City Council Special Meeting   9/29/2020

Okay.

Well, as we're about to start, just welcome to our audience.

This is the Charlottesville City Council special meeting at 10 o'clock.

At 11 o'clock, there'll be another meeting focused on the strategic plan.

So if you're tuning in now for that, that starts at 11.

First part of this meeting will be focused on CARES Act funding.

And you can download the agendas for both meetings at Charlottesville.gov,

We will take public comment during both meetings.

I can, but I have to try another device.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So I'll call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Thomas,

Would you do roll call, please?

Ms.

Walker?

Here.

Ms.

Magill?

Here.

Ms.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Good morning.

Mayor Walker and Councillors, we're in for all day together just about.

So we'll start off the festivities with some CARES Act funding appropriation materials.

As you know, in June, the council received its first allocation of CARES funding from Governor Northam, which was part of a federal bill, and that totaled approximately $4.1 million.

Governor Northam allocated these funds to localities based on population.

The council and city have received a second round of funding that also totals $4.1 million, and it was allocated to Charlottesville again based on population.

Before you, you have a proposed appropriation, and I wanted to go over a few things about that.

First being that the criteria of how these funds can be used, they could not have

First, they have to be directly related to the city's response to COVID-19.

The expenses have to have been incurred between March 1st of 2020 and March and December 31st of 2020.

I think I'm sorry, I want to go back.

These expenses could not have been part of the fiscal year budget for 2020.

I think I said 2019.

Additionally,

None of these funds can be used to supplant revenue or revenue shortfall.

These funds can only be used for expenses related to COVID-19.

And finally, just wanted to point out that in the appropriation language, you will see something that these funds can be carried over to the next fiscal year.

And you might ask yourself why, and I spoke with Mr. Cullinan.

The reason for that is, quite frankly, there's current federal legislation from both of the political parties concerning additional rounds of CARES funding One version of that bill stated that the funding did not have to be spent until a date in 2021

It's conceivable that if the federal government passes additional CARES funding legislation that it may extend the deadline and go past June 30th of 2021 for CARES Act expenditures.

Therefore, that language and the appropriation about being carried over to the next fiscal year, it's prudent.

Obviously right now we're at a December 31st, 2020 deadline, but it's not a bad idea to keep that language in in case the federal government passes legislation that would extend the deadline for expenditures past June 30th of 2021.

Thank you, Mr. Blair.

Good morning, Madam Mayor, members of council.

As Mr. Blair mentioned, the total amount of the second round of CARES funding is $4,123,776, which is the same amount that was received earlier this summer.

Our approach to this second allocation of funds was somewhat similar to the first.

Obviously the uses of the funds are the same as the first time around, but the way that this appropriation is constructed in a way that we

We received input from staff, reviewed previous requests in the table, in the appropriation around business support, community support, employee support, operational modifications, and technology.

And for this second allocation, in terms of soliciting input from departments and staff leads on these various categories, one obvious starting point was the first round of requests, which exceeded the available funds by about two and a half million dollars.

And so we certainly went back

and looked at what was not funded in the first go around and subsequently refined some of those numbers a bit now that we've had a few more months of experience with COVID and some of the types of things that were being explored.

And so some of those unfunded requests from round one are in round two.

In the case of, for example, business support, the amount of funds from the first allocation were used up and then some.

There was quite a lot of demand for additional funds from the first go around.

And so those funds were put back in as well.

And then finally, departments were asked to weigh in with any additional requests that they might have.

towards use of the second round of funding as allowed by the CARES Act.

And so in that in that table, and I should back up and say the similar to the first round, the second round request for funds exceeded the amount available by one to one and a half million dollars.

And so what you see

In that table around these categories are some descriptions of some of the specific requests.

I'm not necessarily going to go through each one in great detail.

The staff leads and some of the departments who made some of those requests are available with us this morning should you have a specific question.

Very similar to the first allocation as well.

We did set aside a contingency reserve fund for possible unknown expenses or cost overruns in some of the areas.

One of the things that we are experiencing is that for some very specialized items, there's quite a bit of demand for them.

And so things are, in some cases, a little more expensive than we thought they were.

There are also some supply chain challenges as well.

And so that reserve is intended to address those or address needs that are unknown today or just things that evolve with additional guidance from say the CDC or the Virginia Department of Health, those sorts of entities.

And so, again, we do have some money set aside for a reserve.

One thing I will also comment on is this is scheduled to come to you for a public hearing and a second reading.

You're meeting October 5th and so that will be on your agenda at that time as well.

And so with that,

I will stop, see if you have any questions.

Like I said, several of the staff leads who are sort of the subject matter experts in these areas and have been on the, you know, leading many of the city's efforts related to COVID both in the community, in the business community, internally with our facilities and employees and technology are available on the call should you have any questions.

So I have a few questions.

My first question is the employee support category.

So in the previous allocation, we had set aside $400,000.

As of right now, that $400,000 still remains, but the city is actually

As of I believe tomorrow, making a payment to its employees, hazard pay for public safety personnel to be

to be funded with this money under the CARES Act and then a special recognition pay for the other staff members.

So my question this time is, we had other departments

like, you know, public works, parks, human services.

We had other staff members that also had duties that they could not fulfill at home.

And before what we were told is that particularly for the Cures funding, that it could only be used for CPD, CFD and the sheriff office, but this time DSS is there.

Under the CARES Act, hazard pay is allowed for public safety, public health, human services, social services.

Initially, I think when we were putting the first round of appropriation together, I think a lot of the emphasis was on the public safety aspect of it.

But again, upon further guidance from the Treasury Department, those categories of employees are eligible.

Human Services possibly.

I honestly need to do a little bit more, a little more in-depth look at that.

But as what's going to occur tomorrow with the special pay, all employees are receiving some form of payment.

The source of those funds is going to vary.

Well, that's my concern because if I thought that there was about $100,000 or so left from the previous allocation, and if that's the case, my next question would be, are the other staff members receiving the top tier, which I think we could have done a little bit better with that too.

And if they're not receiving the top tier, how do we,

reallocate those funds for this round?

In terms of the specifics of how the pay was structured, I would have to defer to either Ms.

So the tiers were arrived based on what Albemarle County did for their employees.

The 1250 stat was basically what their first responders received.

So we felt since the focus had been on the first responders, they would take that category, the 1250.

Everybody else would fall into the categories under that.

The reduction in the amount between the first round and the second round, the first round was strictly a guess.

We didn't know what the cost was going to be.

So I don't know how other counselors feel about supporting that, but I think since if we're talking about employees working from March until now, and if there's something

more that we can do within the allocation that's allotted, you know, the allocated amount of the CARES Act funding and the amount that council allotted, then we need to max that to show appreciation would be my vote for that.

I don't think we should reduce this amount of funding.

I think that we should, again, if it's not going to have

budget implications, and I know we're going to talk about these other categories.

And if you look at, if you divide that amount over the six month period, what that equates to, and the fact that if we can include other departments that were not able to stay home, were not protected as other people, even I have been,

So who are you talking about as an other employee?

specific to who you can use to fund.

DSS is now included though, because we look further into the CARES requirements, but the time period that we have for the first round,

The March 16 through the May 22 date, as I talked with the directors, their people were not out on the front line.

So I don't know how that is possible.

The human services team, they have people that have to.

go out and meet with families that's similar to we have a foster care system that families I'm sure as other social workers have had to do, they've had to go out to.

Khaki, if I'm misspeaking, then correct me.

But I don't know in terms of if DSS is included, how the federal government would separate our human services department from that.

And I would like to read whatever, Chris, you are referencing so that I could get a better understanding too.

But if it appears that we can broaden that to employees who had direct exposure, then I want to talk about some of these shifts.

Like we lowered the technology budget and we increased, you know, budget.

The operational modifications have remained the same.

when we, and I have some questions around that.

And if that can be, if people can, are safely in the buildings now, then I have questions about what would this additional 1.2 million do?

And is that money better spent on people versus these modifications?

So I guess I want to try to clarify in my own mind something that Mayor Walker's question or comments brought up.

Is the reason why DSS employees are now being included, is that inclusion based upon some new guidance from Washington?

Is the definition that you're working from

I would have to get the specific language, but the hazard pay as it's discussed in the CARES Act is it's simply, it doesn't prescribe an amount.

It doesn't particularly prescribe a specific set of circumstances.

It is something fairly straightforward to say people working in a hazardous condition, but I would want to go back and find the specific language as to what it says, but it's not prescriptive in terms of how much it is or what it is.

So it sounds like it's more a matter of you all sat there and looked at it and said, you know, we could include this category of employee as well.

Is that fair to say?

That's an accurate description, yes.

I would say no.

I mean, the

The categories of employees, public safety, public health, human services, and social services, I believe, are the four major categories.

So within those general definitions, I think we have a pretty good understanding of which employees would fall into that vis-a-vis the CARES Fund.

Gotcha.

Of the of what's recommended in the second allocation?

We based it on who was actually out on the front line working at the tier at the beginning of the pandemic, which was basically fire, police, sheriff's office.

Everyone else was home teleworking.

So my next question, Diane and Kaki, did you all have staff?

I mean, I received calls.

And I had conversations with Dr. Richardson, especially about your staff, Diane, who didn't feel that they were protected, had the correct PPEs when they had to do in-home work.

And I expressed that to him.

So, and he was supposed to have that conversation with you all to figure out how to better protect them.

While we're waiting for Diane to join, I will just say that I was asked in order to identify who might be eligible for this, the definition I was asked was someone who was in the office three days a week.

And so that's a different question than somebody who's teleworking but is out delivering food to people who have tested positive in their home.

So, or people who have been delivering PPE to the community members or people who are installing ankle monitors on people who have been released from

juvenile detention.

So Diane, I muted you again.

It sounds like we're getting a delayed broadcast.

So if you open that stream up, I sent you a link to earlier.

Diane, how about now?

There you go.

We had her briefly.

All right, great.

So I've had people in the office that have to be in the office.

Approximately 10 to 15 of our staff have had to be in the office almost every day.

I also have our social workers who have continually been going out to respond to calls.

Both our APS and our CPS workers and our foster care workers have all had to be out in the field

responding to calls, making monthly visits to children in foster care, making monthly visits to families that are on our family preservation list.

So other, you know, more than half of my staff have either had to be in the office or out in the field continually since March.

And they have been

We've had people that have also been assisting the Department of Human Services with some of their response also, and they've been out in the field with human services workers, helping them out in some of the community aid that has been happening from human services.

So what I'm hearing it sounds like you know there's there's interest in just making sure that as we're categorizing employees that we are being as comprehensive as possible and ensuring that we are getting that additional supports to those folks who are out in the field or following those guidelines and that includes Human Services and DSS and so I think it sounds like, sorry I'm freezing up, Council

just would like just to make sure that we're exploring as broadly as possible the support for those people who are truly out on the front lines or are working outside of their home on a regular basis.

And if there's extra dollars, Mayor Walker, from the first round, it sounds like this is a place where you're recommending that we use some of that remaining $100,000 to make sure that we kind of keep that whole and that we're consistent for both rounds of funding.

Yeah, well I think if we get that information from staff by Monday, so that we can know even what is remaining and what we can do with it.

I'm interested also in, David has had Marty in my head, or Paul, if you can share, and if Lauren is on here,

because I don't know how those departments were excluded either.

I've seen them out.

I have had those conversations too about

that I thought they needed to be taking better care of each other.

I've seen them without mask on.

I know that I received calls when there was exposures there and I had those conversations too.

And so I know that there are employees who've been working and Paul, maybe if you can share the decision behind how they

are different than the other employees that have been working during this time.

Well, I can add, and I'm sure the other directors, they're more than welcome to step in, but we had folks that ran refuse.

That was nonstop.

I mean, you know, trash has to be collected, right?

And in utilities, folks were going into homes and relighting gas appliances, things like that.

But again, they didn't fit in the criteria that was established up front, and I think

There was a desire to emulate what the county was doing at the time.

All right.

My next question would be for

Chris Engle.

Chris, in terms of the past two financial reports, we've asked the questions particularly around sales tax.

Do we know which businesses are doing well, which are not?

Is this money being used to target the businesses who may not be doing well?

at this time or the larger businesses like the Whole Foods that are the ones that are driving the revenue that's coming in or if and so we've asked that question to try to get a better sense of

Sure.

So a couple of things there.

The small business relief grant was limited to businesses of 50 or fewer employees.

So that would take out most of your larger

And there's limitations on the sales tax information.

The Commissioner of Revenue could certainly explain it better than I, but essentially that's collected, sent to the state, and then we get our 1%.

That information is not public.

So we are not using that information to determine eligibility for any of our grants.

The grant application did have a requirement to indicate a loss due to COVID and we categorized that 75% or more, 50% to 75% and so on.

So that's the determining factor that we used in

making our grant selections in the first round.

So had nothing to do with sales tax with regard to what's driving our current sales tax, which has been a little more than perhaps expected even after it was adjusted.

I can jump in on this if you guys want to speak to the

sales tax piece, there are limitations to what we can use the sales tax information for.

The big sales tax report that we get monthly that kind of everybody anticipates, that doesn't have a whole lot of information

about kind of how entities are doing or what they do or anything like that.

I mean, I can say grocery stores have done pretty well throughout this, big box stores like Chris just said, but there are limitations in using sales tax to kind of measure various industries.

For one thing, not all industries even pay sales tax.

Some industries, service industries, for instance, don't pay sales tax.

Some industries pay some, but it's only on a portion of their gross receipts, or it's only on a portion of their business.

I had a question, Paul, around the operational modifications and what proportion is that you think is going to be at schools?

So under the current request, there is about a million dollars that's allocated towards modifications, technology, primarily HVAC, things related to the nanoseptic button covers on the elevators, things of that nature.

Okay.

Yes, we have additional steps that we want to take in the government facilities, but it's broken out separately.

So there's a million, it looks like a million 37,000 for schools.

And on the government side, it ended up being $459,000.

Okay.

Yep.

Yes, ma'am.

So I can't speak to what the schools did with their CARES appropriation.

I mean, that might be something somebody else can answer.

I can tell you that we did some filter changes to the MERV 14 filters at the schools, as well as looking at some operational modifications to help them out.

But it really hasn't been clear in terms of what their need was.

We've actually just kind of teed up what we felt our responsibility would be from a maintenance and facility development perspective with our contract to have those funds prepared and ready to go.

I can't again speak to where they're at for the reopening of the schools as they sit today.

That might be something that either Marty could speak to.

I cannot hear Mr. Stillman.

Stillman, I'm sorry.

And I was going to say, we own the buildings that the schools are housed in, correct?

So that's partially correct.

We own actually two of the facilities are deeded to the city.

Can you all hear me now?

Yes.

And so as far as the schools, and I can't speak in great detail to it, but I do know a lot of the efforts so far, getting ready for the virtual learning experience and a lot of the PPE disposals like masks and things like that.

So my last question, I guess, for clarification would be, if someone can break down the community support, how these requests came in, and what's the amount that's going to each?

Is that part of the 54-page document that was sent to us at 10.07 this morning, seven minutes after the meeting started?

There was one sheet that had like the categories and departments, and then a lovely pie chart.

And then there was another document that included, as Chris has put up here, the specific requests providing detail under each one of those categories.

So for community support, the first is $25,000 for nutrition support for families to be distributed by Sin Barreras.

144,000 to continue to support an additional group of homeless folks in the hotels and then also to provide some prepared food for them.

They're really exhausting the available food sources in the community right now and both volunteers and the actual food sources are getting

more and more scarce and so I think they need some actual money to purchase the food for folks who are in the hotels.

$20,000 for the residents of West Haven to create a sort of community health peer support network to try to help folks stay safe during the pandemic.

410,000 for sort of basically emergency services divided between 360 to reinforce the emergency resource hotline through the city for city residents and 50,000 for a dedicated pool to do similar work for the families identified by school personnel.

All right.

I can just say that they both

Those agencies submitted proposals to us to use to request the use of CARES money to support their expanded day programs, which provides several kinds of supports to families, one, and also to our schools as part of a partnership actually requested by the schools.

It provides an opportunity for young people to engage in virtual learning, but not at home in a supportive environment where they can get some additional tutoring, social support,

and also allows for parents to both have a break or go to work and not be zooming at home with their young people.

So there are sort of multiple layers of benefit to families who are struggling with the sort of multiple responsibilities in both of those places.

In both situations, they were expanding their capacity to say yes to kids and families and in the case of the Y,

The contribution actually made the participation in their expanded program free for anyone who was eligible to receive free lunch and then dramatically reduced for three other sort of scaled cost tiers that they had.

and the amounts that they requested were similar or exactly, I can't be sure if it's exactly, but similar to the amounts that they requested, the Boys and Girls Club at least requested from Albemarle County and intended to request from other counties where they have programming.

So it was consistent with what they had asked for our neighboring municipality.

And did the city, in terms of safety, I mean, we fought, or at least I was on, you know, advocating for teachers to be able to stay home.

And we have taken

I saw the ad for YMCA hiring 70 individuals, so you're hiring low-income individuals, you're primarily essential workers, low-income families in a setting that we don't know how long that setting is going to be safe, so what conditions or restrictions were placed on

the use of those contingency dollars to ensure that, you know, for instance, if it were the schools, the Department of Education could regulate how long they could be in session, notifications for, you know, families of children who were sick.

I can't speak to what their protocols are, but I can say that we did not, our contracts so far for these funds have been limited to making sure that they were consistent with what CARES Act will pay for and that those activities are consistent with what the CARES Act covers and not necessarily sort of using any additional leverage of the city's funding to ask for additional conditions or requirements.

beyond that.

So that did not happen in either one of those situations.

Or for any of the other contracts at least that have come through the Human Services Department.

I don't, but that's part of the reporting mechanism that we have in place that all of the contracts, at least to the community support group, through Human Services have asked for monthly reports.

What was the total amount of requests from that initial round of money?

And just like last time, we'll just have an opportunity to kind of revisit a status point and then what contingency reserve we still may have and then hear from you guys on where that might be allocated.

So this information is included every month in your financial reports as part of the agenda.

I just think it's really about if there is going to be the 625 or more dollars, just counsel just having an idea of

what's being allocated, what that allocation is going towards.

I think that's where the, some of the confusion was the first round, just kind of knowing where that was going and how much flexibility there was.

Cause obviously you're hearing us kind of emphasize, you know, community support and employee support in terms of our priorities.

And so I would just hope that's reflective.

And in the case that you just mentioned, it was, it was supporting more community support initiatives.

Yeah, I think for me, I think the $400,000 was in the contingency before it had already been allocated, before we were made aware of where it was going.

And based on the fact that I was a strong advocate for teachers to be able to stay home, I would have had a very hard time

with supporting an allocation for the lowest income members of our community to be thrust into this pandemic when we said that it wasn't safe enough to open schools.

and I know that's probably a different conversation, different day, but I just wanna make sure that if there, I know that we're all trying to do our best and that we're trying to support the community, but I think the message that has been inconsistent to the community is this message of safety and what is possible.

And if we are saying we're gonna spend $183,000 times two, then I hope we are gonna ensure that

kids and their families and even the employees who we know need jobs at this time and will sign on for a program like the YMCA that there are some safety measures that the school would have to put in place.

And so if I knew that these were the type of things that we would fund, I would much rather for kids to be in the classroom

where we know that teachers and the school system and the maintenance team has had to make sure that those buildings are safe, that the employees know that they have to answer to not only Dr. Atkins and her team, but the state level.

I will reach out to both the Boys and Girls Club and the Y to ask for some details around their protection around PPE and also their protocols for safety while they're doing these extended day programs.

I just would like to voice before the contingency fund is spent next time,

For me personally, the priority, I would really, I'm very worried about the state of our emergency fund for people.

I'm worried about the amount of, or lack, I don't know.

rent relief, mortgage relief, because as we all know, once someone becomes homeless, it costs exponentially more to help somebody get restabilized.

I mean, aside from the trauma and everything else involved, that I really, for me, our two priorities are gonna be towards making sure our citizens are able to keep their homes where they're living,

as well as making sure that our staff are compensated for the risk as much as we can that they're taking in all areas.

and Khaki, you know, just a thought.

Families are going out during this time, and I know that people need to work.

And I was on a call when, you know, at the federal level, they were talking about the fact that people were enjoying unemployment, the additional dollars too much, and that it was preventing people from wanting to work.

And so business owners had some challenges there.

So that was just not,

Word from word, but that's basically how the conversation went.

And it's possible to be creative with things like this to where we're giving grants to families because we know that they are going out and sending their kids out because they have to and not because they necessarily need to.

If there's a creative way to think about this, where I know that the community have needs, but we're not placing that before the family needs, so if

but however many families based on what Lloyd's questions were are being served at these programs.

Those same families, if you had a program created where it was like, because you may not be able to work or whatever is possible within CARES funding, we can give grants directly to families.

If we can do things like that to help keep families stable during this time,

not stressed out because they have to figure out how to be essential employees and survive during a pandemic that no one really knows with this wave that's coming what that looks like.

And they still get some of their needs met and they are able to more comfortably sit at home with their kids.

then I don't see how that would be different from giving it to $400,000 to two organizations that we can't necessarily ensure that safety with and giving families the same opportunities that we're giving teachers in our school system if we can support them that way and just being a little bit more creative with what we come up with and especially at this time because of the pandemic.

is something that I would like for us to consider if it's possible.

And we need to open it up.

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

If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine to raise your hand.

And Mayor Walker, right now we have one person, two people with their hands raised.

First up is Robin Hoffman.

We can, go ahead.

Thank you very much for having this again.

This is like the most crucial thing that our governor got COVID and his wife for me, because I know he has all the safeguards at his disposal.

And at the same time, I don't hear again about the air quality.

So I try to look into some different filtration systems and I saw that there is a price gouging for air purifiers but I feel like this is a crucial time to even in stores, supermarkets, everywhere, I look up in the air ducts

and notoriously nobody is cleaning out their air ducts.

That's just the way it goes.

There's not like this ongoing maintenance, which I feel like if we could look at that and then look at some of the empty buildings, the stores, some of the store people, they could get maybe CARES Act funding for cleaning up their HVAC.

I mean, this could be an opportunity

to finally upgrade so that we have better systems.

I think that once we can get people out of their house and go into more activities in different spaces that are available because they're vacant, nobody is going to restaurants, nobody's going to strip malls.

And JMU has an architectural design for that.

how do you retrofit spaces for people to learn, to test, and then also to be able to congregate in small numbers and that sort of thing.

I just feel like there's not enough discussion about that in the federal or local, how are we gonna try to fix this with the dollars in the first place?

And City Council is now taking questions on the CARES Act funding.

If you've joined us for the strategic planning meeting with Council, that'll be starting in a few minutes.

You can click the raise hand icon in the zoom webinar if you'd like to address CARES Act funding.

Next up is Monica Buckley.

Monica, you're on the City Council.

Hi, I just I haven't heard anything about transportation on bus drivers and if they've been included.

I feel I do feel like also another something to consider in terms of allocation would be getting voters to the polls or allowing.

I really don't know a lot about what you're allowed to do in that realm.

But voting is really critical, and I do see it as a human right.

So I hope that there's, I don't know if there's something already going on.

If there is, I don't know, tell me to stop talking.

If there isn't, then I would think that that would be something that we could do a little bit of.

because a lot of the people who usually drive people to polls are not doing it.

The CARS program is not happening because of COVID.

And I feel like that's going to further disenfranchise a lot of the residents in Charlottesville.

And that's a big concern for me.

I just want to comment on that in response to Ms.

Buckley's question that under technology, we do have some funding allocated to our drop-off ballot box security.

So I do get the sense of maybe

staff can weigh in, but that there is an allowance for that realm for us to use these funds for those purposes.

And I do think that I want to encourage voters to use that ballot box.

Anyone who's requested a mail-in ballot can vote and just simply drop off that versus putting it into the mail.

And it's monitored with the support of dollars like these 24 hours a day.

And just to follow up on Councilmember Hill, two items.

One is the voter registrar's office did receive some operational modification funds from the first round of CARES funds for some plexiglass, some guards on the voting equipment, and then they also received some CARES money as well in a separate

Appropriation.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we will

Ms.

OK.

So do we need to take a vote now?

OK.

Good.

All right.

So just my final comments.

I would like to see numbers in just what is possible with the remaining dollars.

I don't have my screen up anymore, that was left out of this allocation.

I know that IT was one that hadn't spent all the money that had been allocated.

And there were some questions on whether they were going to spend all of those dollars.

And if there's any dollars left in any of those other areas, I'd like for staff to talk to us about

how we can move those into the community support employee support categories.

And if there's any dollars that can be moved around this time, especially to get at a minimum, the employee support allocation back to where it was, but it sounds like since we have a better understanding of what can be included in those categories and might have an even better understanding by Monday, that if we can even increase that more,

and if we can have a conversation with Dr. Atkins team about what CARES funding is being used for there and what support that is needed just so we can have a better understanding of what is happening.

And if we know what the contingency, if the contingency needs to be less to ensure that we are

as stable as possible with the direction that the pandemic is going and that we know that it will take this fall.

I would like to have some of those answers Monday so that I can vote on these.

Thank you to staff for all the efforts to pull this together.

All right.

Thank you all.

And if we could take just a quick five-minute break, that would be helpful for me.

Anybody opposed to longer?

Just five minutes.

OK.

We'll do five.

All right.

Charlottesville City Council is about to start its strategic planning meeting, which will go from now until about five o'clock this afternoon.

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

Information about the city's strategic plan is also available at Charlottesville.gov slash strategic plan.

The community is invited to send us feedback about this work

You can do that by emailing strategicplan at charlesville.gov.

Good morning, Counselor Hill.

Very good.

Sorry if you're waiting on me.

They're replacing the roof today.

Well, thank you all.

We call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Mr. Payne.

Ms.

Walker.

Here.

Ms.

Magill.

Here.

Ms.

Hill.

Thank you all for joining us today and thank you Dr. Cozart for agreeing to work with us and help us

kind of get us through this process of, for all of us, everyone on board here, this will be our first strategic plan.

And so first, first, and just trying to figure out what kind of that beginning blueprint for the city moving forward, at least for the next few years, what that looks like

We know that it's going to be a process that we'll figure out.

There will be much debate and there will be much input from the public and we have created those opportunities for the public to be able to share through a one-line platform as well as during meetings.

and as always to be able to contact us directly via phone and email to share their thoughts.

And we look forward to everything that this process becomes and hopefully we have the guidelines that will lead our staff and next city manager into creating the Charlottesville that we all have in our head as

be able to be a reality and hopefully what we, the principles that we ran and were elected on that we help create the blueprint to make those things come true.

And thank you.

And Mr. Wheeler, now we can open up for the initial public comment.

I'm just here with you all.

I'm excited about this process and the potential that it holds for the city that I've called home for over 30 years.

Yes, if you'd like to speak to council about the strategic plan, you can click the raise hand icon in the zoom webinar.

If you're joining us via telephone, you can press star nine

Right now, we have four people with their hands raised.

When you introduce yourself, please tell us your location, where you live, and you'll each have three minutes.

First up is Peter Krebs.

Good morning, Council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I think you're in great hands with Dr. Kosart.

This is gonna be a good process and it's a renewal that we go through every couple of years.

And now is a especially good time to be doing this because we're thinking about a lot of things in new ways right now.

I'm going to be offering comments on goals number two and number three eventually.

But today I just like to talk about goal number two health

a healthy and safe city, and I'll talk about the environment piece at a later meeting.

The goals that you have listed are a good start.

They reflect a city that's committed to being responsive and the values excellence, which are things that I agree with.

But I think that we think about public health and safety in a different way now.

It's not so...

Although responsiveness is important, when we talk about health, it's more about getting in front of health issues.

So I'd like to offer a couple of different sets of objectives that encapsulate some of what you're already offering and add a couple of others.

First of all, for the first objective, I think you should be focusing on promoting healthy food and active living.

That's what the map to health community health plan does it.

And that's the foundation of good community health.

Second, simply rephrasing one of your priorities and also pulling from the map to health plan is you should work to provide equitable access to physical and mental health care and community health services.

right, both physical and mental health and that sort of also can encapsulate substance abuse and protective services.

At this top level, you should be general and later we could get into more specifics.

Third, I would rephrase one of your first priorities, which is reducing the impact of sudden injury.

Response time is important, but we also

In addition to assuring timely response, it's very important that we assure appropriate response and that needs to be a big priority.

And fourth, quite related, I would list improve both the perception and reality of public safety through authentic dialogue with residents.

Again, that's top level.

We'll get into the details later and I'll send you more written comments down the line.

We have four additional hands raised.

First we'll go to Roxanne White, then Susan Cruz, then Arianna Williams.

Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity and

My name is Roxanne White.

I live at 505 Park Plaza.

I'm a recently retired member of the Tree Commission, and I'm here to ask that you begin as you do your strategic planning to recognize and to address the urgency of our declining tree canopy in your new strategic plan.

Your current strategic goal of a beautiful environment needs to be replaced with a goal

of a sustainable and a healthy environment that will ensure the healthy neighborhoods that you want.

There needs to be a paradigm shift that begins to value our trees, not as mere landscaping that beautifies our neighborhoods, but as a critical part of the city's green infrastructure that's going to help mitigate the impact of climate change.

The city's overall vision for the current strategic plan is that Charlottesville citizens live in a community with a vibrant urban forest, tree-lined streets, and lush green neighborhoods.

Our homes and buildings are sustainably designed and energy efficient.

I don't believe that this vision will become a reality unless the city begins to immediately address the critical, the urgent need to grow and expand its urban tree canopy by planting more trees in its neighborhoods.

You all have probably seen much of the research and a lot of articles lately linking trees to people's health.

It's been proven that neighborhoods with low canopy tree cover have the highest number of heat related illnesses, as well as diseases related to air pollutants.

Low canopy neighborhoods also suffer from higher energy costs.

It's also been shown a number of studies across the country that low canopy areas most often relate to lowest income and minority in neighborhoods.

Charlottesville's low canopy areas also correlate to the low income neighborhoods, which house the city's most vulnerable populations.

So the city's vision for lush green neighborhoods may be true for some areas of Charlottesville, but not for all neighborhoods.

out of 19 city neighborhoods, almost half of them are below a 40% tree canopy, which studies define as an unhealthy neighborhood.

So we're not only having heat islands now in our current neighborhoods, but the city is rapidly creating new neighborhoods with little tree canopy.

A lot of large new neighborhoods in the southern edge of Charlottesville are being created with few, if any, street trees, front yards that are much too small to accommodate a shade tree.

So these neighborhoods will become the city's future heat islands.

So there's three things that I would ask you to consider as you're going through your strategic plan.

One, look at all the national, the local data about tree canopy cover, climate change, healthy neighborhoods to help direct your decisions.

Two, recognize that the often unintended consequences of an affordable housing efforts with its increased density,

Smaller setbacks, lack of tree cover and lack of green space may ultimately create the heat islands of the future instead of the healthy neighborhoods that you desire.

And third is just to consider trees, not just as a landscaping afterthought for our streets and neighborhoods, but as a required part of your plan for the city's green, sustainable and healthy infrastructure.

So thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you about this.

Next up is Susan Cruz, who will be followed by Arianna Williams.

Yes, I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Good.

All right, thank you.

My name is Susan Cruz and I am the Executive Director of the Community Climate Collaborative.

I am also a city resident of 2110 Tarleton Drive.

I am grateful for your leadership on many issues and appreciate the challenge before you today in developing council's strategic plan.

I'm here to ask you to prioritize council's commitment to climate in this process.

In 2017, recognizing the extreme threat of climate change and the lack of federal and statewide leadership, City Council voted to join the Global Compact of Mayors.

This was a leadership action, as was the city's subsequent goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030, set last July.

This strategic plan of council will cover half of the years remaining to reach that target.

Goals and commitments are important measures of leadership, but they are meaningless without action to achieve them.

In the past year, we have seen the devastating impacts of climate change through catastrophic fires and storms.

And right here in Charlottesville, we experienced our hottest July on record with more than 30 consecutive days over 90 degrees.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the impacts we will see, and it is low-income residents, the elderly, and children who will be most at risk.

We must act to reduce our contributions to climate change and protect our community.

One advantage to prioritizing climate and strategic planning is that many of Council's other priorities can be simultaneously achieved through climate action.

We have an opportunity to make housing more affordable by reducing energy bills as one in four Charlottesville households have unsustainable energy costs.

We can promote economic activity and job training by stimulating the energy efficiency and clean energy workforce.

By increasing access to healthy food, we can make our community more resilient to climate impacts.

And by increasing density and improving public transit, we are reducing transportation emissions while increasing access to services.

Strategic planning will guide future council priorities and budgeting.

We cannot wait another five years to get serious about our commitment to climate action.

I know that council has many urgent needs and priorities, and it is my hope that with council's creativity and leadership and the resources that we have in our city, that will allow us to tackle many of these needs together.

Thank you for the leadership commitments you have already made to climate.

C3 and myself, we look forward to working with you to find solutions that move our whole community forward.

Mayor Walker, next up is Arianna Williams.

Yes, I can hear you.

Great.

Well, thank you first for the opportunity to speak with you.

My name is Arianna Williams and I live at 705 Park Street.

And I'm speaking today as a longtime resident of Charlottesville.

I love living in Charlottesville as it is a community where people truly care about each other and about creating a better future.

I also speak to you as a mother with my eye toward the unpredictable future environment that I imagine my children's generation will continue to grapple with.

I appreciate listening to all of Susan's comments and I could never put it in as well-spoken as she just did just now, but I did want to say that I was delighted to learn that Charlottesville City adopted the ambitious goals for climate action in 2019 that encompassed commitments to reduce greenhouse gases by 45% by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050.

I was proud to learn that the adoption of these goals put Charlottesville among the leaders of climate action for municipalities around the nation.

Of course, there are many action steps required to meet these goals, including the development of a climate action plan that includes robust and diverse community outreach.

As such, my ask of you this morning is quite simple.

Please consider climate action and the steps necessary to achieve it as priorities for the city

that deserve a place in its comprehensive plan.

Our next participant joins us via telephone.

This may be Charles Kendig.

Mr. Kendig, can you hear us?

And you'll have to unmute your microphone.

Go ahead.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Charles Kendig.

I live at 593 Rosemont Drive in Charlottesville.

I've been here seven years.

I'm a retired guy.

And anyway, one of the things I'd like to know more about, and I sent my comments to the city council, is what are the results of the existing plan?

What have we accomplished?

Were the objectives met?

And how are those objectives

handled by the people that run the various departments in the city.

Are they compensated on that?

Is there any kind of recognition program for those that achieve the objectives?

And looking at the current information, I haven't seen any specific goals.

And it's one of the things that I've asked repeatedly about who owns the plant and how do people find out

For instance, other citizens.

What are the kind of inquiries like people like me have about what we've seen in the package today?

So thank you for your work.

Just wanted to know more about accountability.

And as we move our great city forward.

So Brian, thank you for your help with this.

We have one hand raised at the moment.

And if you'd like to

Raise your hand, click that icon in the Zoom webinar.

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

Next up is Peggy Vanierys.

All right.

Oh, thank you.

Okay.

I think if you know me at all, you know I'm a great tree lover and lover of all things, green, parks, trees, and

I've spent a lot of my life and I'm married into a family of tree lovers, so company, Vannier Street Company has been in the community for 100 years.

So I'm going to speak through as a citizen now, but I'm also on the tree commission.

And I just want to let you know that we are providing a report with lots of data that will get you before your next public session.

I think you've heard a lot today about trees and climate.

And so I think we all know that planting trees is one of the things that can reduce our climate change, improve people's health, as Roxanne has stated so eloquently, and

It's one of our priorities in the Tree Commission to tackle the issue of low canopy neighborhoods, which again correspond with some of our lower income neighborhoods this year.

So this is going to be one of our priorities to really tackle.

You'll see that

in places like Star Hill and 10th and Page, they have 20% canopy coverage, which is really a very unhealthy situation.

So anyway, I just want to let you know, you will be getting a report soon and appreciate you letting me speak.

Mayor Walker, we have one additional hand right now, and it's Brandon Collins.

Good afternoon, City Council.

This is Brandon Collins.

I work for FAR, Public Housing Association of Residents.

We're the federally recognized resident council and resident advisory board for public housing in Charlottesville.

Really cool thing that the federal government not only grants these

official designations to resident groups, but also kind of mandates their participation in things.

And we think city council should always make sure they're listening to the resident council and resident advisory board.

As you approach your strategic plan, I know you've heard from us, but just want to emphasize even more so the redevelopment and public housing is something that

requires the city's commitment, financial commitment and policy commitment, technical support.

It really is a hands on, all hands on deck situation.

And we've appreciated your support and we really need that ongoing support.

This effort would not be underway without your significant financial support.

and technical support.

And keep in mind as redevelopment is proceeding, additional affordable housing is being created almost entirely for below 30% AMI.

And as we look at affordable housing, your efforts, this needs to be your number one priority.

I think you've seen the studies, you've seen the need, you've acknowledged it's a crisis, it's gotten harder with COVID,

Charlottesville City Council can be a major player in making sure the affordable housing crisis is addressed.

And a big piece of that is going to come from redevelopment.

All of that is an attempt to par up the rest of the city that's been left out for so many generations.

And it's not just about economics, it's not just about affordable housing, but it's how we go about this and giving the people control over their neighborhoods and over their lives in the long run.

And we really hope you will embrace the idea of resident-led redevelopment, resident-led planning as one way to begin to approach racial equity.

Racial equity needs to be

at the forefront of every major decision and should be a piece of every part of your strategic plan.

Not just housing, not just economics, doesn't need to be separate.

It needs to be integrated with everything that you all do.

And with that, my time's up.

Good luck and I hope you make a great strategic plan.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

It is my privilege to introduce to you Dr. Celina Kozart.

Dr. Kozart has her bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees from the University of Virginia.

She is a senior community facilitator with the University of Virginia's Institute for Environmental Negotiation.

She has extensive experience, well over 20 years, in facilitating these types of meetings and plans.

Just to give you a flavor of some organizations and meetings that she's worked on.

She's worked on the Montpelier Descendants Community Memorialization Workshop.

She's worked with our local Food Justice Network.

She's also worked with the Truth Planning Commission.

I'm sorry, the Truth Commission Planning Group for Charlottesville.

I think she is a very talented individual.

I've had an opportunity to get to know her a little bit like all of you.

And I think she's a true asset for our city.

Thank you, Mr. Blair.

minutes of morning, so I will say good morning to you all.

I would like to introduce, before we go around and get into the meet, I would like to introduce my assistant, Melana Pour, who is with me to help out with note-taking.

And she'll be bringing up the slides and keeping us on time.

So thank you, Melana, for being with us.

I really appreciate you.

So

Let's just take a minute before we get into the meat of it.

You all just had an intense meeting.

One of several is probably old hat for you at this point, but I wanna take a minute and just actually have a moment of silence for you to just completely arrive here for this process, for this moment in our city.

And I want you to reflect on what your intentions are for this process.

So Milena, if you wouldn't mind the time and let us know when a minute has passed.

Thank you, Milena.

As we go around, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Monacan Nation.

And I just want to pay respect and honor to their elders, past and present, as we decide how we want to steward this land while it's in our hands.

So I will just go as I see people.

So I see Councilor Hill first.

Yeah, as you thought about what your intentions were for this process, if you could share briefly what came up.

Well, good morning, my colleagues, to those who don't know me and Heather Hill.

I just want to say I first appreciate just that moment to pause because, you know, you're right.

Even though we are old hat at some of these meetings, just the adrenaline starts going.

And I feel that that minute gave me a chance to kind of kind of take a, take a reset.

So I appreciate that time.

I'm looking forward to this process.

I think it's a really great opportunity.

I'm really confident that this group of council colleagues in partnership with our acting city manager and supported by staff have a real opportunity to kind of lay the foundation for

This community in the next few years ahead, it's been through a tremendous amount in the last three years.

And I just really feel that this is such an important time for us to really pause and reflect and start to understand like what is our commitment moving forward, because that's really going to allow for the future city manager as well as our staff and council to be able to work and step with each other in a more effective and efficient way.

And it's just going to allow us to really kind of put a stake in the ground about really what are our true priorities that we can be more focused.

And I'll be honest, like my time in watching local government and then living in it, you can just, I can sense the frustration from constituents that we just never seem to make progress in certain things.

And sometimes it's because we're just really just trying to respond to everything.

And so having this kind of focus come out of this process, I think is going to be really healthy for all of us.

And certainly as you heard in the first hour of our meeting earlier, this is a council and staff that certainly values the people.

And I think that'll be echoed by some of my colleagues.

And so I just, I am looking forward to this process and I'm really pleased to be partnering with those that are key to it and having you and your team here too, Dr. Koehler.

Thank you, Counselor Hill.

As we move through, I would like to also invite staff members who are here to respond to the prompt as well.

So we'll move to Councilor Snook.

I guess the first thing I would say is being one of the newbies on council, we joined council in January, sort of,

kind of like trying to jump into a canoe that's already going down the river.

There's a lot of stuff that we got that we had to deal with right away in terms of budget.

And then we're going to have this session back in, I think January or February originally, and it got put off and then COVID struck us.

And we've never really had the opportunity.

I've never had the opportunity to listen to other counselors

talk about sort of the inner issues that this kind of effort will disclose.

How comfortable are we with the previous expressions of a city council vision of a strategic plan that was last done three, four years or three years ago of the organizational values and so on.

So I'm frankly looking forward to hearing what my other councilors have to say about these matters and to see if maybe that might not help us

Thank you so much, Counselor Snook.

From this process, I am

I want to find a guiding document.

I feel like our current guiding document is in some ways too broad and in some ways too specific.

And this is an important document for our staff to be able to utilize to get a direction from council on knowing where we want them to go.

And I know myself when I have put time and energy into something thinking I'm in the right path and then coming before a meeting and finding out I'm totally off base.

I just, I feel very hopeless and very disheartened.

And so I'm really hoping that we can provide a document that really gives flexibility for change and flexibility for growth.

and imagination, but also gives an idea to people who are working in the background so they're not faced with putting time and energy into various projects or ideas that then when it gets to a certain level is just kind of said no.

And it just, again, I want it to be this communication

in lieu of communication.

So people have, I mean, again, my background is psychology and I find that most people want to do a good job.

It makes everyone feel better when you're doing a good job and when you're doing, and people just want to know what's expected of them.

and I'm hoping that this document will really help give that kind of guidance to our staff through us hearing constituents and representing the city so that those who work for the city can provide what the majority members of the city say that they want.

Thank you, Councilor Magill.

Yeah, I echo what others have said.

I think coming in as one of the three new counselors, I think one of the frustrations has been, you know, the first month or so, you know, you're definitely trying to figure a lot of things out and figure out how things operate and then

Right away we have the pandemic occur and we have an economic crisis and other things along with it, which I think

at least for me and perhaps other new counselors has created a frustration of us just being feeling like we're being very reactive to things going on rather than proactive about trying to take action on implementing new policies or continuing things related to the platforms that we actually ran on.

And so I hope one thing that can come from this process is

Council being able to come to a consensus on a strategic plan that puts council, city leadership and city staff in alignment on some goals and priorities to be able to put us in a position to be a little bit more proactive and I hope ultimately in a better position to

continue existing policies, but also implement new policies as well that ultimately we have some ability to measure or evaluate if we're making progress on things like our emissions reduction target goals, tree canopy goals, affordable housing goals, equity goals, measures related to inequality, public housing redevelopment, et cetera.

And so again, I just think,

Thank you, Councillor Payne.

You know, we've been

discussing when is the best time to start this process.

And I think we all know that we needed it probably a long time ago, and especially as we've had some leadership changes.

And so my number one hope for this process is that we have something solid in place, or at least the foundation

kind of built for the next city manager to come in and align with and know what type of community they're walking into.

Also hope that we are really clear on what we can do and set goals accordingly and not try to be overly ambitious and encompass every

item possible that'll come up and that we are really clear on, you know, focus.

And I think our vision and mission statement hopefully will relay that.

I also think it's very important that we sometimes, I've mentioned throughout the years, the need for measurement and outcomes and

for us to have that information readily available.

So we don't have constituents asking us, how have you determined whether you're successful in any of these goals and objectives?

How do you know you've met them?

And we don't have a clear way to truly measure those.

And sometimes it just feels like we're kind of all over the place.

And I know staff feels the same.

So I hope we get our process taken care of and that then the departments are able to tweak their, create a new plan, department plans that aligns with council vision and also the opportunity of once we hire our next leader that if there are any

you know, changes that need to be made in hopefully their only manner that we have that conversation and that we, you know, we make those and that we create something that can create the community that people deserve and especially our Black and Brown and lower income citizens community that's pushing them out

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Well thank you Dr. Cozart.

Just very briefly I'd like to to just state I think there are five very talented and intelligent individuals on this council and

You know, I think there's so many talents right here today, October 20th and October 27th that I think you will get a very thoughtful document.

But as maybe has been expressed by the other five participants so far,

It's great to have a thoughtful document, but we also need the document to ultimately convey to not only staff, not only council, not only the next city manager, but to our residents.

This is the roadmap that these five individuals envisioned for this community.

And I just bring up the community in general because

you know, local governments can only do so much.

You've got to have your private sector, your nonprofit sector, your university that's located here also augment the efforts of the city government if any of these goals are going to truly be all encompassing throughout the 10 square miles of this city.

And I look forward to hearing

and working with you and the council.

Thank you, Mr. Blair.

Good morning.

Yes, I'd really like to acknowledge what Mayor Walker was speaking about with measurements.

And in terms of the operations portfolio, it's very paramount that we understand whether we're being successful with the resources we're allocated in meeting the strategic goals.

And so for us, I would have to say, you know,

Tying the resources to the budget and you know in order for us to have actionable outcomes we need to have two things human capital and funding resources and so the only way to relate that to success of the staff delivering what council intends through the strategic plan

is to have measurements that speak to that so that if the goal is to meet a certain percentage and we're not meeting that goal we need more resources or funding that we were able to identify that and not just say well we didn't meet the goal because the staff

I really would like to be able to put the staff, all the staff in a position of success.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I'd like to reflect really what Mr. Blair and Mr. Obrador first said, and really just come out of this with some guiding principles, whether I know it's going to be in the document form, but something to reference and that people can internalize so that we are being proactive, as Mr. Payne said, and not trying to solve everything all at once.

Understanding that short term and long term goals will be reevaluated at a future time.

So the decisions that are made today or the conversation that's had today is not an end all be all, but a start.

Thank you, Ms.

Thomas.

Ms.

I don't have much stuff to be said.

Thank you, Ms.

Shelton.

Thank you.

I think staff are looking forward to hearing

Council's high level goals at this juncture.

And I think we have a lot of staff who are ready to be engaged in this work.

We have a lot of leadership skills who've worked on past strategic plans.

And I know they're looking forward to contributing their talents to this effort.

Council's got an ambitious goal right now to try to do this in a short period of time.

and when we've looked at it in the past, we envision spending six months what you're trying to do over the course of the next month.

So I think we need to keep that in mind and sort of calibrate how far down into specific priorities that you wanna identify right now versus staff coming back in the future.

So I look forward to learning from Dr. Cozart and from council

and helping move this forward.

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler.

Thank you, everyone, for sharing your thoughts.

We're just going to take a minute now to just kind of review the agenda.

The times have been shifted, and we'll just keep working with that.

But where we are is we're at the session overview.

We're going to move into a brief conversation about group expectations, which is just to set the norms, which we've already been operating in.

So we'll just take a couple minutes to identify the norms and expectations for our time together.

Next is a process which I call appreciative inquiry where you'll get a chance to look at your work as counselors and the city during your time in office.

Next, we will take a look at the environment that you find yourself in to see what are some of the things that will affect your work but are not necessarily in your control.

We'll take a break after that and then we'll do the traditional SWOT analysis where we're going to look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Following that, we'll spend a little bit of time visioning and then we'll take some time to look at the documents that have been in place thus far.

with regard to mission and values.

And then we'll talk a little bit about what does it, what does success look like?

What are evidences that you would accept either for you or in your name?

And then finally we'll recap and look forward to our next session.

So, and then the final part is the public comment that's going to be available at the end of our session.

So as we think about group expectations and group norms, and my dog wants to participate in this conversation so bad, but as you think about what expectations you have for this meeting and what will help you to show up fully,

to help you to show up fully in this conversation.

What works for you?

And if you could keep your comments brief, think of it as a tweet rather than a Facebook post.

I guess I'll chime in because I was going to add a little,

Just something else I was going to add to our comments earlier and maybe I'll just use this opportunity to say it.

For me to show up fully, I really do want to invite the staff that are part of our panel to be just as involved as every counselor.

I think that the perspective that they will bring to this conversation will help propel us to where we need to be in a more meaningful way.

And so I don't want this to be viewed as a council conversation because it's not.

This is a partnership between our staff and council and

There's just so much insight that we can gain even from just the spin around that we just did.

I just think it's really important.

Thank you for that, Kelsey Hill.

We can do this popcorn style.

And just as you have something to say, just say it.

I would echo just that we're able to have a conversation that has input from everyone, not only on council, but city staff in the community as well, in a way where everybody has an opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Counselor Payne.

We are constantly dealing with just kind of putting out fire.

So that's a distraction.

And so I'm hoping that this opportunity provides us

with maybe some calm so that we can actually think through this process a bit and come up with the best plan possible.

And to speak to the point that Brian brought up about how long the process normally takes, I think we're also open to that.

If we leave here today,

figuring that we need to have a more intimate meetings before we have a second session, then we can do that.

And then at the same thing, if we need to spread out the third session a little bit more, then we can do that.

We debated a little bit about whether this was the ideal time to start based on the senior leadership change and whether we needed to wait.

But Councilor Hill and I, we've never had a moment where this has come up, where there hasn't been some major change that has come up at the same time that has made us have to kind of put it on hold.

And so part of this, starting this process is that

the way things have worked on our tenure that we will probably just have multiple reasons in the future to put it on hold.

So at least we're getting it started and we'll be able to set next steps if we haven't completed the process by the time that we have allotted here.

One thing that I'm going to echo pretty much everybody's, I would just like to add.

I'm really also hoping that we will bring forward through this kind of a sense of hope and some positivity.

The last six, seven, eight months now, COVID has just wiped everyone so hard.

And then I'm hoping that we can use this process to also

bring forward just a sense of control, maybe, or a sense of focus towards our future, that we have a future as a city together.

There's just so many people who are in such a bad place right now that I'm just hoping that as we're focusing on this moving forward piece,

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I guess one thought that I've had about the process, and I don't know, maybe the notion of the strategic plan itself is supposed to be much more top level than this, but I would hope that by the end of October, we would have some general idea of what we were going to do.

This all says why we're going to do it, but I'd like to have some idea of

of a plan of action, next steps, what are the next few months going to look like, what are we going to take action on.

We've had a lot of requests for action.

October is a time before the budget season really gets fired up and it's probably about the last opportunity for us to set some goals, some action goals

that might get reflected in the coming budget.

Thank you, Counselor Snook.

I would just like to build on what's been said and to follow up with Councillor Snook.

I think as we go through the process, let's think about this as something that's going to guide all five Councillors in their budget decisions moving forward.

You know, this is great organizationally.

It's great.

It's a great tool, but it's also very budget oriented in how we're going to approach the future.

That's how it's been used.

Our budget has these values and incorporates them every time that the document is reviewed.

And, you know, I think sometimes we forget also every council memo.

references our strategic plan and how every item of business that comes before council is supposed to be tied to this document.

Thank you, Mr. Blair.

Anybody else want to weigh in before we move on?

If I could just add, I had Mr. Blair check with Chrissy Hamill to just come, I think, maybe the prior process and some of the things that we'll be looking to either remove or tweak.

She will be able to provide a good explanation of that.

So she's going to come on after the break and just share some of

which probably would go best here, but just wanted everyone to know that she will come on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So just we'll see where we are when she comes on and we'll figure out how to bring her into the conversation.

Thank you for letting us know.

So this next

I'm going to ask you, Milena, to pull up the document where we can have a conversation about appreciative inquiry.

I've formulated a question for you to consider.

And just to help you understand what I mean by appreciative inquiry, it's really an opportunity for you to think about what you are proud of in your tenure as a counselor or as a staff member during this

Season, you know, working here in Charlottesville at the city.

But think about what you're proud of.

And if you, Milena, can you pull up the document and share your screen?

Can you tell me the title of that document?

It might be... I'm sorry.

It's in the running notes.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Just share my notes.

Yes.

Following that up, I'll just read the question.

And I want you to take a moment to think about what these things are, and then we'll go around and share.

So basically, the question is, when you think about this on three levels, you as an individual, the city council as an institution and across the city, not just city council, if you will, but just city itself as

and entity that we engage with.

And thinking about the community at large, what are you proud of?

And what are you sorry about slash have regrets about?

So as you're thinking of this question, your prouds and your sorrys,

It's really helpful when you think of this in terms of I statements.

So you can say I'm proud of the work that we've done together or I'm proud of this initiative that I brought forward.

With prouds, you can say you're proud of something someone else did.

The sorrys are a little bit more focused on the I statement.

It's a lot more palatable for you to say what you're sorry about that you've done or been part of than to say, I'm sorry that you did this, and I regret that you did that.

So I invite you to stay in the I statement around this.

But just think of this on three levels, as I said, and what you're proud of or what you're sorry about.

And I'm just going to give you three minutes to think about that before we have the discussion.

So if you want to write that down or copy and paste it from the document, the link to this document is also available in the chat, unless you left the meeting and came back.

But it should be available in the chat.

If you want to write directly into the document.

And we're now three minutes.

Thank you.

who would like to go first?

In terms of proud, I would say two things.

To be able to walk into a room and know that I'm able to shift the conversations and direction that I probably never would have gone before

and staying firm in that even though I haven't felt that it's been appreciated much.

And then to have created and hope that I'm able to do more with the time that I have left here programs like Home to Hope and really give an opportunity back to individuals who are most effective in a negative way, the ability to help heal the community and themselves

themselves and the community, the community and themselves, because it happens like that when you have people who've been oppressed in the way that at least this round of employees, the way they have and their families have for generations.

In terms of what I'm sorry about, regrets.

I think we spent a lot of time during the last few months debating about a decision

That we knew we had to make and I pulled out based on You know, a very difficult conversation and I have challenged myself from that point that as a

you know, leader in the community that even when things are difficult, and I may not agree with 100%, I hope moving forward that I never leave the community in a vulnerable situation like I did because, you know, another principal may have been violated.

And so I regret the way that

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Any other prods and sorrys?

Yes, that's better.

And we're sharing these notes in case I've misquoted anyone or missed the essence of what you're trying to say.

Appreciate your efforts.

I guess I go.

I'm not sure.

Oh, this is big.

So for the individual, I guess one of the things I'm proud of is just

trying to kind of be serve a role as kind of conduit to a lot of different stakeholders within and outside the organization and kind of having like to me like an open door policy so that much as I never thought I saw for being in politics but just this can get political but just all about relationship building and just really earning and working to earn the trust of a number of people on different fronts so that we can then make

progress on any number of initiatives, whether it's from something small to something really monumental.

And so I'm just proud of that collaborator role that I've done my best to take.

It hasn't been perfect.

And just trying to really have that open door so that it invites people in and then it allows me to kind of be that connector and to kind of connect those dots and kind of keep things moving forward among my colleagues and even with staff.

What I have regrets about is because of that, at times,

I feel like I had my blinders on that I wasn't as open minded or willing to see when there were red flags that have come up because I might have been too focused on what I believe was either a good decision or a good direction and not really seeing it for it wasn't that I might because of what that was perceived by people that I feel like I'm trying to collaborate among.

that it really prevented me from some very important decision making down the road.

Thank you for sharing that.

I'll go next if nobody else will.

You have the floor.

I mean, it's hard only having been on council for a short time.

As far as, you know, I'm proud right now of trying to throw myself into this and learn as much as I can.

And that trying to make myself as available to hear

different voices as possible and being open to hearing different voices and open to apologizing when I make a mistake.

And I'm also very proud to be working with the team in general that we have at the city and also very proud to be working in a city that even though it makes it hard sometimes,

is very vocal and very active and to be taking part of that.

Regrets or sorrys.

I'm really sorry I haven't had a chance to really be going, being out engaging with people more.

I had really wanted to be going through different departments in the city and meeting new people and

seeing how different departments run.

And it's just been very difficult to do that.

I'd also wanted to be going out in the community and hearing from people in the community more proactively.

And I'm sorry, I didn't get to start doing that pre-COVID so that at least I had more people, again, to contact and be in touch with and hear from or who felt comfortable

Thank you, Councilor Magill.

I am proud of the fact that I think that the city has done a good job in managing its response to the COVID crisis.

And I think we need to keep the word crisis attached to COVID as much as possible to partly to reassure ourselves that this isn't normal and that we have done a pretty good job of managing the response to something that is really not normal.

The regret that I have is that we have spent so much time and energy on that, that we haven't been able until, well, just as an example, yesterday in a meeting was the first time that I think we've spent, I've spent more than three minutes of council time on the question of climate change, which is one of those things that, you know, anybody who's looking at the news these days

and who's seeing the storms and the fires that are fortunately not afflicting us much here in Virginia, but are afflicting people around the world and are afflicting people across the country.

The time for action was 10 years ago, but the second best time for action is now.

and we haven't been able to do that because we've spent so much time and energy on dealing with the COVID response.

On a city-wide basis, I have a feeling that the city as a whole, the feeling is sort of as though we're on a knife's edge, that there's so many people, so many businesses, so many individuals,

who are in such a tenuous spot economically, personally, how they're dealing with kids who are at home and doing the Zoom learning and so on.

It's just such a difficult thing that every time I talk to people, and admittedly it's been difficult with COVID, I can't exactly go meeting people the way I would like to,

I realized just how many people are under such stress.

And I wish that there, I wish there were some way we could accelerate the process, you know, whether it means, you know, things we have no control over.

We're gonna continue to be on a knife's edge for at least another six months, perhaps another year.

And that's gonna be a tension for all of us.

Yeah, I guess I would, I would echo as an organization, I think

One of the things I'm definitely proud of is the COVID response, both in terms of being proactive about getting stronger restrictions from the governor before they were implemented in other places and being able to push their

being able to be proactive in working with Albemarle County and UVA about again being proactive about anticipating things like UVA students returning and as we enter the fall as well as programs and supports for things like rental and mortgage relief regionally that

you know, still not nearly enough in terms of the people falling through the cracks and the support that's needed from the state and federal government but I think the response is something that as an organization we can be proud of and it's certainly not all us by any means but I'm certainly, I think we should, Councilor Snook mentioned in acknowledging that this is a real crisis, also acknowledging that our community has

been able to avoid the kind of impact and community spread we've seen in areas like the Virginia Beach or Northern Virginia area and Harrisonburg.

I think that element of the public health of our community is something that we can't take for granted or overlook.

Likewise, again, it's not an individual thing, but an organizational thing.

I'm proud as an organization we've been able to, with a lot of work from city staff, continue to actually make progress on the funding and progress of affordable housing, particularly the redevelopment of public housing and friendship court.

you know seeing this past budget cycle and in recent months those are things that have required a ton of work from city staff and there's never any guarantees that you know these things will move forward and I think it's something that we should be proud of that we've made that commitment as a community and continue to actually make progress on it.

In terms of regrets

I think echoing the other two new counselors, I think, you know, maybe my biggest regret is just, you know, I've been so, the initial getting on council is sort of a learning curve and then you have the pandemic and the economic crisis and everything else going on that, you know, I felt entirely reactive and, as others mentioned, regret not being able to be proactive about taking action on the policies and issues that,

the three of us as new counselors ran on in terms of climate change, community wealth building, land use, you know, a whole host of other things and regret not being able to be proactive there and not being able to be as out front

in the community and being proactive about reaching out to community groups and community members to collaborate on things that we can do in the city government and how we can partner with the community on various things.

And I guess it's tied into that, but regret not being able to be as much as I would have hoped part of taking the conversation as it relates to city government and local policy in a more positive direction in terms of constructively working on new policies that can address issues in the community.

And then finally, I say this is like 70% a joke, but I think one thing I'm proud of is that I've been able to maintain my sanity so far, which I say mainly as a joke, but I do think it's for me and I imagine for all of us.

You know, this has been an extraordinarily difficult several months.

not just on council, but personally.

And I imagine that's the same for the other councilors and for city staff.

I just want to build off that because one of my things I've written down was surviving as a word.

Just surviving this, I'm proud of surviving that.

But I saw that some of our colleagues actually dove into other topics.

I would like to hear from everybody about their prouds and sorrys that came up for them, and then we'll get a chance to reflect what you heard or what you would add.

Thank you for the question.

We've heard from all the counselors.

I invite the staff members

Sure.

So personally or individually, I would have to say that I'm proud while being here that I was able to bring

Much deserved recognition of the public works staff that had not been done.

There's, you know, a lot of people that do the heavy lifting every day to make things happen, I think didn't have the appropriate light shine on them.

And so I'm very proud of that.

Institutionally, I'd say reorganization operations portfolio so that there's some alignment between the built environment and how the departments operate to create, you know, transparency and accountability the way it should be.

the way the staff deserves to have it.

And across the city I'm proud of the systems that are either in construction or being constructed to improve our delivery of services to the residents of businesses.

There's been a lack of process and I think well-defined workflow at least in the departments that report to me and I believe that

As we move forward over the next three years that we're going to have those systems in place to better improve our service delivery model.

And as for regrets, you know, nobody wants to have regrets, especially me, but I do regret there are times I've listened, but I didn't hear.

and I think working on you know listening skills is really important because first you must understand you know before you're understood so I think that's one thing I have a lot of energy move fast but dialing that back and really listening I think is important and secondarily just being distracted from

All the duties of managing COVID-19 is a response from the city side.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I just want to acknowledge Ms.

Hammel, who is here with us, and just catch up to where we are in the order.

We are doing our prouds and sorrys, which are under the appreciative inquiry.

So the question, Emmeline, if you could repost the link to the document.

The prompt is, what are you proud of?

in your tenure personally, institutionally, and as a city.

If I could chime in.

Yeah, I was finished.

And Chrissy, I understand that you hadn't planned for this today, so we won't keep you any longer than you have to be here.

But I did think it would be helpful since you participated in the last process for after we finished this session, if you can just update the counselors and especially the new counselors with the process that you all went through before and anything that you think that is relevant to us going through this process now.

No worries.

We're glad you're here.

So we're just about halfway finished with the crowds and sorries, and then I'll give you the floor, Ms.

Hammel.

Well, I'm happy to go next.

And I think when you talk about proud, I think, you know, looking back, been with Citi over two years, and there's actually been a lot of

positive things that have occurred.

I do wanna kind of highlight what Councilor Payne stated.

I do think the city, when COVID-19 occurred, there were a lot of very proactive actions and there have been since.

And I think one thing that I think about is the COVID ordinance that both the city and the county adopted back in July.

You know, we had a lot of folks, I'm on various groups, had a lot of folks statewide reach out to me wanting to know about our COVID ordinance and how other localities in the state and even in other states could, they wanted to view our ordinance and take a look at it for ideas.

And I think that's just an example of some of the proactive things we've done as an organization.

and that we had done over the past two years on a number of items.

I think regrets, quite frankly, it's a universal regret I think with staff and perhaps council is that there's a lot of thoughtfulness in this organization.

There's a lot of debate.

There's a lot of give and take.

and oftentimes there's a portrayal that somehow it's dysfunctional or somehow that things are out of control.

And I mean, it's personal regret and again, I think maybe a universal regret is that we as an organization have to understand we're in a community with a lot of

very intellectual people who are constantly contacting both staff and the council with ideas and constructive criticism though I'm sure sometimes the criticisms that we all receive are abundant and some but

The truth of the matter is I think the only way that you ever move forward is if you take criticism, if you take others' opinions and you try to refine and get the best product.

And I'm sorry that sometimes that is perceived as being dysfunctional or sort of, boy, they don't know what they're doing, it all looks so disorganized, but the truth is that

When you exchange ideas, sometimes it isn't pretty.

Sometimes the process itself isn't going to look mechanical or smooth, but that doesn't mean that the result is somehow wrong or misguided.

It just means that the process itself encompassed a lot more discussion than you might see in other local governing bodies, but I think

Okay, I'll go.

Something that I'm proud of is building good working relationships.

And that's what council I believe in with staff and bringing in a deputy who's been doing a fantastic job and helping to get some systems in place that are a little more streamlined.

One thing that

I won't call it a regret, but I guess a sorry, would be personally the inability to unwind.

So that's resulted in missing some family moments and that's just being truthful.

Also professionally, just being new to the town or the city, just not really being able to connect.

The workload here is heavy, so

Thank you, Ms.

Thomas.

Yes, it's me.

I'm proud of working for the city of Charlottesville.

I think it's a great place to live and work.

I'm proud of the changes that we're making in the organization.

Paul has mentioned some and Ken has mentioned some.

We're also making changes in the administration side, bringing in new financial systems to help better serve the public as well as the staff here to get things more afloat, getting rid of the papers and more computer savvy.

I don't really have any regrets.

I don't like that word regret.

So I try to use everything as a teaching moment.

What I would like is I have a hope.

I have a hope as is.

And with the council doing this strategic plan that they will be have some inclination of being physically sound because we do have a fiduciary responsibility to our citizens.

And I know we want to make everybody safe and secure, but sometimes there's a limit to how much we can do.

So my hope

Thank you, Ms.

Shelton.

And now I'd like to open the floor if you have like a brief reflection.

Maybe somebody said something that resonated with you in terms of a proud or a sorry, or something that you

You just want to respond to briefly.

We're just going to spend a couple minutes on this part.

I might not be following the rules, but those of us that started first kind of focused on what we were proud of and sorry for, but I did just want to add one comment around more of the institutional side.

because I'm really proud of the resiliency that our staff has exhibited through a tremendous amount of change and as well as stress from many things coming from events that have happened in our community over the last few years to you know multiple leadership changes and that's something I'm just amazed every day and during pandemics it's all happening so that's something I'm really proud of and the regret I have at the institutional level is our ability as a council

to most effectively be communicating with the organization.

And that's something that I continue to weigh and we continue to weigh like how do we be a better communicator with a broader organization.

So that's something that weighs on me.

Any other reflections or comments?

Thank you.

So as I mentioned before, Milena is taking notes and you have a link to that document.

So if there's something that you want her to capture differently, you have editing access to that document as well.

so feel free to update.

Mayor Walker, I'm gonna pass it to you to invite Ms.

Yes, thank you for joining us, Chrissy, and you can share.

So thank you for asking me to attend and for allowing me to be a part of this.

First, I'll just say that to be a spokesperson of the plan for where we are now is quite an honor.

We had an awesome process and group of really, really smart, engaged people who have worked on this for a long time.

We started

A long, many years ago, actually, and it was not a smooth process.

We went through many, many gyrations of this.

Probably the one thing that was the most exciting for me as being a part of that was that

The strategic planning process involved a group of employees from all across the organization.

So every level, every department was fully, I'm not going to say fully represented, but there was representation from everyone.

So from the person who comes to their desk at 8 a.m.

with the goal of leaving at 5 p.m., taking nothing home with nothing further than what they do in front of them,

to all the way up through lead team and department heads.

So we had a very fair voice through the process.

We had good leaders who worked on this and helped us.

Leslie Beauregard was one of the spearheads for getting this process going.

and last year we actually attended a conference in Charlotte or in North Carolina through ClearPoint which is the system that we use for strategic planning and having worked on this all this time it was really eye-opening to go to that conference and find out that we were actually leading the way for a lot of local governments in the work we had done on the strategic plan.

Leslie actually spoke and

The city of Charlottesville was used as one of the references.

So there are a lot of cities who are doing some really great work.

So there's a lot of reference that we can use and pull from out there.

So that was really exciting because when you're in the weeds, it's hard to get a clear view of the big picture.

So enough with the sales process, but basically the way it started was we started with a small team.

We were given this mission from the city or Leslie was given the mission from the then city manager to get working on this.

It started from a council list that actually was created with every council meeting.

Someone would come to the podium to speak and there would be follow-up.

And so there became this exhaustive list of follow-up for staff that sometimes it was assigned, sometimes it wasn't.

And at one point, I'm gonna get this wrong, but you'll get the idea.

The list was,

over 20 pages long at one point, I think.

and so in an effort to sort of redirect efforts because some of those requests while they were important and needed to be responded to they weren't necessarily things that we needed to sort of go on a mission to solve and so from that we started taking that list and parsing it out into big ideas or if there were recurring themes and that sort of led to with a consultant and

The team, it led to some ideas for creating the framework that you have in front of you.

So it helped to frame putting together the mission, the vision, and then also the goals.

And so each time along the way, as this team worked to sort of

frame up what we thought that might be, then we would go to council.

So we came up with a mission after this team spent time thinking up a mission.

We would go to council.

We had a work session.

Council weighed in.

What did they like?

What did they not like?

And then they made it their own.

So from the net, we built onto the next step and then the next step.

Until finally council got to the goals, which I think some of you have talked about, the big picture idea of what you wanted to do.

And I think one of the nice things that we found out with that was that once we had that direction from council and then staff was able to go back and look,

Even though we might not have been doing a specific thing under that goal that was a recurring topic, we actually were doing work that related to all of those goals.

And so departments were then able to figure out their

operations and their goals and how they fit in.

And so when we got back to report to council, we found out that it seems like we're not doing a good job to keep our community safe.

But when you look at XYZ measures, we do have some stuff out there to report.

So as staff, it was a time for us to tell our story as well as it gave us an initiative to sort of push to the next step to help council further their mission.

I think it was always a give and take in terms of what was there, what wasn't there, what was working.

For example, the current Goal 5.

It's really easy to find a lot of stuff that fit in Goal 2 and 3.

It's not quite as easy to fit in things that are in Goal 5 because we're a government and a lot of the things that we have to do or that our mandatory services aren't necessarily strategic, although they're important.

So I think there are lots of ways to look at a strategic plan.

I think the current position where we were working with was that the plan was something to be

A stretch, if you will.

So it wasn't necessarily things that we were doing well right now, but things we wanted to get to in the next three years or five years.

And so we were at, you know, that point as this new council came on.

And so, as you know, that was the reason why we decided to postpone

And I would also offer that even though we had a strategic plan with the framework for the goals and the measures or the initiatives that were identified, it was always a work in progress.

So as long as we keep the big goals there, we do have the ability to

Go back and revisit and review and work on those.

And Chrissy, what were like the general thoughts around like metrics?

I know that there has been some metric-driven nature to the current strategic plan, but I know that's also been something that's been brought up in the past over the last couple of years around.

We just need to have more defined metrics for how we're measuring against these goals.

And so that we know when we have to river course, or maybe like as Paul was alluding to, maybe we need to make sure that we're putting enough resources into something because the metrics are reflecting that there is no improvement.

It varies depending on what you're measuring.

You know, there's some things like, for example, in my part of the team, the measures that I worked on were always important but boring, right?

Did we get the AAA bond rating?

As opposed to, you know, something more exciting like, you know, how quickly did we arrive on the scene of a fire?

or how many street miles have we paved or how many new sidewalks have we added.

So I think it depends on what you're measuring in terms of what metrics you want to set.

And I also think it makes a difference as to what kind of measures you're talking about.

Are you talking about work measures?

So for example, how many potholes did you do?

How many streets did you pave?

Or are you talking about something

How many affordable housing units can you create?

Those are a little bit different in my mind, whether they're work goals or whether they're stretch goals.

And so I think that's up to council as to sort of where you want to be.

But I think it's important to also realize that while the strategic plan is your goalpost, we also have to be cognizant of the fact that a lot of governmental work is

necessary.

Thank you and my last question is around like as you laid out what happened when this initial kind of foundational strategic plan was laid and we're obviously going to be revisiting it and there'll be some there'll be some changes

How do you see, what do you think is the right way to engage staff through these next few months process?

I'm just kind of curious of your thoughts based on the experience you had before and given, you know, council's very interest, like high interest in revisiting this, but this time there already is a foundation that's been laid, at least to kind of have as a starting point.

I might be a little bit biased to the original plan that we worked and again I think this is up to council as to what you want to do.

I think the core team as we called it at the time

was a great vehicle for council in that we were able to do a lot of legwork for you and then bring something to you to respond to as opposed to you all having to start from scratch and do all the work yourselves.

Now, that may be where you want to go.

Like, you guys may want to do that.

And I think that's a question as to whether you want to look at a plan refresh or a plan redo.

and I think depending on wherever you are with those two questions, you know, I think there's a lot of staff who, really good staff, who are willing and excited and more than happy to help.

It just depends on how you want to use it.

Any other questions for Ms.

It is 1.03 and we have a break scheduled for 1.00.

I know our schedule has changed a little.

Thank you so much.

If there are no other questions for Ms.

Hamel, we can break and what we'll do is we'll move the environmental scan until after the break.

And that's just briefly a time when we'll talk about all of the things that are outside of your control, but that will impact the decisions that you make.

And so we just want to get those all out on the table.

So we'll take a break and a deep breath first.

And thank you, Ms.

Hamill, for coming with your expertise.

We do hope that you're able to come back at some point as your perspective is valued.

So we're gonna take a five minute break or 10.

I know you guys have been going since early.

So we'll give you a whole 10 minutes.

So it is now 1.05.

We'll say 1.05, we'll come back at 1.15.

It's now 1.50.

We've got people coming back.

Welcome, welcome.

I know this takes me back to elementary school trying to get through the lunch line.

So hopefully you didn't give yourself indigestion.

And don't feel like you can't eat during this meeting.

As you probably saw, I already broke that rule like an hour and a half ago.

I'm an early luncher, 1130.

I'm glad you modeled that self-care.

So thank you.

All righty.

So we're back as far as I can tell.

Welcome, welcome.

So, Milane, if you could bring up the schedule for us.

We've done some time adjustment, our best guess for the way we're going to spend the rest of our time.

And we'll move things around as necessary.

Where we are now is with the environmental scan.

We've moved that to start now and run for a half hour.

So we'll have kind of a lightning round with that and you'll see where we go with that.

From there at 1.45 we'll move into the SWOT analysis where we'll have

Each one of these words is a different document where we can start to document what we identify as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

And a lot of this has come up in the conversations already.

So it'll be a matter of aggregating them under these terms for some of the things.

And there'll be new things that come up too.

We'll move into our community aspirations.

aspect of the conversation where we're going to just think about what does the future look like if this is done well.

Moving a half hour after that, we'll have a brief break, just a five-minute stretch, and then we'll start taking a look at the organizational mission and values along with the city council vision and just see what language, just as

Ms.

Hamill said about what are you redoing or are you refreshing.

And so this will be the beginning of that conversation about which direction you all want to take as a body.

We'll have a brief conversation about what the evidence of success around this process will look like.

We talked a little bit about that in the introduction, but this will be a little bit more concrete.

We'll have a brief recap and then move into the public comment section.

Does anybody have any questions about any of that or comments?

OK, very good.

We're going to move along.

If you still have access to the document that was just being shared, Milena's just, well, she posted the link earlier.

But in that document has a link.

There is a link to the environmental scan.

So Milena, if you could bring that up for us.

So what do we mean by environmental scan?

I think as we talk about this, what we're really thinking about is what are the factors that we have to consider in this process that are not directly budget, they're not directly policy that we won't get to set, but they're things that will impact all of that.

And the goal here is to just name them so that we can all be on the same page in terms of what it is

that is going to be part of the challenge that you face.

So what you see here and what you have access to is this document with the prompt that says, what are the social trends that impact the environment within which the strategic plan will be implemented?

And so what I've included here are different things that you can comment on.

Social trends, community trends, political factors, economic climate, citizen needs, technology factors, and uncertainties.

You can think of uncertainty slash other there.

And there are several boxes.

They're kind of lined up under each item.

But feel free to select a box and put your thought there.

And you can put in parentheses which societal trend or which aspect does this impact.

the societal trends, the community trends, so forth.

So as you think about those things, just put that in parentheses.

What does it pertain to?

So we're just going to spend just the lightning round.

If anybody's having trouble accessing this document, please let me know so we can help you out with that.

Is there anyone who's unable to get to this document?

So I'm not hearing anybody say that they can't get to the document.

I invite you to start to think about and post what these trends may be, what political factors and so forth are top of mind.

We're going to spend about three minutes filling this in and seeing where we are.

Yes.

We should be able to.

I can't.

OK.

I think it's the fastest way to help with that.

That's probably the case for everyone.

So the direct link that I put into the chat would be the last thing.

So I don't have the direct links.

All I have are Google Docs.

Yeah, that's it.

But they go to the notes, click on them.

I think I can.

I don't know, I've got weird bars.

That is typed hello.

You're in there.

Well, I changed the permissions.

And make sure you've clicked the link that's in the Zoom chat, the last one.

And then if you scroll down, there'll be a section for the environment, something I've already forgot.

Okay, everybody be able to access the document.

Lastly, I want to remind you of when you put something in there, if you could put in parentheses which one of these categories with this thing that you're writing fit into.

Just one more time, because the

Let me change the language there.

Thank you for pointing that out.

If you see something there already, please just put your comment into the same box.

I see racial equity four times.

That's my hope, but I know that sometimes there are more comments than there are boxes and you just have to find

Get in where you fit in, right?

As we finish up, all the boxes are filled, and I'm sure that there is more that could be placed.

But this is to get us a good scan of what's going on and what's possible.

So I invite you to just take a moment and look through what your colleagues have posted here.

And if we're finished, it might be good to look at the screen within the call.

We might have more.

Here under social trends, societal trends, are environmental awareness and demand for action.

with regard to the environment.

Social trends, including racial equity, racial justice, racial healing, and reparative justice.

Moving toward less forward policing, less emphasis on coercion, societal trends.

Dismantling racist institutions, systems, and problems.

We have high community engagement.

We have UVA commitment to housing more students.

Rising inequities in racial equity.

We have financial well-being of offices under community trends, under political factors, uncertainty of federal support.

Democratic General Assembly may let us do more as a political function.

Change in transportation preferences.

Can you get more bike traffic and less parking?

Structure of the government, leadership in government, those are all political factors.

Under economic climate, we have high inventory of commercial real estate, COVID creating sustained recession and depression, local businesses closing.

How will the comp plan slash zoning coordinates affect economic and social activity in the city?

Citizens needs, housing deficit, evictions, job loss created by COVID, impact of no in-person classes on equity, ability for black and brown citizens to remain a part of the community, stopping displacement.

We also have balance of work and childcare with virtual learning.

Transparency of decision-making, understanding given at all levels to decision-making factors to promote increased trust in local government.

Need for life-work balance blurred lines with telecommuting access.

Need to address achievement gap in schools, fund schools fully under citizens' needs.

Technology factors, work from home.

What will this do to our need for office space and tech?

Online learning.

Will there be fewer UVA students in Charlottesville?

How does that affect housing, equity in technology access, tech limits on doing all board slash commission meetings electronically during COVID?

How long will the COVID crisis last under uncertainties?

What will the downtown law look like?

When the schools reopen in person, what will that look like?

Will Congress or the state provide more COVID relief funds?

Need for private sectors stepping up to fill gaps.

Gridlock in Congress.

Budget slash future resources driven by COVID impact.

School renovation program, necessity versus cost.

provide access for low-income students.

I invite you, if there's something else that you want to include, you can always put that into the running document that we have or notes that didn't fit in there.

We've been talking about the time we were going to do this.

And if we had done this when I think maybe some of us thought we would do it like a year ago, I mean, we wouldn't think this pandemic has certainly driven a lot of this feedback.

And it's just heightened things that were probably prior, like many things that were priorities even a year ago are just even more elevated in terms of buy into the forefront.

Thank you.

Well, I'd just like to state, as I pointed out earlier in the session, that this was a limited amount of time.

you look at how quickly this chart filled up and it does reflect again, I mean, to go back to that earlier theme, a lot of thoughtfulness with this group.

I mean, you know, what we had five, six minutes and you're talking some very meaty topics in every category and it's, I think it really does speak to this council and their ability

I think obviously one of the huge restrictions that pops up and probably relates to all of these things is just the economic climate and the impact of that on our revenues.

We just can't forget that COVID is here.

I think, I mean, really, COVID right now is driving so much because we don't know how long it's going to last.

We don't know what the

extended economic impact is going to be.

I mean, some of, you know, if UVA, UVA not only affects our housing market, but it also affects restaurants.

It affects tourism.

It affects our hotel industry and is

and so there's just so much right now that is up in the air and at a time when we most need to be able to help our citizens who are struggling because struggles are increasing, we have to also be looking at a known decrease in revenue that we just don't, we have some projections but those are just best guesses and we don't know

what kind of federal or state support we're gonna be getting anymore.

It's so up in the air.

And final thing that just made me think of is I think one of the environmental factors

That's really critical for everything we do is work that's going on in the community outside of just city government and I think

One comment I guess that I would make is that I have been struck in the nine months now that I've been on council about

I've been struck by the number of things that I didn't see coming.

First of all, of course, is COVID.

None of us saw COVID.

It never occurred to me when I ran for city council that being an epidemiologist was going to be a requirement for the job.

But I also didn't foresee the extent to which the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and others has catapulted

the whole issue of police reform to the forefront in a way that it had not been a year ago, even really six months ago.

It's really just been in the last four months.

And so a lot of the things that we're starting to work on or have been monopolizing our time in the case of COVID, we just didn't expect at all.

Had no idea, particularly COVID, that it was coming.

No sense that the political factors were going to change so dramatically that we would be in a position to be talking about some issues of, well, again, police reform is what I can keep coming back to.

Thank you.

A challenge to try and think of all the things that it's a lot of these things fall into the quadrant of, you know, you don't know what you don't know.

Point well taken.

So this is the backdrop on which we're moving into the conversation.

about what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are.

I think many of these things can be in several of those categories as we move forward to start talking about what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are.

So I want you to keep a pin in this because you can refer to it again later.

We're going to send to the panelists

document that corresponds with the strengths of the organization and the council.

And it looks very similar in terms of the layout, but this one is specifically with regard to strengths.

And we'll do each one of these one at a time.

The strengths are

You can provide just access again generally.

So I'll give you the link again.

Is that what you want?

No, no, no, access to the link.

I have the link.

OK, yeah, I need to change that setting.

Because some of us are, I'm using a different computer than the one that I'm getting the chat from.

Okay.

Okay, so what is the link we're, are we supposed to, okay.

We're looking at the strengths and I will.

And with the word edit.

Can we put it in that shared running notes document, that link?

It just happens to be the one my other computer has.

Sorry.

No worries.

Dr. Cozart, what I'm signed in as, I guess, for Google is sena4sevilleatgmail.com.

Okay, so I changed the link.

And it says request access.

Same for me.

Okay.

I apologize for that.

This is messing with me because I'm not doing anything differently.

It might be because it's associated with my UVA account.

Can you try it now?

Click the link in the document.

Still the same?

All right, so we'll pivot.

The question remains.

We just won't fill in the boxes.

We'll just have a conversation, and Melaina will take notes.

Are you able to edit?

Right.

So instead of you all filling in the boxes, we'll do round robin and have a discussion that way.

I apologize for the technical difficulty.

We'll figure it out going forward.

So when you think about the strengths in light of all of these environmental factors,

And just thinking of the strengths of the city, the question that Melana has posted in the chat is, what are the strengths of the city of Charlottesville that you can leverage in the process and implementation of the strategic plan?

So this is actually a question that we will round back to as we are

or working through the details of the strategic plan.

I would say our active community and the input that they have provided us and will continue to provide us.

the activism, especially around issues related to racial equity.

And the staff, we have a lot of talent as has been stated before.

So we don't usually have an issue once we ask for something with getting it done.

She took my first two items.

Well, exactly the first two things I was going to raise.

It's around just the engagement of our community and how strong that is and powerful and informed on a number of issues.

Another one of those strengths is that we have a fairly stable and relatively recession-proof economy.

I say relatively.

Nothing is ever entirely recession-proof.

Thank you.

I'd like to put out the creativity I see.

A lot of times I see both from community, nonprofits, council members, our staff, but also an openness to trying new things often.

I see a lot of people really trying to think through and think around and

Thank you.

I think there's a lot of, I've said this word earlier, but resiliency in the city.

And I can just think about there's some other municipalities who could

have one thing erupt and it's like it kind of sets people back.

Whereas I just feel like both in terms of a council, as well as stakeholders, both internal and external, like it just feels like we keep pushing forward even in the face of a lot of headwinds.

And that's just something that gives me confidence in this process as well that will continue to push forward.

I'm sorry, we're doing popcorn at this point, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, I just echo what others have said.

I think a big strength is having a dedicated staff who are invested in the community and have a lot of, again, commitment and creativity and experience working on things.

And I think that's something that is vital for us as a council leverage, because ultimately staff are implementing

you know, our policies and our vision.

As others have said, I think a huge asset is our community.

And I think figuring out a way to connect the strength of our staff with work that's going on in the community is where we can have really exciting things happen and have already seen really exciting things happen.

Like when I think about the work on friendship court redevelopment, public housing redevelopment, our climate plan, those are all involving

organizations in the community like C3 with Climate and FAR and the Friendship Court Advisory Committee.

And I think there's just a ton of opportunities in areas like that.

And I think it's a really big strength that we should build off of and continue to foster because I think that's where the biggest opportunities come.

As yeah, I mean, like Lloyd mentioned, I think, relative to other localities, like our economy is

you know, stronger and more resilient than say maybe Buckingham County or Nelson County or Greene who are already experiencing a lot bigger budget impacts than we have.

And I guess a final thing would be, I think a big strength is that both in our community and on council, we have a real commitment to

take action on these issues and on the part of council really caring about these issues and I talk to people in other localities around the state and there's obviously a lot more that we need to do in Charlottesville but

There are a lot of localities in Virginia that I think do not have the commitment to take action on a lot of issues that we are committed.

Even just a random example like public housing redevelopment.

Most localities around not just Virginia, but the country are looking to privatize their public housing and move forward in that direction.

Thank you.

And kind of building off of just the more being kind of resilient to like just the economy and the ups and downs, I do think we're just, we do have a, like on the private side, we have a very resource rich community.

And at times that cohort has stepped up.

If I even use the example of the schools with all the PTOs kind of reaching out to the community to raise funds so that all students are having

Thank you.

All staff members to be full participants in this conversation.

I just like to chime in that we do have great staff here.

We were working to build it.

They're well educated.

They're professional.

It's a great team.