City Council Meeting   12/16/2019

I just, I've been meaning to ask you about that.

It's a big one.

Happy Holidays Kathy.

Thank you very much.

You are so very welcome.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate my life and knowing you.

Are you?

Yes.

Okay.

We were in a closed session that ran over, so we apologize for the delay, but we are getting started now.

Ms. Thomas roll call please.

Ms. Hill.

Here.

Ms. Walker.

Present.

Ms. Galvin.

Here.

Yes, we have a couple.

Thank you for letting us visit and serve the residents community of Charlottesville Albemarle, the city space on Monday, November 12th.

While on our visit, we had a total of 75 transactions of those.

We had 51 driver identification cards, where 44 were real IDs.

And so this is in related to our DMV Connect.

And the next opportunity to do that is on December 16th.

Sorry, this is like a little bit disjointed.

We also wanted to announce that while tonight we originally planned to conduct interviews for our police civilian review board, we are going to be extending the application deadline for an additional 30 days.

So we'll set January 15th.

as that revised deadline.

And all the applicants who have applied today do not need to do anything more.

They are under consideration for this board.

Certainly encourage others also to apply to that, as well as the Measurements and Solutions Group, the Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood Task Force and the CDGB Task Force for the Ridge Street Representative.

Good evening everybody.

I have two announcements.

One, for Mr. Alexander, the second Harambee Family Events.

Harambee Family Events is a calendar that highlights African American cultural activities in Charlottesville and surrounding areas.

The calendar created and designed by author award winner Mr. Alexander presents countless events from January 2020 to December 2020 will be available on Wednesday, December 18th, 2019.

The Harambee Swahili, which is Swahili for all pulled together, cultural events,

Cultural events objectives are to inspire and unify area citizens to communicate more effectively and create and maintain a positive environment for change and civility.

The Harambee Family Event Calendar will be distributed throughout Central Virginia.

Schools, churches, businesses, clubs, organizations and social media to name a few.

The calendar sponsors are CAT, Charlottesville Area Transit, Wegmans, Blue Ridge Graphics, Carter Meyers Automotive, University of Virginia Division for

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Vanier Street Company.

So be sure to see Mr. Zan for this.

Also, be sure to come out if you can on December 26th at 1 p.m. at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center for the Kwanzaa celebration, which will be led by Ms. Maxine Holland every year.

I think this is the... Do you know how many years this is?

Yes, it's been several years she's done a celebration.

I don't know.

Too many.

Not too many, but a whole lot.

Don't tell Ms. Holland I said that.

Just kidding, I know she's watching.

So every year, Ms. Holland pulls together a phenomenal Kwanzaa celebration again this year to take place on December 26th starting at 1 p.m. at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

Go on out and show that.

And then if you're free this Saturday, please come out to the second annual sneaker ball.

We hope everybody can come out.

This will take place 7 p.m. at the DoubleTree Inn.

All proceeds from the sneaker ball will go to the toy drive, which will take place this Sunday, the annual toy giveaway that we do.

That'll be on Sunday starting at 2 p.m. at Tonsler Park Rec Center.

So we'll have somewhere around 200 toys as well as several hundred coats for individuals who are in need.

So y'all come on out.

Saturday, again come out Saturday, again come out Saturday to the sneaker ball.

And again, our proceeds will go to the toy drive win.

You heard it, Harold, you not.

Anyway, so Harold's going to be there dancing to his sneakers in his black tie.

Harold Foley representing with his chain, and it's going to be a lot of fun.

So y'all come on out.

All right, then last but not least, I'm sorry, one more.

And you made me forget.

I'm gonna get in big trouble.

Anyone else with any announcements?

Okay, and we don't have any proclamations today.

Next, we have presentations to outgoing counselors.

We have three of our colleagues, which is the majority of us that are spending our last evening up here in the dais, and as we've all come to experience,

Serving this city, especially during this time in its history, has been uniquely challenging.

I want to thank each of you for the voices you have brought to the table, the resilience you have displayed, the experiences you have shared, and the time and energy you have committed to this community the last four years, and for Ms. Galvin, eight years.

Each of you is leaving a void to be filled, including, but certainly not limited to, a drive for innovation, a commitment to our shared infrastructure, neighborhoods and schools, and engendering a community-wide focus on equity.

So we're gonna go one by one with each of you and so we'll just do a little intro and then Dr. Richardson and the mayor have something to present and then let you guys each share a few of your parting thoughts.

Mike Signer from January 2016 until today December 2019.

Mr. Signer ran on the theme of One Charlottesville which was meant to him that this small but mighty city we are all in this together.

The following are a few highlights from his four years serving in Charlottesville.

Working with Georgetown University's Institute of Constitutional Advocacy and Protection to successfully sue the militia groups that involved us, invaded us to prevent them from coming here again.

Doubling spending on affordable housing in 2017, leading to the creation of over 200 new units of affordable housing after August 12th.

Enacting the West Main Street plan that will create safe bike lanes, quadruple the tree canopy and add underground utilities while lowering building heights on West Main.

preventing the privatization of the Water Street Garage by strong through litigation, implementing a regionalism plan with Albemarle County, including enacting five memorandums of understanding on key policy areas, expanding the technology tax credit from five to seven years, putting Charlottesville in first rank of Virginia cities for supporting the creative economy, acting on the initiative to cut business and professional license fees for over 400 small businesses grossing between 50,000 and 100,000 a year.

creating an open data policy to allow people to hack our data and find out where we should improve, helping to rehabilitate the daughters of Zion Cemetery with a special allocation of $80,000, and creating Welcoming Greater Charlottesville to stand up for and support immigrants and refugees.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Signer.

All right.

I'll say something real quick.

Thank you very much everyone.

I came on the city council with the experience of having been a neighborhood association president and a small business owner in the city working with smaller tech companies to help them grow and teaching at UVA.

I never expected

what happened in the four years that Kathy and Wes and I served.

It has been a roller coaster ride, to be sure.

But with the ups and downs, it was the honor of a lifetime to serve as mayor first and to continue on council.

And I am extremely grateful to my friends and my supporters and yes, even critics for caring enough about our democracy to pay attention and to all chime in to try and make our democracy work as best as it can.

I've always been struck by the complete contradiction between the things that get the most media attention in a city with a lot of media and the things that we actually spend the most time working on.

In addition to these, just a couple as I was thinking about the four years, there were things that took dozens of hours and the three incoming Councillors will undoubtedly note this as well.

that didn't rank in things like statues or what happened in 2017, working on the court's agreement with Albemarle County, crafting an ordinance to allow for the culling of deer, which took a lot of time, putting elected officials on the board of the CACBB and trying to allow mountain biking at Ragon Mountain.

Thank you very much.

All right, this is on behalf of our staff.

For two four-year terms, Ms. Galvin's platform has been to promote a greener, smarter, stronger city.

The following are highlights of those eight years, including efforts that are still ongoing.

A sustainable greener city, walkable, bikable thoroughfares via the West Main Street and Belmont Bridge improvements, new multimodal street policies to promote walking, cycling and taking the bus under the Streets at Work plan that gave rise to our new multimodal standards and design manual.

Odor control at the Moores Creek Water Treatment Plant and relocation to the Willow Mills Pump Station.

It's not all glorious.

Cost allocation agreement for the water supply plan between the City, County, Albemarle County Service Authority and the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

Zoning reform to facilitate solar energy retrofits.

Regional transit partnership to improve bus service in the region.

under the category of an effective, proactive, aka smarter city, the city's first strategic plan and objective evaluation process for our city manager, four small area plans including the strategic investment area, the hydraulic Hillsdale, Cherry Avenue and Starr Hill plans, citywide zoning reform in keeping with an updated comprehensive plan and an affordable housing strategy being initiated,

a long-range planning and design position being established hiring an experienced city manager and under an equitable slash stronger city the growing opportunity council work session and report to council which led to the downtown job center a full-time city workforce specialist and the growing opportunity job training programs

the New Hill Community Development Corporation to build African-American wealth, the General Education Development Test Preparation Course for public housing residents, dedicated funding streams to the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund via synthetic tax increment finance district within the strategic investment area, a form-based code within the SIA that requires on-site affordable dwelling units in exchange for height while promoting walkable, healthy, inclusive neighborhoods.

the Neighborhood Family Health Center on Preston Avenue that provides health care to low-income residents with Ms. Holly Edwards and the Food Justice Initiative to address food insecurity in the city.

Oh, well, eight years is a big chunk of one's life and I'm wearing this scarf tonight.

It's a kata and it was given to me from the Dalai Lama.

In 2012, the first year of my service on city council, the Dalai Lama visited Charlottesville.

If anyone's ever met anybody filled with exquisite joy, it is the Dalai Lama.

And this scarf is what he gave to each and every one of us counselors as a sign of respect for our office and for the auspiciousness of the occasion and the culmination of his journey from where he was living in exile to this country.

It's kind of fitting tonight that this is the end of my journey on Charlottesville City Council after eight years.

It's an auspicious occasion to see the ushering in of a new council.

And I do wish that we begin that year with that feeling of welcome and joy and great promise so that we can be working together for a better world and a better city.

My motto was greener, smarter, stronger and it was all about making policies and initiatives that were equitable and sustainable all at the same time and building a government that would be effective and proactive in implementing those policies and initiatives.

So with my colleagues, Wes and Mike, we have lived through some of the most horrible things anybody can live through in elected office along with our city.

But we're coming through a new era.

It feels like it's a positive, auspicious time.

And I want to say let us carry the joy of the CATA

so that we can be treating each other with dignity and respect.

So thank you very much, Mayor Walker and Vice Mayor Hill for the generosity of your acknowledgement.

And I look forward to working with you all, but on the other side of the dais moving forward.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

Well, you're very welcome.

For the last four years, Wes has been a staunch advocate for equity in the Charlottesville community.

The following are a few of the many initiatives that he has pursued in his four years on council.

Creation and implementation of the 2017 equity package, which was nearly $4 million in aid to communities and populations in need, began public housing redevelopment, led to creation of GED program in public housing, the creation of the Youth Opportunity Coordinator, revitalization of Tonsler Park,

A grant for the African American Heritage Center and for the ethnic studies course in public schools and dialogue on race, part two.

Writing the initial resolution for the civilian review board in 2016.

writing the resolution for the removal of Confederate statues and monuments, writing the resolution for the creation of the Minority Business Commission, writing the resolution for the Business Equity Fund, writing the resolution for the partnership between the City, CRHA, and Ting to bring forth high-speed fiber optic internet to public housing, writing the resolution for the creation of the City's Choice Housing Voucher Program in partnership with CRHA,

and leading the effort for the creation of the Crossings II to end chronic homelessness in the area.

Leading the effort for renaming of Preston Avenue for a Confederate General to a local black educator, Ms. Minor Preston.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I didn't write anything because I didn't really know what to say.

I really wasn't expecting to say much.

Whatever you say, Harold.

Honestly, I just want to say thank you to everybody.

The city has been absolutely, the city has been really, really good to me.

The city has taught me a lot about myself, taught me a lot about

people as a whole.

And more than anything, I literally grew up with many of you.

It hasn't always been easy growing up in the public eye, quote unquote.

I moved to Charlottesville when I was 22, got elected when I was 27.

And I've been with you all kind of

through the ups and the downs, but I'm very appreciative of not only my colleagues on council from Ms. Kristin Seikos, Mr. Bob Fenwick, our former city manager, Maurice Jones, to my current colleagues, Vice Mayor Hill, Mayor Walker, Dr. Signer, and Ms. Galvin.

We've been in the trenches together, and all of you

have carried me through some very, very tough times.

I've had enjoyed some really highs and lows here in this city, but the highs always outweigh the lows.

I really appreciate you all welcoming my wife and my children and many of you being very nice to my family.

I appreciate the people even who weren't so nice to our family and the people who've sent ugly things to our house or to work or call or whatever.

All of it's taken a stride because all of it's been to create the change in this city that I think we've really needed.

I think back to a couple years ago, first coming on council and people kind of expecting certain things.

I remember when we were talking about the statue stuff and people looking at equity as a dirty word.

I remember people saying that I was literally trying to tear down the city or I was single-handedly dividing the city.

I remember people

yelling at me while I'm jogging or people just being very rude and crass.

But I also remember people in this very council chambers walking in here with signs saying we're with Wes.

I remember people being extremely supportive and giving me hugs in the street.

I think about the many days in which people have sent me Instagram messages or Facebook messages or tweets saying how much they support and appreciate the work.

I remember and still appreciate the people who come to me pretty much every single day and acknowledge and just say thank you.

And again, it hasn't been easy growing up with all of you, but we've done it.

And I guess the last thing that I'll say is that I really consider Charlottesville ground zero for the awakening of the nation in many ways, what individuals thought

was going to be for something very evil and they thought was going to tear us down and break and divide us, literally has led to, with the work of many others, a revolution and an evolution

When you look around and you look at the real diversity, not only on our council with our first black female mayor for the first time ever having two black people in the city council, or you look at the leadership on the school board, you look at many of the equity initiatives that this council and the prior council has pushed for.

When we look at the real money that we've put into addressing some of the systemic issues, when we look at the fact that across the country, people have literally just copied our resolution for moving the statues and move theirs and their cities all because of our work.

When we look at people literally across the country taking equity a lot more serious because of what we've gone through and what we've sacrificed, for me, just as one individual, that makes it worth it all.

It's never been about one person because one person is not bigger than the city.

It's been about all of us.

And we've accomplished something together that no one will ever be able to change.

We may not be able to recognize it now because we're living in it.

I do want to say,

something.

There isn't much that gives me a lot of anxiety, right?

But continuing this work without you actually does.

It's reassuring to be able to look down at you and know that when I am tired and

don't have much fight left that you'll pick it up.

So I'm actually sad when I'm not sad often about things that you're not going to be here.

And I'm a little worried because with all the things that you just described, we

are very far away from the goal and we struggle daily to stay the course.

So I always have a quote.

And I think these are some of the things that

Marcus Garvey said, the black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.

I think you blew through here.

And again, like you said, it'll be 5, 10, 15 years before people realize, but in every room that you were in, your focus has been to make sure that this community that you weren't even birthed in

was better because you've been here.

And not too many people can come somewhere and have the passion for a place that they weren't birthed from.

And so I appreciate that of you.

I appreciate that you sacrificed yourself and your family.

And even the tug of war you played when making this final decision of what to run again is whether you would be able to survive another term.

And I hope that we know the sacrifice that we ask our leaders to make

that instead of them being able to continue to serve, they are struggling with whether their family will be able to survive their service.

The conversation around race and equity, it's not easy.

And we've been attempting to have these conversations forever.

The history of this country and we've been unsuccessful at

Healing it and I think I just want to tell you in front of everybody else that you're amazing and I hope that no one ever questioned you in a way that ever made you doubt yourself and

And I know that I am stronger in these rooms where people are trying to destroy us even as we do this work because of you.

And I'm going to miss you.

Marcus Garvey also said that chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.

And thank you for not leaving the lives of black citizens in Charlottesville and other citizens of color to chance.

This is on behalf of our workforce and we just want to say thank you for all your service.

A key to the city.

I just want to say we're not having a funeral.

We're having a celebration tonight.

We're going to enjoy our last meeting together.

This has been a phenomenal experience with all of y'all.

And I think we all should be really proud of the work that we've done.

So we're going to go out with a bang, and we're going to get out before 9 o'clock.

So Ms. Thomas, could you read the consent agenda please?

That's hard to follow.

Consent Agenda A.

Minutes October 21, 2019 Regular Meeting October 26 Special Meeting November 4 Special Meeting B. Appropriation Re-appropriation of funds from the Department of Human Services to the Department of Economic Development for the Home to Hope Program $321,103.35 Second Reading

C, appropriation, victim witness assistance program grant, $265,024, second reading D, resolution, capital funding transfer for the Rugby Avenue Trail Project, $19,501.90, one reading E, resolution, Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership Memorandum of Understanding, one reading

F. Resolution, letter of support for 4-H Education Center to receive state funding for essential capital safety improvement projects.

One reading.

G, Resolutions, Home Energy Conservation Grants, Scope of Work Modifications, Number 1 Resolution, Approving the Housing Voucher and Energy Efficiency Pilot,

to approving the Home Energy Conservation Grant Program funding agreement, both one reading.

H, resolution, alternate appointment for Albemarle, Charlottesville Regional Jail Authority and Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Commission, one reading.

I, resolution, honorary street naming, Winneba Way, one reading.

J, Ordinance, Amend Section 2-6 of the Charlottesville City Code to add Christmas Eve Holiday, first of two readings.

Is there anyone who would like to speak on an item that's on the consent agenda?

And I'll second that.

Are we going to discuss it later?

My understanding is that in order to do that, we'd need to make a motion to table that

because it's being on the consent agenda for a vote.

Well, two things.

Your current practices, you can either pull it for a separate vote or your rules of counsel.

That's fine.

And I would like to pull it for a separate vote.

I don't want to vote on it because I'm not voting against it.

But I think that that was where probably that there were some difference of opinion there, which is through the emails that we received.

Sure.

And even the

Mayor Walker, my request still stands to pull it for discussion later.

Well, I don't want to make people wait until the end of the agenda.

And then you can have your discussion or we can do it as the before the transit.

OK. OK, so is there.

So I move to adopt the consent agenda without item I.

So we're just voting on that amendment or the whole thing, the whole thing.

OK. All right.

All right, please vote.

Mayor Walker, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

Just really briefly, I apologize colleagues.

I meant to say this earlier.

One being just a quick update from the last CRHA meeting that took place this past Monday.

The Charlottesville Housing Redevelopment Authority decided to proceed forth with exploring the option of the Crossing 2 and Virginia's support of housing.

There was a, will we describe it as a vote, Mr. Norris and Mr. Keeler?

I'm sorry, the sense of the commission to proceed forth.

I know that there were some contingencies in terms of funding, so I just want to make sure you all were aware of that update.

And then secondly, I forgot to say this earlier, but I guess this is my last meeting weekend.

We can go a little out of order.

I hope everyone can attend this Saturday at 10 a.m. at Washington Park.

There'll be the official street renaming of Preston Avenue from General Preston, the Confederate soldier, to Miss Assalee Preston.

So again, that ceremony will kick off at 10 a.m. at Washington Park under the placebo.

And then you'll see the official plaque being placed onto Preston Avenue.

Redoing a wrong and making it right in my personal opinion.

So again, the community is invited.

Okay.

All right.

I only have two items tonight, Madam Mayor, members of the council, the public.

One is pertaining to Ms. Hudson's request to have a discussion pertaining to the number of events that our Parks and Recreation Department can host on a daily basis.

My assistant either has scheduled or is in the process of scheduling a meeting with her to be able to discuss that.

and then the last item is Mr. Rose from our last meeting who was here reached out to me following our last meeting and I responded to him.

Okay.

All right next we have the community matters.

and the first person we have up is Myra Anderson.

Hi, my name is Bill Atwood, I'm an architect in town.

have spoken on numerous occasions about 209 Maury Avenue, been on the record about Second West Street, these big projects with big money.

I don't share, Kathy, your assurances that you spoke after I left.

I don't think with a cartoon, basically, for a site plan that there's any insurance.

It's that we understand what's going to happen.

I do support you stating that you were comfortable with the buildings next to the smaller buildings.

Obviously the historic house is of great concern to some extent because the current zoning for that piece of property is 45 feet high.

But I believe it will jump to 60 as they come in for an SGP which will overwhelm the property.

And I completely reject the concept that

Eventually, this will be workforce housing.

I mean, we have to stop saying these things, in my opinion, because it won't be.

This will be the highest rent rate building for graduate students in the city.

It will actually bump the average rent rate up.

It is a hot, hot spot for grad students.

And I don't believe culturally people who go to work want to live with college kids.

So I think properties on the other side of town or away from the university are more viable.

So I don't see that as meeting any of the housing stock goals.

And I've said that from the beginning, and I'm here tonight.

Maybe not to Dalai Lama, but I'm here tonight to say I just don't agree with it.

Thank you.

Kate Fraley?

Good evening, counsel.

Tonight, I wanted to bring up the fact that you're having an audit report and to remind you that last spring, when a lot of housing advocates were here and talking about the money that was being put into the chaff was only eight hundred thousand dollars.

what Mr. Murphy had in the budget that he presented to you.

And your response to most of the advocates and especially I think Ms. Hill, you said specifically that if there is a budget surplus, it will be earmarked for the Charlottesville area housing foundation.

I'm here tonight to remind you of that conversation because there's a lot going forth.

There are a lot of advocates talking about what a tax rate could be, where that could

to provide monies and things like that.

So I want to make sure that we don't forget what you all said you would do with a surplus.

Now, I don't know if you're going to make if there is a surplus, if there's going to be a vote on it tonight, whether to wait till the three new counselors get on.

And so I hope that they will look at the historical record because it's on the recording of this meeting last spring.

I don't remember if it was March

or April, but it was certainly discussed.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that you're talking about a transportation plan.

And I've heard a conversation about how like the Route 9 might come back and serve Grady Avenue and some of the stops that were taken away.

And it really disturbs me that there were a lot of elderly people, especially Miss Lewis, coming to this council time after time after time again, once that stop left.

and advocating for the elderly people, advocating for the poor people and advocating for the working class people to get those stops back.

And now it seems that because there's some type of high rise development going in and all of a sudden a new type of person coming in, perhaps someone that may not have a car, may have funds to support a lot of the activity that's along Preston Avenue in the center, that maybe that route's coming back.

When reality says I think that that route should have been put back a long time ago.

To move on to some other things, there is a new act or a new bill that was presented into the Senate.

It's called the Eviction Crisis Act that I hope you all will support by calling Kane and Warner and tell them to support this bill.

Some of the things that it will do is to make a robust national emergency assistance fund that will help people who are at risk of losing their housing to be able to maintain it.

It will put a lot of money into the legal services corporation to have a by-right representation because we know that when someone is represented with counsel,

that it can go better for them.

There's also a tweet storm tomorrow called hashtag demdebate to ask the Democratic debate moderators to put questions on the debate stage about affordable housing, which they have not opted to do, which is one of the most important critical issues of this election.

So I just have one comment about CAT.

My interpretation of probably what's happening now is that we actually have a director and we're getting accurate information about, um, I know again, I've said this before, but, um, counselor Galvin and I, we were in an RTP meeting and it was the first time that we heard about route changes from a consultant that had been hired.

Um, and we were never consulted on it.

It was the,

And so our RTP meeting maybe two months ago was the first time that I felt confident about the information that we were given.

about CAT.

So I'm hoping that the changes that you all will see moving forward is basically because we have somebody in the position that appears to know his stuff and he is considering all the factors and having all the conversations.

He was at the redevelopment meeting last week with CRHA some far.

members asked him a lot of questions and told him that they intended to ask him a lot more.

Um, and so I just think it's probably the first that we'll be able to evaluate this and, you know, over the next year.

And Mayor Walker, I'd just like to agree with the mayor that we have a director of the Charleston area transit that now does have a lot of experience, does know how to use the numbers, knows when he doesn't have the numbers he needs and is actually going to be making recommendations to revise routes and that are based on

OK. All right.

Good evening, everyone.

Happy holidays.

I'm going to be quick, for once in my life.

Y'all working on that?

Okay.

He's just working on, you know, just a valuation.

I just might want to ride the bus, you know.

I think he's been here last Thursday.

It was 63 days.

Anyway, um, funding the CRB, uh, maybe in 2020 we can come to,

some type of agreement that we do fund that I think is important that we address the issues with the public and the police.

It's really important that we compromise and get this done.

No, we don't.

OK, we'll talk later.

The bus routes, I agree with that.

We need to put some of those bus routes back.

Why do we not have a better agreement with the county?

A lot of people that live in the city work in the county, like my grandmother being one and where she live at.

She would have to take three buses to get to work.

She don't drive.

So we need a better overall public transportation system.

And I think Paul is definitely fighting for that, Mr. Long, in the back.

If we can build them a new parking garage for the courthouse, then they need to come on with putting some money to get in CAT to expand beyond certain territories, I think, they need to put in.

Because a lot of people are working like Martha Jefferson, you know, Westminster, places like that at the tip of Pantops.

Those buses come like every hour.

We agree.

But anyway, happy holidays.

I hope y'all enjoy y'all gifts.

Mayor Walker, if I may.

Again, the regional transit partnership is actually going to be moving forward with getting some assistance to do just that, get the idea of what is going to be needed in order to increase the coverage.

And we do need to increase the ridership.

but it's to make it a much more efficient, effective regional system.

And Mayor Walker and Diane McKeel both worked on getting a cost agreement, a cost sharing agreement so that the county now knows how to estimate just how much it costs to get an extra route.

And that was revolutionary.

That was never done before.

There was no way for the county to understand how much it costs to expand service into the county.

So now that's a very fair process that we have and that was another product of the Regional Transit Partnership.

So the Regional Transit Partnership is still working with all the different players

And we did that MOU without the director on board and I think there have been some comments about and that's something else that he's looking at too.

Oh, cookies.

Tony Wash, 191 Brookwood Drive, Dr. Bellamy, Dr. Signer, Mrs. Galvin, I want to thank you for the sacrifices, the service, and the dedication you have given the city and the citizens of Charlottesville.

Thank you so much.

Katrina Turner Katrina Turner This is the end of the year so I'm going to come back to you all with the complaint I filed on two officers.

First thing I want to say is I've been complaining for two and a half years and I was wondering if any of y'all have even looked at any of the information I've given you because right on this decision letter it says that Brian O'Donnell, it says, I listened to a recording made of the prosecution's recital of the terms of your guilty plea.

I never pled guilty to anything.

See, there's so many mistakes that were made in this complaint that nobody, that people just refuse to look at these mistakes that are made.

But y'all might can live with the mistakes that are made, but I can't.

I'm gonna tell you about a mistake that was made in my life.

One day,

You see this picture?

I carried him to the hospital one day.

You see him?

I carried this little boy to the hospital one day.

But because of that word, mistake, I never got to bring him home.

UVA has this system called the Epic System, right?

Where if you're taking a certain type of medicine, it kicks that medicine out the system.

And if you're in the hospital, still after it kicks that medicine out, the doctor's supposed to put that medicine back in, right?

For two and a half days, they didn't put my son's valium back in.

and he went into seizures.

And for the next month and a half, I had to watch my son die, seizing every day because of a mistake that was made, okay?

So, when I hear that these are just mistakes in this, mistakes to me are deadly.

When I hear that word, mistake, it's deadly because a mistake took my son's life.

But guess what I was told?

I'm so sorry for what your family is going through right now.

But what happened to your son will help so many more people because we're going to fix our system because of what happened to your son.

So how many more mistakes am I going to have to live with?

How many?

Why won't anybody just listen to the mistake that was made that night to me?

Everything that's in these papers right here is proof.

So when I hear mistakes in that it'll help somebody else, how?

If nobody is doing anything for me right now, how is it going to help anybody else?

This is the mistake I live with every day that somebody made.

He never came home to me.

So when y'all think about mistakes, and y'all talk about mistakes, y'all look at this little boy right here.

Y'all look at him, man.

Good evening, Councillors, City Manager, Ms. Blair, Ms. Thomas.

I'll be brief.

Dr. Bellamy, Dr. Signer, Ms. Galvin, thank you so very much for your sacrifices, your incredible sacrifices, for your commitment and for your services to the city over the last four to eight years.

I know that the road hasn't been easy, we have not always agreed, but I do appreciate the

the efforts and the passion that you brought to the positions and to the work that you do.

Just a few other things.

I would very much appreciate it as we begin to move forward, Mayor Walker and Ms. Hill and the new councilors that will be coming in, as we look at the surplus that may be available.

If there's a dollar or a dime that we earmark that towards affordable housing,

that we look at transportation as had been mentioned earlier and that we also look towards the continued funding, towards fully funding the CRB as was requested by the in-panel members of such.

I think that we also should declare ourselves as a sanctuary city as some other communities have done.

but in a different way.

I think that we should declare ourselves a sanctuary city against monuments, statues, and memorials that glorify slaveholders, that lift up racists and rapists and traitors.

So if that's something that we can move forward on our legislative agenda, that would be very much appreciated.

Dr. Bellamy, you alluded earlier to a passage of Genesis 50 and 20.

As for ye, you meant it for evil, but God turned it around for good as we sit here today.

And I think that epitomizes your term on counsel.

It embodies everything that you endured, and I truly appreciate

All that you stood for, all that you have brought to this community, all the compassion and passion that you try to bring forth for people who have been

Overlooked for so many years.

It is truly very much appreciated.

I don't think that the community realizes all that you put in or exactly how much we're going to miss the efforts that you brought forth.

And I just want to publicly say to you, thank you very much.

I always tell you, much love and much respect.

And I too have grown with you.

and have gleaned much from you.

And I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Hello?

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

So I'm here today representing the People's Coalition.

Two issues.

We didn't refunded one.

I don't know how much was it for?

Yeah, but I'm just asking how much was it for?

I don't remember the dollar amount.

Secondly, we've been asking about the DMC, the adult DMC.

The study, when the meeting's going to happen, what's going to be the result of the DMC.

No, no, it was updated.

No, and I'm not poking at you all, I'm just saying that this report must have been out in July, if I'm not mistaken, right?

and I know it's not city staff because we did a foyer and found out it was not the city staff.

So I'm not talking at the city staff.

I'm just saying that I'm letting people know that there is a report that's going to come out pertaining adult DMC.

Thank you.

What are you saying?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

We already knew that.

But for folks who didn't, who don't know it, who's out there in TV land, this is coming.

And so I hope folks can help the People's Coalition to organize around what we can do to change the criminal justice system in Charlottesville.

But before I leave, Wes,

No.

Maybe one day.

Dr. Signer, thank y'all for y'all service.

I know it was a hell of a way to go, because we've seen a lot coming through this.

It's like a snowballing hill, and right now we're dripping from that water.

But thank y'all so much.

Hi, my name is Bill Vandes.

I volunteered to be on the CRB.

I just want to second the concern raised by the previous speaker regarding adequate compensation for the executive director of the CRB.

That's got to be a fully professional position.

If you're going to attract somebody, good.

If they're going to be respected within the community, you know, go for it.

My name is Chris Meyer.

I'm the Executive Director of the Local Energy Alliance Program.

On your consent agenda today, you guys approved a modification to a grant, the Home Energy Conservation Grant.

It's appreciated that grant needed to be updated in order to allow us to better serve a lot of the clients in the low-income households and get them the energy efficiency measures.

Dr. Gathers here was a recent recipient and I think if you have any questions about the quality of our work, we're doing a good job.

We are accelerating the amount of households we are serving.

There was a bit of a backlog and I'm happy to say we went from 20 last year to 30 this year and I'm expecting to serve another 45 or 50.

and with the modification with the new rental voucher pilot program, we are going to be able to also assist renters.

I want to take off my executive director of LEAPAT and just make an observation as a citizen, 121, Oklahoma Court.

I'm disappointed with the amount of senior leadership in the city government that seems to be receiving golden parachutes when they leave.

I think it's the third one in recent history with Mr. Murphy that

is now on administrative leave for 10 months.

We're talking about $175,000 in salary.

That is, he's going to be getting for not working.

I have no problem with him getting his pension, but again, the police chief, the former city manager, and now an assistant city manager or as a deputy city manager have all received basically

10 to 12 months of salary for not doing any work.

This is money that, again, we heard if there's a lot of needs in the community, $175,000 a pop for each one of these, and it seems like now it's a trend or a precedent.

So I would hope the city manager and or the council can address this problem that's not good compensation policy, nor do I think it's good leadership from it being demonstrated by those people who take those packages also.

Can I just have a quick comment?

So we do have, you know, with conversations with the city attorney, he has stated that, you know, moving forward, he would not recommend those packages.

We had a lot of discussions when this came up in July of 2018 about the contract.

I will say I didn't vote for the contract and I wouldn't vote for it today.

I would like the public to know though that we did not increase

Mr. Murphy's salary.

If we're going to get into this, there was a, and there's stuff we can't say about personnel matters, but there was a context for why this particular employee was able to negotiate for that package and it had to do with

due to a lot of things that would be hard to talk about, but if we needed to, we could.

We were three days away from not having an emergency manager for the city.

We didn't have a city manager in place, so what you're objecting to, totally agree.

Would have loved to have voted against it myself, but we had no leverage to have a better deal with the person who was

They're negotiating.

We didn't have an emergency manager in place when we were coming into the one year anniversary of August 12th.

And we had a difference on council amid all this.

We could get deep into the facts on it.

It's fine.

We can all talk about the positions we had.

But that was the context that led to that package being agreed to.

I don't think anybody wanted to end up with that.

package, but we were in the context we were with this negotiation.

I don't know what the negotiation was with Mr. Jones, because that was an employee contract that went way back.

And I don't, with Mr. Thomas, that's also a very different thing, because that's also something that has been reported on, but that was a negotiated, that has been reported on.

That also wasn't a contract.

That was a settlement, and that's been reported on.

My name is Gloria Beard, and you all know me by now.

For one thing, I want to thank you all for hiring anybody.

Did you say y'all was going to review other people for the CRP board?

So I'm so happy that's happening because I was so worried.

I mean, I prayed a lot about it.

I said, because you have to have special people on that board, people that really care about the community.

Because if you throw people in that's not going to actually do the work, that's work.

I know.

For a year, I worked.

And I learned a lot about just studying all this stuff.

and so I was like oh my god they gonna try to hurry up and they gonna hire anybody you know not not anybody because I know you're gonna interview but it's got to take special people to care about the community I care I would run but see I have high blood pressure

And I get upset.

People don't want to work, you know.

I can't deal.

I'm not getting into my church.

You don't want to work, then you need to sit down.

Because I have to go the extra mile.

I did it when I worked in the hospital with a patient.

I went the extra mile.

But I wasn't busy.

I didn't mind going there and standing in the newspaper or pushing them out to the car.

So I'm so happy about that.

And another thing, I want to bring up something about this bus service.

I just talked to a lady who had to catch the bus.

And she's like I am kind of handicapped by walking.

There are no seats.

Did y'all know in some places they have nowhere to sit down at the bus stops?

These people, older people, if I had to walk from my house to the bus stop, it not only would have taken me a while because of my, you know, disabilities, but when I got there, there wouldn't be no seats to sit on.

What seats do that make?

And somebody told me too that on Cherry Avenue, they forgot about that neighborhood.

We got to do better.

We do.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Councillors.

I also want to echo all the words of appreciation and thanks for each of the outgoing Councillors.

You know very well.

That's right, that's right.

We haven't always seen eye to eye, but I do appreciate your commitment to public service and to this community.

I just wanted to shed a very little bit of light on the winnable way issue before you tonight.

I'm speaking as a member of the Sister Cities Commission.

Two or three years ago, the Commission decided one of the ways that we'd acknowledge the various sister cities that Charlottesville has around the world is by having honorary street renamings done in honor of each of those four sister cities.

Last year, they did one for Besançon, our sister city in France.

This year the commission specifically agreed to do one to honor Winneba, our sister city, in Ghana.

And so the Winneba representative on the sister city commission set forth to put together the application, talk with some of the folks that are involved with the Charlottesville-Winneba sister city relationship.

and decided to put forth six and a half street in Fifeville as the street to be honorarily renamed in part because that's where the Ghana Association of Charlottesville was founded and still is established and in part because of the direct historical connection

between West Africa and the fact that this is a neighborhood where many descendants of enslaved West Africans have settled over the years.

So that was his thinking in coming up with that particular street.

The disconnect that you referred to earlier is that in offering up this specific street, he did not go back to the Sister City Commission

And I think some of the early dialogue around the honorary street names was centered around doing them all in the downtown area.

And so there was a little bit of a disconnect there.

However, ultimately it's not the sister city commission's job to choose which streets get renamed as city council's job.

That's pretty much where we are.

I hope it's not a big controversy because this is actually a really positive thing.

We're hoping to have a ceremony in early March.

So there's some time sensitivity to this.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

No?

OK.

So I'll close Community Matters.

So we'll take a 10 minute break.

Sure.

Music playing...

you

Just to, I think, summarize the procedural posture of where we are.

This item was pulled from the consent agenda and the agenda was amended for it to be discussed now.

I believe, Mayor Walker, you wanted to proceed with a vote tonight and Councilor Galvin and Councilor Hill wanted to defer.

That's my understanding based on the recommendation of the chair of the Sister Cities Commission.

I received an email from her today.

She said that this was presented prematurely and that it needed to still get a vote from the Sister City Commission.

And so I just offer that as the fact that yes, this Council can choose to vote down a recommendation of any of its committees and boards.

We do that with the Planning Commission, but we do not inject ourselves into

their process first before they get a chance to vote on something and then give us a set of recommendations.

So I read what was requested on the part of the chair of the Sister Cities Committee and it made sense that we would be consistent with process.

OK, so from my understanding, we had this set for this agenda.

This was removed from the agenda.

I wasn't aware that it was removed until I received a call from Dave Norris asking why.

It was off.

At that time, I spoke with Dr. Richardson about

about why it was removed and the concern there regarding that Justin Reed who presented the

who presented the application to us had not assumed that it had been approved since they discussed it in the commission to submit it from my understanding.

And so he submitted it.

There are the issue regarding returning from my understanding to the committee commission is that they would like for a downtown street versus the chair is proposing that a downtown street based on a decision that was made when they looked at the sister city as a whole and

The Charlottesville Winneba Foundation and the president of that association, they have proposed that the Six and a Half Street street naming is the honorary street.

So

The time sensitivity as it was expressed to me was that they need to make sure that this is a go and have individuals in Ghana make sure that they have their travel

I know when we were over there last year, we didn't have a delegation here last year because some of them were having, or this year, having issues with getting visas.

And Mayor Walker, all that, but that's what I would have thought that the sister cities would be discussing, commission.

I just was trying honestly when the communications came like it just it seemed to me that last week the reason that was pulled from our agenda is because that we came known by the Commission that that had been done and that hadn't been the expected process that they were planning to follow and so when they discovered that they asked our staff to pull it because it wasn't ready to be on our agenda which is you know not atypical when things aren't ready things get deferred

and so I just was trying to just acknowledge that that is the process that we followed if they do not want something on our agenda then we shouldn't be entertaining it until it's come forward in the appropriate channels and so I'm just trying to understand like are you saying that this is separate from the normal sister cities commission scope because at the same time I

I was one of the first ones to say I support us having this discussion, but this is before I understood that some things were not ready to be put in front of council at this point because it hadn't been part of the whole commission.

So that they made on Thursday, there are ways that we could acknowledge that they were meeting and that decision is up to them.

And I have a question to Mayor Walker because of Ms. Thomas who is on this sister city commission because I understand they had a, didn't they have a strategic planning session at one point?

Yes.

And so

I mean, that wasn't part of the discussion.

It didn't go into that much detail.

What we discussed was goals for each of the sister cities.

So just for me, hearing both sides of the argument and also hearing Mr. Norris' explanation, I'm wondering if it would just be plausible for us, if there isn't support, to move forward tonight with just granting it, at the very minimum, as Mr. Norris alluded to, former Mayor Norris alluded to,

just go ahead and saying that we approve such contingent upon the commission voting on such on Thursday.

Because I don't think this is something that we need to not do now and then let them vote and then come back.

We can just proceed forthwith it now.

And then I also think, just if I may, the second part that I think is important, I know that the other groups

or excuse me, the chair of the group was saying that they wanted all the streets to be downtown.

Although, you know, there is a cultural aspect of this because when you think about where they're requesting the street to be,

and one of the more predominant African-American neighborhoods, I think that does hold weight.

So we need to be cognizant of such and I think that's also been expressed.

So again, if there isn't three votes for us to proceed forth tonight, which I hope that there were, but if not, it's okay.

Then if we could at least at the very minimum say it continued upon their vote on Thursday, they finish out.

And I'm absolutely like, I think it was the point of the discussion is that there are different perspectives on this, but I think it was more that a year ago or so they had kind of set this kind of vision for the sister cities renaming and then basically had theirs done.

And I think they just want to have a chance for the whole group.

to kind of convene and discuss, you know, is this a different path we're going to take for this?

And if that's the case, it's totally fine.

I don't have enough.

I mean, I leave that up to the groups who are weighing in on that to inform counsel of that.

I just think that we've been asked to give that group the chance to have that conversation.

I have an alternative motion.

If I may, Mayor Walker, you can vote it up or down.

I would like to make a motion to table this decision until January, after which the Sister City Commission would have an opportunity to have a discussion.

and formally present their recommendation to us with the direction that we would like to increase the areas of the city in which the names of streets can be in which the names for sister cities can be applied.

So it's not strictly downtown.

So give both.

So my motion is to table it until January with the direction to the commission that we would like them to expand the geography

within which they can apply their sister city street names.

That is my motion.

But I don't...

There can be further discussion.

Okay.

When was that sent?

So Justin says, I'm just seeing your messages.

I'm more than willing to apologize and explain this one to the commission.

I suspect that mayor Walker's assisting this vote take place tonight because it's last, um, the last meeting of the 1619 anniversary year, or it's an easy and positive vote for the outgoing counselors to end on.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to make it to tonight's city council meeting.

I know there's been a long, um, been some concern,

about the downtown mall feeling inaccessible or unwelcoming for working class and lower income residents.

Well, it just sounds like there's a conversation that's happening on Thursday that's important to happen so that there's a clear direction coming from the Commission.

So I'll just comment again on the fact that again the process when you all are talking about process that it didn't occur.

In this email chain it says that Ms. Thomas sent out to Terry who I traveled with to France last year and she emailed the two of you

to discuss her concerns and she's the only commission member who has sent any emails where we have two other commission members who have said something differently and did not reach out to me at all.

As I said, I also didn't hear from other people.

myself.

I only heard from that one person.

I only heard from one person.

Yeah.

And then there's an email.

But if the process that we are supposed to follow in terms of just getting items on the agenda or pulling them, which I do in my role have say over that I didn't have that conversation.

Um, so putting something back on the agenda, um, as it was already planned is also something,

and then just being open to what is being asked of us and Nana who is responsible for their even being a sister city with Winneba, their concerns too.

I don't think the chair is trying to tell them where it's supposed to go.

I think she's just saying that they haven't had the conversation as a full commission on this topic.

And Mr. Norris even confirmed that to me.

It has not happened yet.

So if that hasn't happened yet, I would rather us just allow them to have that conversation and just in the next couple weeks, we'll be reconvening back here.

I think there's strong support for this.

It's not about not wanting to do this.

And what's the motion?

OK.

All right, it's three to two.

All right, next we have the adoption of the transit development plan.

And Wes, this is why representation matters.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're ready for you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Manager, members of council.

My name is Garland Williams, Director of Transit.

In regards to the TDP, it is a state requirement that each transit agency receives funding from the state every six years complete a transit development plan.

CAT completed this plan in 2018, has not had the plan adopted by the governing board, which is the city council.

This is a means for us to make sure the state knows that our plans, our operational plans and our capital plans regarding getting state funding.

So this is one of the things that we have to do to make sure that we can continue to get funding from the state.

The plan was, it looks like it took about 18 months or so to complete.

It was completed in September of

2018, it should have been gone through the process, should have come to city council for review, knowing that there are recommendations in there for expansion or change in the routes.

and as the governing board, you're technically responsible for adoption of those changes.

What we're working through now is this plan does not lock the council in to anything financially or operationally.

It is a planning document that allows the state to plan in the future over the next 10 years about where funding needs are met.

What we can do is this is kind of our foundational document and treat it as such.

Every year annually we would do an update.

We would come forward with an update to modify any of the things that are actually in the transit development plan and move forward.

That's the means by which the state has allowed other transit agencies throughout the state to do so and we will follow that same procedure.

I move we adopt a resolution to accept the transit development plan.

Second.

Please vote.

Good evening, Council.

Good evening, Mayor Walker.

My name is Giselle Gautreau.

I'm an artist and a resident artist and the president of McGuffey Art Center.

I'm here to present you with our annual report this evening, and I thank you for your time.

OK.

Since 1975, McGuffey Art Center has been a place for our community to connect through the arts.

At 45, McGuffey is one of the oldest artist-run art centers in the United States.

We have 46 renting members, 108 associate members.

We have six artists in our incubator program.

Each renting member keeps their studio open to the public.

They give tours and do community outreach.

Last year, we had over 400 tour participants who

came through our building, basically these were school and community groups that came through on tours.

And then our community outreach continues to grow.

As we move forward, our goals are to continue to expand our reach and to grow to be a place where all of Charlottesville convenes to connect through the arts.

This is what our operations look like.

We are a not-for-profit Virginia corporation that is governed like a cooperative association.

We have an elected executive council comprised of artist members.

We have a small, paid, part-time staff.

We have an operations manager, a bookkeeper, and gallery assistants.

They're all part-time.

Each renting member serves on a committee.

The committees are what keep the Arts Center running.

We do everything in-house.

So we run our gallery and our openings.

Publicity, website, tours, classes and outreach.

Of the many things that we do, here are just a few of my favorites.

I love the exhibitions that we host at McGuffey.

We have over five gallery spaces and every month we rotate those exhibitions through.

So we have a great gallery committee that comes through and they launch a professional exhibition every month.

We are also committed to hosting non-member exhibitions.

These are groups that look to us to host their recurring shows.

This includes the Festival of the Book,

UVA Sculpture and Post-Baccalaureate Program.

And one of my personal favorites is the Regional High School Exhibition, in part because I've got two teenagers.

And what I see every year is this energy of the kids coming in and the pride they take of seeing their work on the guffees' walls.

and the legitimacy that that gives them with their own work and the pride that comes from that.

And then the flip side of that is then those kids get to put McGuffey Art Center on their resumes when they're applying for college.

So that's one of my personal favorite shows.

Earlier this year, we were honored to present a month long celebration of the black creative community during Black History Month.

We dedicated our building to showcasing black visual and performing artists in Charlottesville.

several who had their debut exhibits at McGuffey.

This resulted in the visual artists that we invited going on to apply for and becoming members of McGuffey.

I was really excited about that.

The slide on the right exemplifies some community projects that begin with McGuffey and continue to grow.

Dave Berzonski and Estella Knott, who is here tonight,

These are musicians at McGuffey who teach classes.

Their intention was to reach out into the Latino community and they have seen their projects which began at McGuffey grow into important cultural events.

This includes Day of the Dead and the Sabrosa Festival.

This multimedia project highlighted in our report won a grant from the Virginia Humanities which bridges traditional music and stories of Latin America

with traditional Appalachian music.

One of the other things that we do that I love are these opportunities for learning at McGuffey in addition to tours and artist demos.

We also offer classes and workshops and life drawing.

McGuffey artists are professionals in their field.

They teach a range of classes, which encompasses a range of disciplines and a range of ages, from the very young to seniors.

We also offer life drawing.

And this offers another opportunity for non-members to come in and learn.

And then last year, we had over 60 students attend free of charge with our scholarship program.

Another thing I'm really excited about is our incubator program.

It's a one year residency for emerging artists now in its sixth year.

We essentially took one of our studio spaces divided into six into a shared space for six artists.

And basically during that one year residency, there's a sense of collaboration and mentorship with McGuffey artists, opportunities for professional development and exhibition opportunities.

At the end of that residency most of them go on to apply for membership at McGuffey and then they go on to do really great things as well.

And this particular program continues to get a lot of interest so we've had a huge surge in interest and applicants in this program.

I want to touch on our community partners.

I've already spoken about a few of them or touched on some and

As I mentioned, each McGuffey artist is asked to do community outreach.

And so a lot of the names on this list of these groups are a direct result of McGuffey artists taking that intention seriously.

And some of my favorite ones that are on that list, I've got the FLOW, Rivanna River Festival.

And I think they've just completed their third year.

And what I love about that one is that that takes

McGuffey, artists out of the building and into the community and engaging with the public in a really dynamic way.

It's a great festival.

International Neighbors is a fantastic program where we work collaboratively with that group to offer classes and workshops with the refugee community and kids.

The Alzheimer's Association.

is essentially a group of Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers who come into McGuffey and do art on a regular basis with McGuffey artists.

And then another one of my favorites, just one more, is right across from my studio is Lily Williams, who also is part of Chi Hamba.

She, every single Wednesday, she works with the Albemarle Schools Post High Program, which serves, which is essentially young adults and teens who have medium to severe disabilities.

So every week, those teens come in and they do music therapy and drumming and stuff in her space.

And it's right across from my studio.

Finally, I wanted to kind of cover our financial snapshot.

I think one of the keys to McGuffey's longevity and sustainability is being both fiscally responsible and staying within our footprint.

We have a lean operating budget and we, like I said, we try to do everything in-house.

Our operating budget is about $184,000.

I'm really proud of the fact that we came in about 98 to 99% of our projected expenses in income last year.

About 74% of our income comes from artist studio rent and then after that our sales commissions and other dues and fees.

and out of our expenses, it's sort of split between our wages for our part-time staff and our rent and utilities.

And then after that, it's taking care of the building and offering our, and continuing to support our programming.

And finally, as we look into the next decade, our goals are to bring more art to people, more people to art.

We'd love to hear any ideas that you have on how to connect McGuffey and the community

I want to thank council for your time and invite you to come to First Fridays, open studios, take a class.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Looks like a lot.

Thank you all.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, any other comments?

No?

You're allowed to leave if you'd like.

We don't.

Next one.

Sorry, Chris.

Good evening Madam Mayor, members of council.

My name is Chris Cullinan.

I'm the city's director of finance.

A state code requires all local governments have their finances audited annually by an independent certified public accountant in accordance with the specifications of the auditor of public accounts.

The state code also requires the city's auditor present their findings to the governing body at a public session.

Tonight, Megan Argenbright, CPA, Director from Brown, Edwards & Company, is here to present their audit report for the fiscal year ending June 30th of 2019.

I'm pleased to report that the city has received an unmodified or clean audit opinion.

The city's general fund did end fiscal year 2019 with a surplus.

The finance department and the budget office are currently, um, preparing the year end appropriation of which the unallocated portion is a part of that calculation in addition to ongoing appropriations and carry over funds.

And as was mentioned before, uh, that will be brought to council at their January 21st, 2020 meeting for their consideration.

I'm also pleased to report that the city completed FY19 in compliance with all of our financial management policies and we've met the reporting requirements and deadlines with both the state and federal governments.

I'd also like to publicly acknowledge and thank Glenn Pack, the city's comptroller and his staff and team for their hard work on this annual effort.

Thank you very much for having me.

It is required, but thank you.

Anyway, all the same.

I will repeat what Mr. Cullinan said, that we did issue an unmodified, clean opinion.

That's the one that you want.

I will say that the interesting thing about the city's CAFR is that, well, number one, it's prepared by the city, which is becoming less and less common.

And it's quite a feat to do a CAFR.

What's even I think more special about the way the city prepares their CAFR is that the finance department really as a team does it.

I have two other clients who do their own CAFRs and it's a one-person operation and here at the city the finance department really does kind of divvy it up and make it a little bit more bearable and really work as a team to get it done.

So a little, and I won't talk very long, but a little background.

The audit process is a long process.

They probably feel like it's never ending.

We come in April and we do your single audit, which is where we test your federal awards.

We tested five programs this year and that city and schools together, we tested five programs.

We look at internal controls.

We do not test internal controls, but we are required to gain an understanding of them.

So we do that in April as well.

We do some at the schools.

We do some VRS testing that's required by the state.

And then we give them a little bit of a break and we come back and do final fieldwork in October, whereas we're really diving in and looking at the numbers.

In the CAFR, a couple of things to look at.

The first 40 pages of the CAFR is really summarized.

40 pages of summary to look at if you were to read.

And it kind of gives a little bit of bragging time to say what the city's accomplished during the year.

And it's the first letter, the transmittal letter.

We'll really give the opportunity for that.

We also issue a letter on internal controls with that letter is some information on upcoming GASB standards.

Super interesting to me.

What you guys need to know is that we are in talks with finance about how those are going to be implemented in the city and what the plans are to roll them out smoothly.

Yeah.

And the EDA as well.

I have a question.

I would say no.

What I've found is that a lot of clients who do their own CAFR know it really really well.

Like they live this.

I would echo the same thing when you can go through our report and we can tie out every single one of those numbers in the report back to the financial management system.

We know exactly what goes into it, where it comes from, not just for that year, but year over year over year.

Actually, and that's one thing that we did not get done today.

It's actually completed.

Unfortunately, the person who is going to post it for us was unexpectedly out today, but we are going to get that up in the morning.

It's completed.

We will have hard copies available.

You might remember in past years, we've had hard copies, but based on the feedback from council, you didn't want those documents.

You'd prefer to have them online.

That's actually the very next effort.

I was trying to manage expectations.

I would say this, I think the results are going to be similar to past years with revenues doing better than expected and expenditures being less than what's budgeted.

I have a couple.

One, I would like a hard copy just to mark this up.

But there was a section in here on misstatements.

Yeah, those are from this year.

And there was a couple of reasons.

The first one was

accrued interest.

It's a year-end only entry and it wasn't done for a couple of the funds.

And so we realized that the entry was made to correct it.

And then the other one was that a timing issue of when invoices come in.

And so they needed to be put in capital assets and put in accounts payable.

And I would certainly love to tell you that we obviously don't like to see these, but when we do get them, it makes it that much better, and we improve our processes that much more and make sure that we don't repeat those.

And that's one of the key things they look at every year is they'll go back to the previous year and see, hey, we noticed these things last year.

Did you follow through and fix these things?

OK. Any other questions?

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other business?

Good evening.

I just wanted to address my comment to Dr. Bellamy,

He has a PhD, and a JD, so.

And my comment would be this.

First of all, thank you for what I know as I anticipate my own four-year adventure, what has been your four-year or eight-year adventure.

but to comment on one thing in particular and that is that although I have not come to a lot of these meetings, I've watched every one of them in the last four years on video and I've been impressed over and over by one very important thing and that is that

I think the three of you, as well as the other two who are not retiring, and I don't mean to exclude anybody here, have always in my view been governed by and led by a sincere desire to do the best for Charlottesville.

I may disagree with you individually, but I have never had the thought

that you were operating out of anything other than an absolutely honorable view of how you think you can improve the city.

And that's a very, that's about the highest compliment I think anybody could pay to a public servant.

And I want to pay that specifically to the three of you, to the five of you, and to say that I think Charlottesville through some very difficult times in the last two and a half years in particular

I didn't want to be, honestly.

But the McGuffey presentation, did you guys pay attention to those pictures?

because something really startled me in those pictures.

There were no African-American kids in those pictures.

That bothers me.

And then for you to say, oh, you know my kids go there and they enjoy programs.

Listen, we cannot and we will not be a city for all with programs like that.

With a presentation like that, that should bother everybody up on this podium right now.

I mean, I'm boiling in the back.

Like, where's the black kids?

Then the man that was with the lady that gave the presentation in the hallway

just said art is a middle class activity.

That's what this man just said in the hallway.

Art is a middle class activity.

Well that's clearly what they show on a presentation.

Clearly.

Because you ain't see no kids from Garrett, you ain't see no kids from Hardy Drive, you ain't see no kids from Prospect, you ain't see no kids from that one low-income community.

And here y'all pushing stuff back for a street to be named in a black neighborhood for an African sister city.

Like this bothers me with people like y'all, seriously.

Because you award stuff like that as long as it's okay for you.

right, as long as it's okay for you.

And this man just literally said, I mean I am so pissed off that this man was standing out there saying art is a middle class activity.

I wish somebody'd tell my cousins, friends, children, whatever, that they can't do art because it's a middle class activity.

What?

But y'all fund stuff like this.

Then when black people come down here asking for money, it's a whole problem.

We don't even have to ask for money, we can just simply ask for a street to be named and there's a whole, we have to expand the geographic, what did you say?

Let me talk, I got three minutes, boo.

You can answer when my three minutes are up.

Listen, we black people don't need nothing named downtown because this downtown mall has not been for us since urban renewal.

Do you understand that part?

You need to come see my movie and you might learn something.

Hopefully it'll change your heart too and you'll see what the city has done to black people.

Cause see y'all keep playing and you know yeah it's the time of giving whatever but I'm gonna go ahead and give you a little bit more to go into the new year with cause see we got a whole new year coming so you gonna have to deal with me even more you don't which is even more why you should have made the right decision tonight and allowed them to get that street name but you ain't do it with the little lady over there in France though y'all don't play with her like that but you play with Nana and Dave but y'all don't play with her cause y'all rubbing shoulders and stuff

Listen, black people need nothing downtown.

Black people need to be included.

Black people need to have their own without you or you or anybody else.

And I hope they're sitting in this room that's coming on council thinking that we don't because we paid our damn way in this city.

Thank you.

I just want to ask everybody a question because it bothers me.

All of y'all come to the 156th anniversary at my church that nobody from City Council show.

One person could have came and represented and didn't care.

Even the lawyer could have came.

I mean, I was shocked.

This is a historical church, 156 years.

You wasn't coming.

But I would love to have seen somebody from the city to come and represent.

Y'all, you know where I'm coming from.

Think about that.

Scott Vandy, I live on Cherry Avenue.

Of the members leaving the council, I'm just wondering was

Probably in your top ten of the hardest decisions to make was that about moving the statues, and there's a reason I'm asking this.

Given the fact that it went the way it did and is still going, did it also, did the thought probably occur that maybe, just maybe, it could also

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

All right.