinking about readjusting the West Main project, you know, if we're only doing phase one and phase two, are we just sort of cutting the baby in half in terms of having a project that's not achieving the utility of the original design and intention?

If that's the case, you know, we just may have to make a decision there where we can't sort of

get to a halfway point that's achieving what the original vision was.

That's an open question to me.

I don't know if that's the case or not.

But, you know, push comes to shove.

I mean, schools, you know, I would definitely put schools as a higher priority than the West Main streetscape project.

At least for me, clearly a higher priority, despite the fact that I've got a lot of reservations about leaving all that money on the table.

I do

It does seem to me that even if we assumed that we weren't doing any of the phases of West Main Street, that the cost of school reconfiguration would still require us to make meaningful cuts in our CIP budget.

as well as probably adjustments in our general fund and certainly adjustments in terms of our policies, in terms of what's going to schools for operational expenditures, our surplus policies, etc., in addition to tax increases.

So I just think that's important for us to figure out, that even if we're saying no to West Main Street and yes to schools,

There's still going to be a lot more that we're going to have to figure out what we're going to cut and reprioritize.

At least that seems like to me what the case would be.

And I don't know exactly what all those cuts in the CIP would be.

at least at this moment.

And I would throw out again, I think one of them, which still wouldn't get us all the way there, but is the parking garage at $10 million when we're thinking about these priorities is just a tremendous waste of money and is not in alignment with any of our stated priorities in terms of our top goals and top needs.

and that we are, at least for a portion of that $10 million, the expenditure is a conscious policy decision to build more than the required parking spaces required under the deal.

One thing I would like to ask council, Chief Palicia did want to offer if you all have any questions about the fire station.

And I'm happy to give just a really quick why it's on there and what the scope is.

I see thumbs up and heads nodding.

Crystal could probably speak better to the full scope in terms of the facility management development side.

But this project, so originally in 2016, there was a facilities needs assessment and station location study done, a pretty comprehensive one that the city paid for.

and at that time it was recommended this station be replaced.

1961 was when it was built.

So it's almost 60 years old.

Everything about it is outdated.

The three big categories really are safety, maintenance, and equity.

In terms of safety, the bay isn't sealed so the exhaust is throughout the building, which is a

In all of our other facilities, we've got cancer risk reduction measures in place and that makes it very challenging to do that.

There's no fire alarm system or sprinkler system.

There's no where to do decontamination and there's no fitness facility.

So from an employee

Safety perspective, that's a big challenge.

In terms of equity, there's no privacy.

The bunk rooms are not actual rooms.

They just have these dividers, kind of these divider-partitioner walls between them, which particularly in a time like this where trying to keep air quality is

Isolated to a single person is possible.

It's very challenging.

And also in terms of two genders, it's a very antiquated station.

There's no female facilities in any of the rooms or specific restrooms.

There's just one big restroom, not big, small.

And then the last thing is maintenance.

Pretty much all of the systems are either failing or projected to fail.

Roof, water lines,

Just the infrastructure within the building.

So the maintenance is becoming increasingly more expensive.

That station, it's a great location.

That one engine covers about 20 to 23 percent of our calls.

So it actually runs a fair bit between the 29 North Corridor and Greenbrier and then the bypass over to the Pantops area in north downtown.

So it's definitely outdated and I would just offer as a final comment about a fire station versus other types of facilities.

We're the only department that, you know, we're the only employees that

We ask to live on premise.

And these folks live in the building.

Our firefighters live here 24-7.

And so it's a quality of life issue.

And that's really the bottom line.

Our vehicles barely fit in the building anymore.

There's about literally about three inches on either end of the units.

And we've had to buy units based on making them fit in there.

I will let Crystal add anything if she wants.

She can speak more specifically to how far along the project is and where we are with that.

And I don't want to take too much time, but we also have Scott Hendricks, he's the project manager for this particular project on the call.

And so if there are specifics, in fact, this is a project that's been previously brought to council and some additional funding has been essentially consolidated to support this effort.

So the total approved funding for the project is about $5.9 million.

And currently,

Our authorization on this work is to proceed through preliminary design, which is basically where we are now.

And so at this point, there are some key decision points as well about moving this process forward.

I'd like to just give Scott a chance.

My only question, thank you to both Emily and Crystal.

I think the only questions I'm having now is understanding like what that timeline looks like because you're saying that the total exceeds right now what we're showing on our issued but not authorized.

So we have to bridge that gap and I'm just trying to understand like how this affects the timeline.

Yes, there was the 3.7 is still on the authorized but not issued but there was some previous

funding from another project that had been moved from another fire-related project into this project.

And then just what is the current timeline for when they're designed, like when it would be implemented and we would see a facility in place?

Great.

OK.

So Scott Hendricks here.

I'm the project manager.

And work has been going on for about a year.

It was halted for a while, partly due to COVID and partly due to some cost overruns we were experiencing.

We've redesigned actually what we did initially.

We designed a 15% and then got a cost estimate and made some adjustments to that to stay within budget.

We're at the point now where we're ready to push forward into design development, which would get us from about a 35% design up to about 65% design, waiting for authorization from executive staff to move forward on that.

I will say about the funding that about half of the funding was the CIP.

The other half of the funding was deferred maintenance and other things at the fire department.

basically gave up.

So there were other renovations to other fire station facilities that were going to occur.

That money was all combined and rolled in to make the nearly $6 million number that we have come up to.

So they've sacrificed a good bit already.

I'd love to see this project move forward as possible.

Emily did a great job of analyzing what the improvements could be.

Safety and health is a key factor for this project.

I was going to say I've actually been in that station.

We dropped off Girl Scout dinner one night.

I appreciate all the information in the background.

We have committed the architectural fee and spent about 20% of that already.

Thank you.

So when are we getting a proposal on this?

Are you all asking us at this moment to make a decision?

Sounded like there was a media question.

Okay, so when Crystal just said the red light, I just, with green light, that's what you said, not red.

That's what I was referring to.

So I guess, Chrissy, where are you feeling with what you're hearing?

And I'll just say before they chime in, you know, I don't think we, I think we're in the same space.

With a lot more information and understanding of options, which have been really helpful, I want to echo that appreciation that Councilor Magill shared earlier.

I just feel like the way this has been presented and the detail is just really helpful to really get our head around what's ahead of us.

But there still, obviously, is more information to come.

But I'm hoping that we could at least directionally

Let them know where we're leaning and what we're not going to consider.

Yes, but if they brought it back to us today, I think that they are still confused about whether we're asking them to do both or whether we're saying that until we figure out schools,

we're now moving forward with West Main or whether we're moving forward with West Main and we'll fit in schools with what's remaining.

Well, let me offer a few things.

First is a practical consideration, which is we have to present the CIP to the Planning Commission before it comes to you all.

Saying that, we've rescheduled it to January, but it sounds like, and I guess the first thing I'd like to ask is it sounds like this really, the CIP's not going to

to ultimately, you all aren't going to give a true final direction for us until you have your joint meeting with the school board and get more details from them.

I just feel like that regardless of those conversations that like we were saying before, if it's reconfiguration or something else,

this is a considerable investment.

This is tens of millions of dollars.

And so I don't think 50 is off land-ish whether we do reconfiguration or whether it's truly just improving our existing facilities without that component.

Well, if 50 is really, let's just ask this, well not ask, but if the council is committed to 50,

I think what we can do is start to, and again, 50 not meaning reconfiguration, but 50 could be upgrades to each facility or it could be reconfiguration.

But again, we're talking about debt capacity right now, 58 million, right?

So 50 of that 58, it sounds like is schools,

that we should program in 50 for schools.

Well, I think until we get the feedback, which is, I mean, we have went in the CIP school sessions that the work group or whatever task force, wherever we are, that we've done is, you know, until we get, you know, the information back,

we won't really know what that amount is.

And I'm not intending to close the door that it might not be more.

I'm just saying that given the current constraints we have, that at a minimum, as it says, we're looking to do that.

I'm sorry, I cannot get these children to not bother me right now.

I think that what we have to do is either is say that we would be committed to the schools maybe is that our primary focus or not and whether we know that early like June, July we will be having conversations and that we know that we will include school board and the staff in those conversations about

how we can move forward based on the information that we then have.

I think trying to have a discussion about a dollar amount before we get that information from the experts, which is what we have been unable to make a lot of the decision point discussions, even in the working group, because we don't have that information yet.

So if we say,

50 million and it comes back at 65, we've cut ourselves out of 15 million.

Or maybe it comes in at 100 million and we say we're only gonna do 50 and that means that we have to change the scope or look at in more detail the recommendations they made for the elementary schools or maybe the preschool can't go to, I mean, when my daughter went to preschool at the Jefferson School,

like my son went to preschool at Clark.

So these things have been changing all the time and maybe that's part of the discussion we'll have once we have the information.

I guess I would say I would like to continue on the assumption that we're going to fund the streetscape project.

And obviously, hopefully we can realize those savings that have been suggested through value engineering.

I'd also like to figure that we're going to do the

Again, $50 million seems like a reasonable figure as a placeholder for now.

And if it turns out that $100 million is necessary, then we would have to go back and say, there's no point in our putting in $50 million into a project that's only going to get half done.

Let's rethink this thing from the get-go.

And if it's going to be $55 million, maybe we can make that work.

But there's not that much wiggle room there.

I also, and recognizing that none of these things, as I continue to complain, nothing in Charlottesville has ever settled until it's actually built.

There's still going to be opportunity to rethink it all, but I think both projects are important.

My concern, frankly, is, again, partly because I'm a newbie.

There have been a lot of discussions and a lot of rationales offered in prior years that I haven't seen and I haven't read, and I would love to see and read them.

In the meantime, I'm asking questions that may seem like dumb questions, because I haven't seen what other folks have seen.

But I am prepared to assume, based on what I know, that I would A, support $50 million for the schools, and B, I would support continuing with the streetscape project, and then we'll just have to figure out.

Admittedly, that doesn't leave much room for anything else, but we'll have to figure that out as we go.

Well, like I said, I mean, I think, you know, schools come up as a higher priority for me than West Main Street.

And I would certainly like both to be funded.

But I think when we're looking at the numbers,

That doesn't really seem feasible.

I mean, again, it seems like $50 million for schools on its own is going to require, even if we zero out West Main Street, is going to require looking to cut additional areas in the CIP budget, our general fund, and tax increases in

Maybe we have a wonderful economic rebound very quickly and we're in much better financial straits and the Republican Senate passes major stimulus.

But until that occurs, it seems like that's just the situation that we're in.

And I would put schools as a higher priority than West Main Street there.

Counselor Magill, do you have any additional comments?

No, I don't have any additional comments.

Okay, Mr. Blair.

Well, two quick points.

One would be if you have any more specific questions in terms of council about either of these projects, if you can email them to us and we will get you more answers.

But please email your questions to us and again,

The budget office and public works team will work to get you the best information that they've got.

Second, after the public comment, Mayor Walker, I know Ms.

Just really quick when I say, you know, to staff and to Mr. Blair, like

Nothing like you've presented us with everything that we have available to us right now.

So you've gone through a tremendous effort and that is so appreciated.

I think that the things that are just uncertain right now are just a matter of time and trying to understand like more having more information that we just know that no one has right now.

And so I don't want this to like be a reflection.

We certainly see that you're putting everything possible in front of us that we can.

Staff on the public work side certainly has provided a lot of information.

And so it's greatly appreciated at this point.

It's just

Timing of us getting more information from people that are beyond those that are joining right now.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

It's just having that last little bits of information for me, that's going to put me over on the seesaw.

That's barely balancing of what is the least wrong decision here?

I mean, or the best decision or, you know, just,

how to be as responsible with public funds to provide for the public wellbeing as far as I can.

Okay.

So before the public comment, I think we can jump into this discussion.

Chrissy, do you, Ms.

Hamlin, do you have any new information you want to present or do you,

Yeah, I would just defer to you in terms of the budget presentation and our budget book.

There is an expectation that we tie to some strategic plan priorities.

And so, you know, the path of least resistance would be to extend the current plan one more year to give you all time to work on that.

I think that the agreement and council, if it has changed at this point, is to extend it and to work on getting a panel, a group together to have some initial discussion around what this process should look like.

That includes administration, department directors.

work with Mr. Blair on who that committee looks like and adding some citizens to it.

And then there'll be two council members that will sit on this too.

And we are looking at maybe having these meetings if Mr. Blair agrees that that's a good timeline in February, since we don't have any budget meetings, but not kicking off the official process again until April, which will

hopefully get us the document, have time to work on a plan to have the document to influence the, what is that, 23 budget?

That would be great.

Today, okay.

So we'll work on that with figuring out what this committee looks like and, of course, making sure we have those very public conversations.

And by April, it should include all staff members, the entire council, and working to build this together after

I'm thinking maybe third or fourth week of April, probably fourth, to get it started with the very public-facing format that we started with this last month or whatever month it was, you all know.

And I'll just add, like you alluded to it, like we just, we were open to hearing your feedback on this process because some of you actually have been through this before and we've obviously had conversations around it before, but we want this to be as collaborative as possible, including your feedback on this timeline.

If there are things that, you know, we've just laid out that aren't going to work for staff for whatever reason, we just want to know.

Okay.

Is that okay for that session?

That part number four or five, whatever.

All right.

In terms of the priority discussion, it's based on the time we should just probably add this to the end of the council next, the December 7th council meeting to have that discussion.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

We have 18 people in the audience right now.

If you'd like to speak to council about the capital budget or the strategic plan, you can have up to three minutes.

Just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're watching via channel 10 or Facebook and you want to join the meeting, you can go to Charlottesville.gov slash Zoom, register for the webinar and join the conversation.

Right now we have three people with their hands raised.

First, we'll go to Elizabeth Stark.

then Lisa Torres, then Richard Morris.

Elizabeth, you're on the city council.

Okay, great.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Stark.

I'm a resident of Charlottesville.

I live on Fairway Avenue.

I wanna say I appreciate the work that the councilors and city staff have done today to present all these budget options in such a challenging time.

As a community member,

I ask that you prioritize schools, affordable housing, and community support over things like streetscapes and definitely over parking garages.

Understanding that there are significant budget shortfalls, I'd also like to ask that we look more closely at the police budget.

I'd like council to insist that the police department be entirely transparent about their budgeting needs and release a line item budget to council and the public.

We deserve that information.

Once we have that, I ask that we look at ways to move funding away from the police department by implementing a hiring freeze, a capital spending freeze, not filling vacant positions of which I understand there are several, and cutting back significantly on discretionary spending like the meals budget where there was $1,000 allocated

but $40,000 spent.

And I know that some of these amounts may seem minor, but 40,000 is nearly half the salary needed to fill a staff position that would allow tenants the right to counsel.

I also ask that counsel strongly consider that before we fund a ballooning police budget,

We have to care for our community by supporting the Charlottesville affordable housing plan with full funding.

We need affordable housing.

We need to slow skyrocketing real estate prices, and we need to protect tenants' rights.

Buford and Walker are crumbling.

I have a student who's been through Walker and attends Buford now, and I have another student who will be attending Walker next year.

They must be renovated.

The city's kids deserve full support.

As a community member, I'd also like to see the council continue to find a way to get better data on policing in Charlottesville.

If we know how many calls are answered and what, I'm sorry, if we know how many calls answered are actually related to policing, we'd be much better able to decide how to allocate funds

to other more supportive institutions like the Mental Health Crisis Unit and initiatives proposed by the Mental Health Task Force and more just Charlottesville.

I hope you'll take this into consideration.

Mayor Walker, next up is Lisa Torres.

Thank you, Mayor Walker, council.

Mr. Blair and staff, I just wanted to extend our gratitude for letting us jump in and offer information.

We appreciate the ongoing support for schools.

I understand that there's a lot of questions and I just wanted to offer that we are always available if you have questions and want to funnel those through Mr. Blair and to Dr. Atkins and the rest of us, we're happy to address those individually.

We are also happy to

take anybody on facility or school tours if you would like to see any of the buildings and are happy through Chair McKeever, we're also happy to offer a work session if we need something before January to hash through some of this.

Again, if you'd like to raise your hand to get in line, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

Next up is Richard Morris.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Walker and council.

My name is Richard Morris.

I am the program director of the Urban Agricultural Collective, a program of Cultivate Charlottesville.

UAC maintains an urban garden in Charlottesville.

We work in partnership with residents.

Our gardens produce thousands of pounds of fresh produce every year, and that produce feeds hundreds of families from public and subsidized housing communities.

This food is distributed at no cost to Charlottesville communities that might not otherwise have access to fresh produce.

The challenge we face right now is that urban gardens cannot flourish in a place where their future is uncertain.

Last year, for example, UAC lost 90% of our urban farmland to redevelopment and will lose the rest in 2022.

Likewise, our farmer friends at IRC New Roots are in a similarly precarious situation.

At minimum, the city is losing an acre of urban farmland and has been feeding Charlottesville families for over 12 years.

We believe that urban growing spaces are a necessary component of a healthy city.

COVID has taught us that local food production and fostering a culture of growing food in the city is a critical step in flattening the hunger curve for the next crisis.

We ask that as part of the city's long-term planning, Charlottesville deepens its commitment to long-term investment in urban agriculture for our residents.

Besides food, urban gardens can provide produce, greens, space, job training for youth, and as we've learned, a hedge against the next pandemic.

Thank you.

Okay.

Are there any other comments?

All right.

Well, thank you all for the work that you presented to us again today.

And hopefully at some point during this budget process, we'll be able to

Allow you all to leave without doing that at the end of it.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Yeah.

Have fun next week, hopefully.