City Council Meeting   1/19/2021

All right, everybody's here, yeah.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

All right, thank you.

So I call the regular meeting to order.

We will have a brief moment of silence.

Thank you.

Ms.

Thomas, would you do roll call, please?

Present.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Present.

Councilor Hill?

Here.

Councilor Payne?

Here.

All right.

Thank you.

Moved it for the agenda as presented.

Okay.

Ms.

Thomas.

Are you all able to hear me?

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

This is for the agenda.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Issues.

Okay.

All right that carries.

I'm 5-0 thank you.

Yes, Mayor Walker, I do have an announcement.

The City of Charlottesville has community development block grant CDBG funding from HUD for critical home repairs for homeowners in the Ridge Street priority neighborhood area, including but not limited to Raymond Road, First Street South, Second Street Southeast,

Ridge Street, 6th Street Southeast, and Lankford Avenue.

Examples of eligible repairs include roof repair and replacement, HVAC repair and replacement, electrical and plumbing repairs, handicap accessibility modifications, et cetera.

For more information about homeowner qualification and types of eligible repairs, please contact Corey Demchak at AHIP, that's

at 434-817-2447, extension 26, or email Corey, C-O-R-Y, at ahipva.org.

That's A-H-I-P-V-A, period, O-R-G.

Any other?

I have the one for Mr. Zan, unless somebody, Alex Zan, unless someone else was planning to read it.

Go ahead.

The third annual Harambee Family Events is a calendar that highlights African American cultural activities in Charlottesville and surrounding area.

The calendar is created and designed by Mr. Alex Zan and presents events from January 2021 to December 2021.

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

The calendar also strives to strengthen family relationships and nurture cultural awareness, particularly among African Americans who experienced a lack of inclusion in many area events.

The calendar will be distributed throughout Central Virginia at schools, churches, businesses, and organizations.

All right, thank you.

Are there any other announcements?

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for having me.

I am going to review where we are with COVID and then talk a little bit about vaccine.

So these are the numbers as of yesterday.

I'm sorry I didn't update them for today, but

can add 55 or so onto this.

The total cases in the district is just under 10,000.

And for Charlottesville, we're just under 2,600.

The total hospitalizations for the district are 400.

For Charlottesville, the total hospitalizations to date are 70.

Total fatalities for the district are 99, with total fatalities in Charlottesville, 35.

And the numbers in parentheses are the numbers when I last updated.

Oh, I'm sorry.

It's okay.

Thank you.

It's been a long day.

All right.

How's that?

That's better, isn't it?

My apologies, everyone.

So here you have the numbers as of yesterday.

The graphs again show the daily case count.

Here back in September we had a large increase primarily because of the students returning back to our community.

This is just for Charlottesville, not for the whole district.

And here again you see the Christmas surge that we are still feeling the effects of right now.

and that's illustrated here in the community as well.

Big uptick in September when the students return and again we're seeing a pretty strong surge right now.

So we are very much still in the thick of it at this point in time.

I'm so sorry.

We are continuing to see a disproportionate impact on communities of color with more hospitalizations as compared to the population for Blacks and Latinx and the Latino community and same for fatalities.

A higher number of individuals dying than are proportional for our community, and that really hasn't changed since the beginning.

Our current positivity rate is actually beginning to trend down now.

We did reach a high of about 10 just before the Christmas holiday.

That's reflected in this large surge of cases right here.

That really has been the highest positivity rate that we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic at this point in time.

So again, I think that reflects the holiday surge.

We had

a very large number of cases that occurred after the Christmas and New Year's holiday.

These are our pandemic metric dashboards.

This is for the week ending 1-9.

And you can see that the entire state is in high activity level with a high burden and substantial activity.

And almost all of the regions are trending upward at this point in time.

We are just seeing large, large number of cases pretty much everywhere across the state at this point.

In regards to outbreaks that have occurred in Charlottesville, we have one outbreak in progress at the Cedars Healthcare Center where they've had 13 cases to date.

We have a number that are really closed.

They say pending closure, but in fact, there's not much happening at the Rosewood Center.

and the UVA hospital.

They're all pending nine deaths at the early one in July at Cedars, but no very small numbers since then or no deaths associated with it.

So we do continue to see outbreaks that is still impacting our long-term care and hospital setting.

So that's where we're at.

The numbers are trending upwards.

We continue to have a large number of cases.

We continue to urge mitigation measures across the board.

But I think what we're all really interested in is the COVID vaccine.

So there are now two vaccines that are available for use and being put into people's arms here in our community.

This is a drawing that illustrates how the Pfizer-BioNTech works but the Moderna is very similar.

These are a brand new type of vaccine.

There has been decades of research on this technology, but it's never been made it to the form of an improved vaccine.

So in this situation, what happens is they take a little bit of the messenger RNA that codes for a particular protein.

In this situation, it's the spike protein, the little bit on the outside of the coronavirus that gives its corona.

That RNA is encased in a lipid particle which has been injected into your arm and picked up by your cells The RNA then uses building blocks within your cells and makes the little spike proteins which go on the outside of the cell and antibodies are developed that recognize that this is not one of your natural proteins

So if you don't get an infection, there's not the whole blueprint that's injected into your arm.

It really would be like injecting the blueprint for the bathroom.

You can't build a house, but it is enough that the cell can recognize that it is something that doesn't belong and can build up the antibodies.

With both of these vaccines, you need two vaccinations.

You need for Pfizer, one three weeks apart, and for Moderna, four weeks apart.

They do cause side effects.

Almost everyone gets a pretty sore arm, but that's pretty typical for any intramuscular type of vaccine.

But they can also cause an inflammatory type of syndrome where you get a fever and you feel achy and feverish and really that's just your body telling you that it's working that it's beginning to develop the immune response that you want to keep yourself safe.

Additionally, there's a small number of people who have a severe allergic reaction.

So far, we haven't really seen too many individuals that have that locally.

So that's great.

But that is certainly a possibility.

And that is why when you get the vaccine, it's required that you stick around for 15 to 30 minutes so that we can make sure you're okay to leave.

So those are how the vaccines work.

There are a number of other vaccines that are in the pipeline.

Johnson & Johnson has one that we should be getting data on in the next few weeks.

And then the AstraZeneca has data and has been approved and is in use in other countries.

But because there were some irregularities in how the trial was conducted The U.S.

is asking for additional evidence before it moves it to the emergency use

And then I would just remind everyone that these are emergency use vaccines.

While they have been through the whole process that a vaccine would go through, it was done in an accelerated fashion.

And so it's not approved for widespread use, it's approved for emergency use.

And that does require a little additional training and a few additional steps for us to take.

But they are very safe and they have been tested.

And we've given them now to a couple of thousand individuals and not had any adverse impacts.

So this is a different vaccination campaign than our annual flu campaign.

This is a vaccine that no one has ever received before, so essentially everyone needs to get it.

And while the drug companies were producing this vaccine before they even got approval and stockpiling it, there just is not enough for all of the individuals in this country

let alone in the world and the drug company continues to work really hard to get more vaccine but there is a limited supply and it's really important that people understand that eventually everyone will be able to get vaccinated but we cannot vaccinate everyone at once and so the CDC put forward a phased roll-ups and

process which was adopted by the state and initially the focus was on phase 1A which was healthcare personnel and residents of long-term care facilities.

The plan initially was for healthcare personnel to be vaccinated, those who worked in the hospital by the hospital, and then also the hospital would help health districts vaccinate other unaffiliated healthcare personnel in the area.

There were a few hiccups with that, and that hasn't been a smooth rollout as we would hope.

residents of long-term care facilities enrolled in a federal program and either CVS or Walgreens will go in and vaccinate both the residents and the staff.

This is taking longer to roll out than was initially thought and so we don't think that all long-term care facilities will have their first visit or even a complete immunization series until March sometime.

and that's concerning, and we certainly want to get our most vulnerable citizens who are these residents in long-term care facilities, but it is happening.

It's just taking longer than we would hope.

Recently, the governor, at the urging of the federal government, expanded where Virginia is at to include Phase 1B.

So this is frontline essential workers.

people over the age of 65, people ages 16 to 64 with an underlying medical condition, and people living in other high-risk living situations such as correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and migrant labor camps.

There's a full list on the website and if you go to the VDH website you can click on any of these boxes and it'll bring up the detailed list and you can drill down even further and there's a 30-page document that

really lists out in exquisite detail who qualifies for each of these positions.

As you can imagine, Phase 1B includes a lot of people in the state of Virginia that all want to be vaccinated.

And again, we have a limited supply of vaccine and we are trying to get it out in as quick a fashion as we can.

But as you can imagine, there are some challenges associated with that.

Eventually, we will move to Phase 1C, which includes other essential workers.

And again, you can click on that box to see if you fall in that.

And then when we've gotten through Phase 1, then we'll move to Phase 2, which is more of the general public.

And we hope by that time that that will really be done by your primary care physician and local pharmacies.

So I do want to talk about the vaccine numbers because I think there is some misperceptions in the community that the health department is sitting on lots and lots of vaccine and we just aren't.

So the state receives from the stockpile roughly 100,000 doses each week.

That's all.

Of that, so we've received just under a million doses right now from the very beginning when Pfizer was approved.

to this week so of that nine hundred and fifty thousand about half went to hospitals across the state again whose mission was to vaccinate their health care workers who are on the front line being exposed to COVID on a daily basis but also to assist in vaccinating other unaffiliated health care personnel that was

didn't happen smoothly in this health district for a whole variety of reasons.

As I said, Walgreens and CVS have received 25% of the vaccine that was allotted to the state of Virginia to conduct those long-term care facilities.

So that vaccine has taken out of circulation and is waiting for them to vaccinate residents and staff who work in long-term care facilities.

Public Health has about 15% and the remainder has gone to a number of small pharmacies and other groups that are helping to assist in vaccination.

So 15% of 950, if you do the math, is not very much.

And that's not what we in Blue Ridge Health District received.

That is what health departments across the state received.

The process up until this week has been that the local health district submits an order one week in advance for the state to the state on what vaccine we would like for the following week.

The last order that went in last week had twice as many requests across the state than there was vaccine which meant that many health districts did not get vaccine and that is creating

some issues because as you can imagine those appointments were already set up our appointments are now filled through the end of February and to not get vaccine that you had counted on means that you have to either try and find somebody who has spare vaccine or you have to cancel appointments and as you can imagine that creates a lot of angry individuals

The state is moving to fix that so that we will have a fixed allotment every week that will better facilitate planning.

And that should go into effect, we hope, next week, which will smooth things out somewhat.

So there's a lot of demand and not very much supply.

So our plan right now in this district, and this is dependent on vaccine availability, that we receive at least some portion of what we have requested.

We have a very large tent that is courtesy of a number of very generous groups.

that have assisted Corrin Capshaw and Red Light Management, Bama Works, Skyline Tent, Martin Horn, I'm probably missing some, have all generously come together and helped construct the tent and have guaranteed that we have that to vaccinate out of until I believe May.

That's a very large site that allows us to safely vaccinate a large number of people, and we are ramping up as we have vaccine and individuals to vaccinate those people.

We're trying to get the healthcare personnel that did not get vaccinated initially.

I know there's a lot of frustration, but we are working through that group, and we are trying to begin to work through the Phase 1B frontline.

starting with our law enforcement and then working into schools.

Additionally, just for awareness, we do a fixed location in each of our localities on a weekly or biweekly basis.

UVA vaccinated their healthcare personnel.

They also graciously agreed to provide us with nurses who are assisting in the hydraulic road tent and they're covering the salaries of those nurses who are going to come in and vaccinate on behalf of the health district.

They have also this week used the vaccine that they had left in their system to vaccinate a large number of individuals who are over the age of 75 because that's what phase 1B used to be before it was changed who had already pre-registered and individuals within the UVA system who are also meeting that over 75 criteria

We expect several thousand individuals who meet that criteria will be vaccinated by UVA this week.

And we are very thankful that UVA has stepped in to pick that up.

They are using vaccine that they had and their staff to really benefit the community.

And for that, we say thank you.

Sentera Martha Jefferson has also assisted the community.

They vaccinated their health care personnel and health care personnel that was affiliated with us.

And now they are working to vaccinate other unaffiliated phase one health care personnel that we have been unable to get to and vaccinate yet.

And again, we are extraordinarily grateful for Sentera.

for doing this for us.

They have some extra vaccine that they're going to send to us, which is going to allow us to vaccinate some additional individuals over the next week or so, which will benefit the community.

So both of our healthcare systems have been great partners, along with the large number of individuals that I mentioned that have contributed to allowing us to have a safe spot to vaccinate.

As we move forward and vaccine becomes available, we will begin to partner with local pharmacies and healthcare practices as they gain approval from the CDC.

Because this is an emergency use vaccine, there is a process that individuals have to go through to become approved by the CDC to do vaccination.

There were very few two weeks ago.

There is an increasingly large number.

as they work through the paperwork and requirements with that.

And again, as we have vaccine available, we will be pushing it out to those pharmacies and healthcare practices so that they also can help us vaccinate those Phase 1B personnel.

There is a dashboard and I'll just run through a couple of slides.

It's on the VDH web page and there's also a large number of FAQs and information sheets and I really encourage people to go to the VDH web page and I'll try and screenshot where that is real quick.

But under the data summary there is a vaccine summary.

It provides the number of doses administered, how many have been distributed, and the average number of doses administered each day.

There is a lag here.

It takes a couple of days for it to make it from the system that we are using to the system that they're recording the data out of.

As you can see, the state only gets vaccine at regular or fixed intervals here.

These represent when Moderna and Pfizer is the lighter blue show up.

Right now, the health department is vaccinating with Moderna.

Pfizer primarily went to hospitals.

That will not be the case exclusively going forward.

We anticipate having to also administer Pfizer.

but so far have not.

So again, just another, and you can toggle over and see how both Albemarle and Charlottesville are doing in the live version of this.

There are about 34,000 people who have received both of their doses at this point in time.

They are primarily or almost exclusively healthcare personnel who work in a hospital setting, who are working with individuals who either have COVID or are at risk of COVID.

There is also a breakdown by the facility type and you can see hospitals have the largest amount, local health departments and then a variety of others that are assisting here with us.

So while we are waiting for the vaccine to be available and in everybody's arms, we need everybody to continue the mitigation measures.

That might mean getting tested if you feel like you have the symptoms for COVID.

You have some immunity after your first shot.

You have full immunity two weeks after your second shot.

So I've put the testing dates.

UVA continues to provide testing on Monday and Tuesday in our community.

There's no pre-registration for that.

You just show up.

And then every Friday, the health department is at the Charlottesville High School.

We are now being assisted in this testing with the Virginia National Guard so that we could move the nurses that were doing the testing to the vaccination so we could increase the capacity for vaccination.

Our hotline number is there, 434-972-6261.

We have recently moved to a larger space and expanded the number of operators from 4 to 15 to assist with the incredibly large volume of individuals calling and trying to figure out how they can get a vaccination.

Right now we are only vaccinating by appointment.

You can pre-register your interests

by filling out a survey.

Once we have that survey information, if it is a group that we are vaccinating, then we will upload your information into our vaccination system.

Right now we're using a system called VAMS, V-A-M-S.

We will soon be switching to a new system called PrepMod, which offers some increased functionality.

Both will be operating for a while.

And so if you belong to a 1A or a 1B group and you have been told that you have been uploaded into the system, we encourage you to look in all of your folders because many mail systems put the email from VAMS in the trash or in spam.

If after looking through all of your email you cannot find it then you can contact the health department and we will try a second upload to try and get you into the system.

It has been a challenging rollout and for that we apologize.

Finally I just put this up as I said it will take months to get a large enough

group of people vaccinated to have what we call herd immunity.

And in the meantime, we need everybody to continue to use all of those great mitigation measures.

If you haven't downloaded COVID-wise on your phone, please do so.

Please continue to wear your masks or cloth-based covering.

Please continue to stay six feet apart.

And of course, wash your hands and high-touch surfaces frequently.

I will

Let me see.

Okay, I'll go.

I was curious of any data on the new strains that are being discussed both nationally and globally.

It certainly has raised some concerns for some constituents and

The UK strain is a concern, and it has definitely been seen here in the United States.

It's challenging to determine how widespread it is because we don't do DNA or RNA typing, as the case may be, genotyping, on every sample that comes in.

There's not a dedicated funding stream to do that, and so we rely on

money that we cobbled together from various places.

So we're definitely looking at it.

I have seen mentioned that there might be some sort of dedicated funding stream that will allow us.

It is a concern.

It is a highly contagious variant.

And we are already in a surge situation.

And if that starts to take hold in our community, that's certainly going to increase the number of cases.

Some of you may have seen of a strain in California that appears to have somewhat less effectiveness to the vaccine.

It's very preliminary.

I haven't seen any good papers on that yet, and so I don't think that we can say that the vaccines that we have are any less effective at this point in time.

And another gear here, when you're talking about signing up, so I just went on the website and I can see where you fill out this form.

I just wanted to clarify because I do know some folks who had gone through, I guess, maybe more of a state form process to get their names in the queue and were not as successful, but it seems like to get the best responsiveness, we should be going through the Blue Ridge

website and then going to that form.

I'm seeing that form now.

It's definitely different than the form in my family that my husband filled out on behalf of his parents and the one that I'm seeing now.

Yeah, the state did put a, what they're calling a quiz to determine your eligibility, and they actually collected information.

We have asked them to please send us that information, preferably with a date on when that information was entered so that we can integrate it into the database that we have so that as we work down that database, we capture those individuals as well.

My understanding is that they have that information now and that they're beginning to sort it and they hope to send it to us.

If someone is worried, they can go and fill out the survey on our webpage and it's fine.

It's not

We will account for duplicates.

If they've already filled out the survey on our webpage once, they do not have to do that again, certainly not.

And we hope to have all of that information from the state brought over to us.

And my last question is statewide, I guess people should be getting their vaccinations within their health district and not trying to cross lines?

Yes, I guess.

I just have someone who didn't get a spot.

I think some teachers were like, well, there's nothing available here.

We're going to go across the mountain.

There's something available in Harrisonburg.

I'm just trying to be clear with the public around what the protocols are for that.

And then related, I'm, for example, I have my parents are seasonal residents or to people who are here like there are snowbirds.

So with regards to the Snowbird, absolutely.

They just need to go online and fill out the form.

And as we begin to work down the groups, we will absolutely do them.

That is fine.

With regards to the lack of availability, I know that all of the appointments that are in the system for our area are full right now because we don't want to open more slots unless we are sure we have vaccine.

We are waiting to see what that's going to look like.

I anticipate that we'll be able to open more slots.

We certainly have enough personnel that can assist us with vaccination, which took us a little while to get there, but we're there now.

So we have people who are looking and they see an appointment in Harrisonburg or in Alexandria and they're taking it.

And that's because the VAM system, it's one of the reasons the state is switching to this prep mod, just shows you everything.

It shows you all of the available appointments.

You cannot restrict them to any one group.

So I encourage everybody to try and stay within where they are eligible.

So if you work here and your eligibility is because you work as a frontline or as a health care provider, then you should really try and find an appointment here.

If you get an appointment in Harrisonburg and they don't turn you away, then, you know, good for you.

Those clinics in Harrisonburg are set up for people who are eligible by virtue of the fact that they work in Harrisonburg rather than work here I know it's frustrating I encourage people to just keep putting in the zip code for the health department 22903 and that'll give you all the clinics in 10 miles around and just keep checking and more will become available as I am sure that I have vaccine to provide it to people who sign up

Councilors, any other questions, comments?

Thank you very much for your work and for continuing to give us these reports.

I would just close by saying I understand this is a really frustrating process for the public and we're trying to get as much information on our website and as much clarity as we can.

I know people have tried to call the hotline and all they have gotten into busy signals because they literally have received hundreds of calls over the last week.

So I would urge people to just

Please be patient.

Please remember that we will eventually have a vaccine for you.

Everyone who wants to get vaccinated will absolutely be able to get vaccinated.

It may just take a while.

Great.

Thank you.

I hope so.

Thank you.

Next up we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent agenda, one minutes, November 10th, joint council planning commission work session, November 12 budget work session, November 16 special closed and regular meetings, November 20th, special meeting, December 7 regular meeting, December 10 budget work session, December 21 special meeting, January 6,

8th and 11th emergency meetings.

Number two, appropriation, Virginia Department of Social Services, one-time funding for budget programs, $16,877.19, second reading.

Number three, appropriation, staffing for adequate fire and emergency response, safer grant,

$3,498,300, second reading, four, appropriation, COVID-19 municipal utility relief program to assist customers, $182,801.59, second reading, five, appropriation, Charlottesville City Schools budget amendment, grant funding, $2,787,563, second reading,

Six, Appropriation Interest Accrual on Coronavirus Aid Relief Economic Security CARES Act Funding $7,000 Second Reading Seven, Appropriation of Community Development Block Grant CDBG Home Investment Partnership Program

budget allocations for FY 2020 to 2021 and minor amendment for action put minor amendment for action plan 2020 to 2021.

A appropriation of funds for the 2020 through 2021 community development block grant

$419,303, second reading.

B, appropriation of funds for the 2020-2021 home funds $121,186.97, second reading.

8, appropriation of funds for the 2020-2021 CDBG 10th and Page Priority Neighborhood, second reading.

Nine, ordinance, Eagle Franchise Agreement renewal, second reading.

10, resolution, letter of endorsement for House Bill 1965 regarding no or low emission vehicles, one reading.

Okay, thank you.

If you'd like to speak on an item on the consent agenda, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

I know we had one person with their hand up earlier.

Mr. Gathers, I don't know if that was for the consent agenda, but right now you're first in line.

And then we also had somebody sign up

under community matters regarding the no and low emission vehicles.

So if you wanna speak about that, this would be the time before council votes on that.

All right, first we're gonna go to Peter Krebs.

Thank you and good evening.

I'm Peter Krebs.

I live on 1022 Tufton Avenue.

I wanted to speak in favor of item number eight, which is the CDBG funding for 10th and Page.

This is a work that's long time coming and will bring about a small park, which is already underway and numerous safety enhancements around 10th Street, 8th Street and Hardy Drive.

A lot of work has gone into making this happen.

And like I just said, it's already underway and you can see it, you know, ground being broken.

That's so exciting.

It matches exactly what I hear from Tenton Page residents.

So that's great.

And it's just super inspirational to see the progress happening, local leaders being in it for the long haul.

Mayor Walker, next up is Susan Cruz.

Yeah, hi, thank you.

Susan Cruz here, Executive Director of the Community Climate Collaborative.

I'd signed up for Community Matters, but this is a consent agenda item, so I just want to thank you, Mayor Walker, Vice Mayor McGill, and Council for considering the Community Climate Collaborative's effort to unify municipal support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

In 2017, the outgoing presidential administration rolled back standards for vehicle fuel efficiency put in place by the Obama administration.

This one action allowed vehicle manufacturers to continue to promote vehicles that cost consumers more to operate and contribute to reduced air quality, particularly in densely populated or high traffic communities.

Since that action 16 states have voted to maintain the clean car standards by requiring car manufacturers to deliver more energy efficient zero or low emission vehicles to their states HB 1965 currently on your consent agenda for a letter of support is currently before the Virginia Virginia General Assembly and would make Virginia the 17th state to adopt these standards

The bill is being championed by Delegate Lamont Bagby of Henrico County and has been endorsed by the Legislative Black Caucus and numerous climate organizations.

In 2019, our city set a goal to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030.

Our emissions come from three areas, our three primary areas, our homes, our businesses, and our cars.

Last year, the General Assembly took action at the state level to improve residential energy efficiency and expand access to solar.

That legislative action will undoubtedly reduce emissions in Charlottesville from households

by significant margins helping us to reach our climate action goals.

Now we must tackle transportation emissions.

It is imperative that Virginia localities who have set ambitious climate goals join in support of this action that will largely help them reach their targets.

By supporting this letter, you will join Albemarle County, the City of Alexandria, the Town of Blacksburg, the City of Norfolk, the Mayor of Richmond, all who are supporting this effort.

Mayor Walker, next up is Emily Little.

Emily, you're on with City Council.

Hi, everyone.

Hi, City Councilors.

This is Emily Little.

I live at 807 Moore Ave in Charlottesville.

And I want to second Susan Cruz's statement that you just heard.

I would love to see you finalize your letter of endorsement for House Bill 1965 regarding the no low emission vehicles.

We know from looking at carbon inventories in both the city and in the county that state that

and at the state level as well, that transportation is a huge piece of our carbon footprint here and everywhere.

And the clean car standards would just make it much easier for Virginia to improve the air quality and our carbon footprint.

And it's interesting, it's one of those funny things where often people

is a hard thing for people to understand, but air pollution is actually a lot easier.

And I remember at one point there was a proposal of, you know, why do people have their cars in idle waiting to pick up their kids at all the schools?

Think about all of the

Diesel and the gas emissions that are just going around those schools around where kids breathe.

I know my kids normally attend, well now they attend mom school, but normally attend Burnley Moran and 250 is right there.

There's a lot of traffic and especially in a growing city, we're going to have more traffic and people aren't necessarily ready to give up their cars yet.

The ideal thing is that we, you know, listen to Peter Krebs and get us walking and biking.

But until then, at least making our cars not emitting carbon and not polluting the air where our children are playing at this beautiful new hopefully finished funding 10th and Page Park.

I just would love to see the city support that.

All right, thank you.

All right, before there's a motion made, I just have a couple and just to figure out how we're going to do this.

I don't plan to vote in favor for number seven.

For the same reason that I didn't vote in favor for it early in the year just the efficiency how we measure the efficiency of those funds used.

And so I if we could make a motion for

Ms.

Okay, I'm running a dashboard, I'm sorry.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

And so then this next one, I guess you'll abstain from, I guess, the 21st.

Okay, so I move that we

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

I think you do.

And I move that we adopt item seven, appropriation for the community development block grant and home investment partnerships program budget allocations for fiscal year 2021 and minor amendments for the action plan 2021.

Thomas.

Mayor Walker.

No.

Oh, you're okay voting now.

Give me a second.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have the city manager's response to community matters from the December 21st meeting.

Thank you, Mayor Walker and councilors.

Good evening.

At the last meeting there was an inquiry about greater communication from social services.

I do want to report that Mr. Wheeler and Ms.

Cookneo have talked about how to better communicate programs related to SNAP and TANF and other benefit programs.

Ms.

Cookneo advised

Mr Wheeler that it might be a good idea to wait initially as the Biden administration takes office tomorrow to see if they're going to be any short term changes and then they will work on a

public facing communication for individuals in our community about those benefit programs.

Just wanted to also highlight that next Thursday, the council will have a special meeting with the city school board as well for the public.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Boyer.

Next up, we have the community matters.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

The first speaker that signed up in advance is Marta Keene.

Marta, you're on with City Council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Marta Cain, the CEO for Java, and I thank you for the opportunity to update you and your residents.

Thank you for the support that you provided through the Supplemental CARES Act funding.

It went toward meals in Charlottesville, so we were able to continue to deliver home-delivered meals to the people who were always getting them, as well as to our

Mary Williams Community Center members because the center wasn't meeting for a number of months.

And then we were also able to provide shelf stable meals to everybody on the list so that as we come into winter, they have that just in case weather makes it difficult to get other meals out to them.

So it was very helpful.

And I did want to let you all know since I saw you last that we were able to open Mary Williams Center from September till Thanksgiving and that allowed for a small group of our members to have a safe way to socialize.

Most of the time it was outside and some of the time it was in a very large room.

Many of them continued, however, to stay isolated because of their fear of the virus.

And so we continue to provide the remote support that I had shared with you.

One of the things that has happened is we've learned a lot from working through COVID and we have now created

Java or at home with Java and so we're doing home delivered meals monthly calendar the weekly calls but we're also starting some zoom and continuing conference calls not just for our community center members at home but also for any new members and for home delivered meals our adult care center is needed more than ever for people who are we're helping to support somebody with dementia

or severe physical disabilities.

It's a chance to have some respite and to support those caregivers and for the members to be in a fun, stimulating, safe environment.

And we're going to be reopening that February 1.

And I just want to remind everyone, we continue to provide all the services and supports such as our senior helpline, options counseling, insurance counseling,

which includes Affordable Care Act and the Ombudsman so we're still very active we're just trying to do it all virtually as you are too and I thank you for continuing to support Java and giving me the opportunity to give you an update.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker the next person that signed up in advance is Gloria Beard.

Gloria, can you hear us?

We can.

Okay.

Well, first thing I want to say, I see y'all hired a new manager.

And so I guess y'all never thought about giving Dr. Richardson another chance.

And I want to know, is this new manager going to get to know us, you know, the community?

Is they going to be setting up stuff so he can get to know people in the community?

I pray.

Okay, and who's seeing?

I wrote this, I can't see it.

Also, I heard that you all were thinking about building some more affordable housing and trying to figure out where you're going to put them.

Also, they were talking about all these, that Charlottesville was number two for the retirees wanting to come here to live Now, my question is, how in the world is all these people going to finish Charlottesville?

Because the people that retire probably got money, because it can't be us that live here because they don't pay enough wages So what happens to the people that's already here?

See, I'm getting older, so one day I'll be gone, so I guess I'll make way for somebody rich to come here, you know, to this town.

Because I don't see a lot worried about, nobody seemed to be worried too much about the homeless people, the poor people.

Wages got to go up so people can stay here.

Our children, all my children left here.

I mean, I don't have any family but my brother here.

I mean, I got some grandkids, but, you know, they little.

And I worry about the play area for the children.

We don't have anything, y'all.

Y'all took down the skating rink, and I don't see anything for them.

The parks, I mean, it's nothing to do.

Our children, if you build up affordable housing, you know, in the city, where are they going to play?

Because you don't want them in the streets.

Maybe I haven't got hit or either people are going to complain about that.

So we've got to make some decisions.

And I guess that's about all I have to say right now, but I'm just so disappointed.

I've been stressing.

This whole world is stressing me out.

I retired.

I lived through that.

Because I tell you, I had a time when I was out there in the field of working.

So I thought when I got older, I could at least sit down and be relaxed.

I'm worried much more than I ever been.

It's so depressing.

So think about what I'm saying, you all.

I'm for real.

Thank you, Ms.

As Mayor Walker said at the start, we have up to 16 slots available.

We've had two speakers, so we have 14 additional slots.

We have

four people with their hands raised right now.

If you'd like to get in line, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

And if you join us via telephone, press star nine.

Mayor Walker, next up is Tanisha Hudson.

So first off, I want to speak on quite a few things that's going on in the city.

Number one,

Let's talk about how you white counselors are trying to basically paint this image as if the whole issue was Nikuyah Walker.

That's not true.

Cut it out, Lloyd.

Tell that email right because it's in my FOIA request.

and how you all want to act like you want to take accountability now, but you're still not taking accountability and being truthful about that because you're halfway doing that.

So at the end of the day, I know y'all trying to make this little image like, oh, the white counselors is going to take all the blame.

We know the city is chaotic.

We know that we're dysfunctional.

We're going to take the blame to make it look like she the problem.

All y'all the problem.

accepted, all of y'all.

And to the three who was just elected last election, stop acting like you didn't play a role and stepping up when you knew that it was a plan to go after somebody's job.

Y'all failed.

You showed just how weak you were.

Second off, Mr. Blair, since you don't want to return my call, I'm going to put you on blast on City Council where it's recorded.

How does Brian Wheeler still have a job and he did the same thing to Dee Dee Smith?

I need you to explain that one.

We've been through this before because he did it to me.

The issue with Charlottesville is y'all treat your friends of friends totally different than how you treat people who are not your friends.

You can't do that.

And lawyer, you are an attorney and you know that that's wrong.

Mr. Blair, you're an attorney and you know that that's wrong.

Mr. Blair, you also sit in a lot of meetings and you knew a lot that was going on and you didn't step up and do your job as a city attorney.

So there's a lot that's dysfunctional with this city.

But I'm going to end by saying this.

you white folks do stuff but as long as y'all do it for the better good of white people who have money who sit in the same position that you sit in or who look like you or who you eat lunch with or who your children play with as long as you're doing it for the better good of people that look like you it's absolutely okay but when black people do it for the better good of black people and for people that look like them you try to make it look chaotic or problematic

That's why this city will always have a problem, and there will always be a problem.

And a lot of y'all ran on so-called want and change, racial justice, justice reform.

We need different in Charlottesville.

We're tired of this city running down on marginalized communities.

They're doing this.

They're doing that.

But you're doing exactly what your white counterparts were already doing.

So you ran a fraudulent campaign, basically.

And then y'all lied.

Mayor Walker, next up is Walt Heineke.

Walt, you're on the city council.

Thank you.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the human rights ordinance, but before I do that, I do want to express a little bit of disappointment with the way that this last go around with the two city manager issues was handled in a non-transparent way.

I think the public was just

Clueless about what was going on and I think that's going to come back to hurt council.

Anyway, I'm calling tonight to talk to you about the Human Rights Commission and the ordinance review that you're going to do tonight.

In March, counsel received a letter from social justice agencies listing out a series of eight corrective measures for fixing the Human Rights Commission.

Unfortunately, last year's Human Rights Commission, when they reviewed these, they failed to adopt any of these recommendations.

So there's still a problem here and I think it's your responsibility now to clean it up and to fix it and to make it effective and to make it an effective tool for equity and racial justice in Charlottesville

I think to do that you're going to in the ordinance specifically and I sent this to you in a letter just to let the public know that there's been a letter that sent outlining these things I think the ordinance should address the credentials for the director specifying that they should have legal and civil rights experience

I think the ordinance should mandate entering into a FEPA and FHAP agreement with EEOC and HUD.

I know you can't force those agencies to enter into an agreement with you, but on our end we should always be mandating to our Human Rights Commission to get into that.

you should add subject matter expertise and community expertise like the PCRB onto the Human Rights Commission specify a council liaison mandate a major study of discrimination with policy recommendations be done every one or two years and specify the chair report to council on major studies of discrimination that are conducted every one or two years

every quarter for the sake of accountability and I also think that you should hire a director for the Human Rights Commission now and not wait for anything and that director like I said should have legal credentials and experience in civil rights compliance and implementation anyway it's all in the letter it's up to you to fix it and

I don't think it should go back to the Human Rights Commission.

It should be fixed by Council.

It's your responsibility to create the mandate.

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, next up is Robin Hoffman.

Robin, you're on with Council.

Hi, everybody.

I just want to thank you again for being so talented and educated and energized and really trying to get

all these terrible issues that have come up, especially in the last nine months.

I am an RN.

I actually am on the front line for testing and now I'm going to be working with CVS.

I'm going to be a nurse vaccinator.

That's what Emily Little calls me.

One of the things, the issue that came up Sunday night was that the Moderna lat number 041 L2OA is the one that's causing the anaphylaxis.

So what I was listening to with all the information that I'm being bombarded with is that it's like the hepatitis vaccine.

If your kids have

had the hepatitis vaccine.

They had to have it three doses.

Well, this is a two dose one.

So with, for instance, Heather's parents, you know, get a dose in the first shot in Harrisonburg and then they come back here.

As a registered nurse, who's also certified school nurse, da-da-da,

Whenever I gave immunizations, there was a protocol and we had to fill out these papers that went to the CDC and the Board of Health and all these other places.

We don't have those systems in place right now.

It's really what the whole bottleneck is in my opinion.

But also what I mean to say is stay locally.

Get your immunization with your physician.

So they can do the paperwork and the follow up with a lot numbers and all that stuff.

Wait for it to come to your doctors.

Just mask up.

Don't travel.

Everybody's traveling.

What is wrong with everybody?

And change your air quality.

Get Leap or somebody to come into your homes.

and fix your air quality because there is a way to keep the air circulating so you you do not get reinfected also that's the other problem that's happening now um and what I want to say is I'm glad that this schools uh are talking to the Department of Health and then about the road closures are there going to be any road closures for tomorrow

And from now on, are we going to have cameras and stuff like that from these thugs that like are so stupid?

They don't know what freedom is.

We should send them to a place where there is already a dictator and let them live like that with their guns and see how far they get.

But anyway, we need cameras now.

The next two speakers are Peter Krebs, who will be followed by Don Gathers.

Peter, you're on with Council.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

PC, the City of Charlottesville and the Jefferson Madison Regional Library invite anyone interested in safer streets to take part in a virtual book club.

Right of way,

by Angie Schmidt describes the ways that race, class, and other social forces combine to make walking and biking less safe than it should be.

Three copies of the book are available at the Market Street Library branch along with study questions.

There will be a Zoom discussion on February 18th at 5 p.m.

You can learn more by visiting pecva.org.

I would also like to say a couple quick things about the second to last item on the agenda, number 15, which is sort of a pro forma vote authorizing the acquisition of an additional 144 acres adjacent to Ragged Mountain.

It's a great example of a collaborative approach between the city, DC, state, federal agencies, Bama Works, the private donor,

The Rivanna Trails Foundation played a sort of decisive role.

They're running and biking organizations and a couple of businesses even coming together to protect this important piece of land and to provide public access to a vast natural landscape which when you add it all up is actually several times the size of Central Park and it's right on the edge of town.

It's a good win for residents and a really creative way to get stuff done.

Thank you.

Right now we have one additional hand raised.

It's Don Gathers.

If you'd like to get in line, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

Don, you're on with City Council.

Good evening, everyone.

Hope everyone is

doing well.

I encourage you to be safe and to stay safe.

Very much I was very happy to see that the city manager was appointed, didn't care at all for the process in which it was done.

I still believe that it may have been a rush to judgment, although we were very much in a state of flux, a state of chaos, if you will.

And

If my math is correct, you all bear 20% of the responsibility for that chaos because you've each played a role in it, all five of you.

So everyone is culpable, everyone has some small portion of that.

I just pray that this move works out and helps keep the oars of this big boat in the water, keep us afloat.

Mr Blair, I am so sorry that you have chosen to leave the city because I do think that you are a valuable resource and your legalese and I'm sorry that we were not able to retain you but I certainly wish you well in your future endeavors excuse me and I certainly wish the incoming city manager well and just pray that that he's able to

to meet the needs of the community.

I am somewhat concerned that with all that's going on around us recently that we haven't heard of any sort of security report in regards to tomorrow.

I don't know, maybe there's no intel indicating that we might be in any danger or a target in any way, but I certainly hope that we are prepared just in case because we've heard of the

the plans that these individuals may have in place to attack cities.

And I can't imagine that if that is indeed the case, that Charlottesville wouldn't be part of that plan.

I pray it's not.

But again, I'm just hoping that we're prepared.

All right.

Mayor Walker, I'll make one last call.

If anyone in the audience would like to speak to council, please click the raise hand icon.

Next up is Abby Guskind.

Abby, you're on with the council.

Good evening, everybody.

I just want to try and gather my words.

And I'm not saying that

Anybody up in your seats is a walk in the park because it's not.

I'm just truly disappointed that the way that the city manager was chosen behind closed doors was not respectful to the citizens here in Charlottesville.

Out of all of you, I believe Mayor Walker was the only one that reached out to Dr. Richardson, and I want to say thank you for that, for at least asking where it was going to go, who knows, and the toxicity behind

closed doors and what we've observed through this crazy last year behind our computers has really been difficult for everybody.

Michael Payne, you script well, your words, I mean, you wrote a beautiful letter, but I'm just sad that you didn't

stand up for Dr. Richardson and Lloyd and Sena.

I thought you all were going to do that as well.

Nobody got to listen to our voices.

We put together a petition and it just fell on deaf ears.

And I'm

I'm really, really disappointed.

And then instead of trying to reach out to the community, I mean, you went out on the I Love Seville show.

I mean,

that was more important and your only way to get your voices heard was on I Love Seville instead of trying some other format to reach out to the community where we haven't even been able to use our voices let alone but there's so many people that nobody even looked at on that petition there's lots of people that really wanted a fair you know

wanted someone to step up and reach out.

I don't know this gentleman, Chip, but if he is supposedly our savior, why wasn't he found before, especially before Mike Murphy?

And that's a huge loaded question.

I don't have the answer for that.

Mr. Blair, it's really a shame that you're leaving.

I do wish you well.

but I'm really, I'm truly disappointed and I hope that things won't because this is not a good way to move forward.

Mayor Walker, next up is Elizabeth Stark.

Elizabeth, you're on with counsel.

Hi there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Hi, counselors.

My name is Elizabeth Stark.

I live in the city on Fairway Avenue.

And I was, I'd like to comment about the budget season as you get into the thick of things.

and are making some really crucial determinations about our city and the funding that we have.

I want to just say how important I think it is to fund the parts of our community that are supportive, like education, mental health and physical health care, substance use, treatment,

addressing our unhoused population.

I know that I heard Chief Brackney's conference addressing violence in the city and it felt to me like Chief Brackney was really making a case for supporting our community and sending funds to the things that our community needs to feel supported and taken care of and so many people right now

are not being supported and taken care of.

So as you're making crucial funding decisions for the city, I just want to really say as strongly as I can that parking garages and streetscapes are not what matters to the community right now.

We need fully funded schools.

We need better funded mental health care and every possible alternative to policing that we can possibly have.

Mayor Walker, next up is Katrina Cooper.

Katrina, you're on with city council.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Katrina Cooper.

I am a public housing residence and my concern tonight is that it seems to be that some care was put up over on

I want to say the South First Street in Langford area and I was just wondering like why wasn't the neighbors notified of all of this I know it has been recent shootings in the area over there but I think like I don't know which way those cameras are facing but if we had a problem with public housing and putting the cameras in different locations

thinking that it might be an issue with where they put the cameras at.

So that's my main concern is about those cameras.

Yeah, was there?

I haven't watched the last meeting yet.

And Mayor Walker, I've muted her at this point.

No, I was just really asking us was that we receive an update about cameras being put up.

Okay.

So we could get some information about that.

And we have six additional slots.

If anyone else would like to address council, just click the raise hand icon.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor Walker, if I may, I would just like to briefly, you know, respond to some of the public comment

Thank you.

I'm just going to take a risk.

I'm just going to speak from the heart and be genuine here.

You know, the past year, I think for myself and I think every single person on council and probably throughout city staff has been some of the most challenging months of my life.

On council, we're just community members.

We are part of the community like anyone else is.

I was turning onto 4th Street when I survived a terrorist attack.

There are other people on this council who have suffered personal and family tragedy because of the events of 2017.

Throughout this year, multiple of us have lost loved ones through the pandemic.

We've missed time with our family.

And we're in a position where there is no glamour to this job.

We make $18,000 a year.

We have extremely little power.

I'm still driving around on a spare tire on my car because I can't afford a replacement.

And I say all that just to say

I have no problem accepting accountability and responsibility.

I have failed to get us where we need to be.

I think council as a whole would agree that we have failed to get us where we need to be.

And I'll just say, you know, we absolutely take accountability for that.

But I do worry that

As a community we are going to need to be able to come together and if we are constantly just at each other's throats and insulting each other and expressing that we hate each other and we don't trust each other throughout the community I worry that we're going to end up in a situation where we become a laughingstock for the rest of the state and people are going to point at us and say this is what happens when you try to do things different and make change

And everything we say we care about, resident redevelopment of public housing, climate action plans, criminal justice reform, our affordable housing strategy, we're not going to be able to do it unless we're able to come together as a community, as a team.

I don't say all that to say unity for unity's sake.

It's because in order to do this stuff, we've got to get to a healthier place as a community.

And I individually absolutely take accountability for that.

I think all of us do, and myself included.

We can continue this dynamic, and I've done it myself, point the finger at others, place blame, but it's all of our fault, not just on council, but in the community as well to get to a healthier place.

But council absolutely bears the most responsibility, and we have to take that accountability.

And I just, again, you even look at our agenda today, we've got investments in eviction prevention, resident-led process for public housing, climate action plan, the Human Rights Commission.

It's not perfect.

It's not everything.

But if it's

If we don't get to a healthier place, it just overshadows it, and I worry will prevent us from getting to where we want to go.

And my sincere fear is just, if we can't get to a healthier place as a community, all the change and transformation that we say we need and want, and I sincerely believe we do need and want, it's going to fall apart.

And I think we are way closer to that moment than we would care to admit.

And I know it's been a difficult time for everyone in the community with the pandemic, the rise in gun violence, the economic instability.

There's a lot more work.

I have to do better.

But I hope we can get there.

And I have faith that we can and will get there.

Anyway, all of which I just feel compelled to say and provide that perspective, which again, none of which is meant to say that there's not things that I and Council we need to do better.

But I think going forward, we are going to need it's going to take whether you love hate or indifferent, it is really going to take all of us over this next year to get to a place where we do all this stuff.

And I'll just add, you know, I talked about it at the press conference.

I mean, this is definitely a process that we would have liked or to have gone differently.

And

I never want us to end up in a situation where there are only five people without input from the community input from staff making the decisions about who the next city manager would be.

That's a very powerful position.

That position can make a lot of decisions.

And if there is an alignment with even the individuals who you all elected, it can become very clear very quickly.

And so I think it's important

you know that you know we stated it during the press conference and I have repeated it every time I've talked to someone and that day that this is hopefully something that should not happen again and hopefully future councils will figure out a way to prevent it from happening again.

I think a lot of times you know when you

there's the urge to place blame.

But again, Mr. Gatherer said 20% just place it on the five of us and I would mix that up, you know, a little differently because there's definitely we are all here because of the citizens and to ensure that the city manager and staff are aware that we are all working

on the citizens' behalf, but also hopefully entrusted with the ability to make decisions based on what we presented to you all when we ran.

And I know that I've been accused of many things, but there isn't

a person that can hold up and say, you ran on this and this is something that you haven't done to me.

And I try to hold steady with knowing that.

And even in the midst of all this chaos,

There are still things that are getting done that we have to get done.

Hopefully at some point people will see, like the redevelopment efforts, that the new construction and the rehab have been delayed because of COVID, but that stuff is, you know, and the work and staff is, you know, have maintained their commitment.

commitment to those things.

And it's hard to believe in something until you start seeing the structures put up.

But there are some things that are coming.

I know that we've seen, and I don't even want to say it because you don't want to jinx it, but

We've seen, you know, reduction in, you know, community, the shootings and stuff that we're seeing.

And we've been able to get a group of committed citizens with lived experience to, you know, help with that.

And I was at a community meeting about three weeks ago with a mask, face shield, hoodie on, like just everything covered.

to try to show people that we are committed to them and that hopefully that they'll trust us and that there's a different way.

And so even when you all may only see a few things happening, there's a lot of

still behind the scenes work that we have to find the energy for even after we take the daily, you know, daily stabs.

And maybe you think that we deserve those because you voted for us, but I can tell you that we don't.

The last thing I'll say is that

All of us needs to really think about the kind of city that we want.

There are only a few kind of people that can survive the daily assaults.

and I often hear that council is to blame for some of the or all of the departures and mainly me that I'm to blame for the departures leaving the city.

And I've said this before that, you know, there are some people who, you know,

I think that if you all thought long and hard and had the information and based on what you voted for us on, that you would be fine with those departures too.

But I think the people who can deal with this type of intensity and negativity, they won't be the people that you need to change the city's trajectory to the way that you're hoping that it goes.

and so then you'll be left with people who don't hear you, don't see you in RK with potentially ignoring you all the time as things have been done in the past.

And it's just something that should be considered because it's very, very challenging.

And that doesn't mean don't speak up, don't use your voice, don't FOIA, do all of those things.

But when you attack people, just make sure that you're basing those attack on facts.

Counselors, are there any other?

I apologize.

I have been missing for most of this as my internet decided to.

We were just commenting on the community concerns that were brought up.

Did you have any comments?

I mean, except, you know, I understand.

We are all just doing the best we can.

All right.

Thank you.

Well, there's no one else, it looks like, signed up, so we'll take a break till 825.

Councilor Snook and Vice Mayor McGill, are you all there?

All right, so I'll call this meeting back to order.

Next up, we have a public hearing appropriation

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and members of city council.

So as an entitlement community each year,

City of Charlottesville is awarded the Community Development Block Grant CDBG and the Home Investment Partnerships Program Home through HUD.

As a result, localities are required to complete an action plan that details the goals and objectives to be carried out in the upcoming fiscal year.

Due to the global health pandemic, the city was issued a special allocation of CDBG known as the CDBG-CV3

made available through the CARES Act for $335,024.

According to HUD priorities, CDBG-CV-3 dollars are meant to fund activities that will prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus.

The city placed a request for proposals on September 30th and began accepting applications between October 1st through October 16th, 2020.

All project proposals were told to support a viable urban community through the provision of decent housing, to support a suitable living environment, and provide economic opportunities for low and moderate income citizens, as well as to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus.

During the RFP process, applicants also had to undergo a 30 to 45 minute mandatory technical assistance session with me.

So this session covered CDBG home and

the CDBG-CV3 grant requirements that was expected from all sub-recipients.

So this covered what federal dollars can and cannot buy, federal paperwork requirements, filing requirements, so what everyone has to submit along with invoices, contracting requirements, application workshops, so how to fill out the application, what environmental reviews are, what the scoring rubric looked like, and the grant guidelines.

During the RFP process, the city received three CDBG, actually four CDBG CV, three applications, three for public services and one for economic development.

A summary of the RFPs are included within the packet.

The CDBG task force was provided with the evaluation criteria, so they got the rubric, the grant guidelines, the applications and the staff notes.

and they made the review then gave me their scores on each applicant.

And just as a refresher, the task force is made up of representatives from each priority neighborhood, one planning commission representative, one member at large, one school board representative, and one representative representing social issues.

One change was made this year to the scoring manual to address HUD 24 CFR 57902A

This is a HUD timeliness entitlement regulation that all localities must follow when undertaking ACDBG and home grants.

Essentially, a certain dollar amount must be spent by the end of the program year and we have to remain in compliance with that.

Additionally, any applicant with outstanding grant funds from a prior fiscal year would not be receiving as strong of a consideration during this review process.

The main purpose of

Those two changes was to encourage applicants to increase their spending rates to help the city stay within compliance with HUD spending this timelines spending this timeliness requirements and recruit new applicants into the CDBG and home program.

Following the public hearing tonight staff is asking for a recommendation from City Council concerning the CV three budget allocation.

Comments from public hearing tonight will also be included into the submission to HUD for the action plan substantial amendment.

As far as the project recommendations, so the task force recommended three proposals for funding.

The first one was for economic development.

This was the community investment collaborative for $130,970.

This was

for the microenterprise COVID response program.

This application aims to help 24 microenterprises by providing them grants of up to $4,000.

These grants will help pay with any lost rent, payroll, and replacement of inventory that was lost due to COVID.

This grant will also help pay for any technical supports to help businesses change and adapt to the new COVID environments by bringing businesses online.

The two public services, public service applications that were recommended for funding include the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority application called the eviction diversion program.

This application was twofold.

So the first part of the application is to fund the housing stabilization coordinator.

Their duty will be to assist with rental assistance funding for residents.

It's a three year position so they're going to be looking for outside funding sources to continue supplementing this position after the CB3 funding is over.

And that main role of that position is to reduce the likelihood of continued homelessness within public housing residents.

The second part of the CRHA application is to provide rental relief for up to 100 CRHA residents.

The second public services application is the Habitat for Humanity COVID-19 response program for $45,563.26.

This is the mortgage and rental relief emergency food assistance child care support systems and health care costs that will be provided for qualifying city residents.

And finally we have the admin

Administrative and Planning portion of the grants.

This covers all the staffing, citizen participation, environmental reviews, Davis-Bacon, and Section 3 requirements for all the programs for the next six years.

CDBG-CV3 is a six-year program.

Just because we don't know how long COVID is going to last, HUD did extend it for six years.

So when the grant was broken out into the, I guess, funding pots,

20% was broken up for admin and planning.

The rest was divided into economic development and public services.

So economic development and public services, public services can take up housing applications and public services.

So those two sources or pots of funding got the majority chunk of the grant that we got.

They're not getting administration.

They received a separate CDBG grants from the regular side.

Counselors, are there any other questions?

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If anyone would like to speak during this public hearing, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

You can also press star 9 if you're joining us via telephone.

Mayor Walker, first up is Brandon Collins.

Brandon, you're on with Council.

Thank you.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I am an organizer for FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

FAR is the federally recognized resident council and resident advisory board for public housing in Charlottesville.

FAR really highly encourages you to approve the request from CRHA for eviction diversion.

We know that COVID-19 has presented a lot of

And as we keep moving through this issue, it's become more and more apparent that our eviction prevention efforts really need to be bolstered by a person in charge of those efforts.

coupled with funding to help residents who need that assistance.

I think it shows a huge willingness on the part of CRHA to continue to be a helpful partner in this community to help people as they make improvements day by day to their organization.

So we really encourage that.

Eviction prevention is more than just getting people to pay their bills on time.

It takes a lot of work.

There are so many underlying issues that folks have that they can be supported with.

And we also know that eviction prevention also is violence prevention, crime prevention, and preventing a whole host of things.

So at the bottom line,

People should not be evicted, and this housing authority wants to make sure that that doesn't happen, but also keeps their organization healthy so they can serve more people and keeps this community healthy and safe.

So I really encourage you to support that.

It's not a part of CDBG-CV, but I wanted to also encourage you to support FARS funding through regular CDBG for resident involvement and redevelopment.

and appreciate your ongoing support for resident directed redevelopment and resident directed governance of this community.

No, I just think it's an exciting, another exciting small step to be able to support eviction prevented and resident-led redevelopment as well as habitats and other efforts.

And the extra support for small businesses as well, who I know have been really struggling in this time.

All right, so is there a So it looks like we just have one of these components is I guess we're only on item 12.

One of them is a first reading.

The other one is a first or second reading.

And then I can make a motion to adopt the resolution for the FY 2021 substantial action plan amendment.

Yes.

Second.

All right.

Ms.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

All right, that carries.

5-0.

And next we have the

Is there a motion for, well, no need for a motion, but for the substantial action plan budget, this is the first of two readings, that's what was just covered in the allocations that Mr. Tack just discussed as their agreement to remove that to the consent agenda for February 1?

Yes.

All right, well, that moves forward for consent for the next meeting.

All right, next up, we have appropriation, approval, and appropriation of the CDBG and home budget allocations for fiscal year 21-22.

So each year as an entitlement community we get the community development block grant CDBG and the home investment partnerships program home through HUD.

So the during the request for proposals on September 30 that was advertised between October 1st and October 16 this was all advertised as a lump sum together so

The CDBG and Home 2021 and 2022 was part of that advertisement.

All project proposals were told to support a viable urban community through the provision of decent housing, provide a suitable living environment, and provide an economic opportunity for low and moderate income citizens.

It is estimated that CDBG will receive

We will receive $419,367 and home will receive $80,594 based on our previous year's allocation.

Home also requires a 25% match as part of the grant requirement from the city which usually comes from the Charlottesville affordable housing fund.

It's important to note that these are estimates we will receive the exact grant amount later on towards the spring, usually in either April or May.

Once that happens, the budget will be readjusted and brought back to City Council accordingly with the 2021-2022 Action Plan.

During the RFP process under CDBG, the city received two applications for public services, two applications for economic development, and one application for home, for housing, sorry.

For home, the city received three applications, two were rehab-related, and one was down payment assistance.

A summary of the RFPs were included within the packet.

I met with 12 applicants and we received a total of eight applications.

A couple of the applicants decided that they wanted to learn more about the CDBG and home process and apply later on in a future RFP process.

And several actually learned that their activity didn't quite meet the grant guidelines.

Once again, everyone had to undergo a 30 to 45 minute mandatory technical

assistance meeting with me.

The session went over all the CDBG home and CV3 grant requirements that was expected on behalf of all the sub-recipients.

So federal paperwork requirements, filing requirements, contract requirements.

We did do an application workshop, which was new this year.

We covered environmental reviews, scoring rubrics, grant guidelines.

The CDBG Task Force, again, was provided with the evaluation criteria, so they got the rubric, grant guidelines, applications, and staff notes.

They made their review, then sent me their scores on each applicant.

The change that was made to the CV3 scoring was also made to the CDBG and HOME 2021 and 2022 RFP scoring manual to address HUD's 24 CFR 57902A.

This is the timeliness entitlement regulation that all localities must follow when undertaking the CDBG and home grant.

Again, a certain dollar amount must be met by the end of the program year.

All applicants were told that any applicants with any outstanding funds from prior fiscal years would not be receiving as strong of a consideration during the review process.

The main purpose of this was to encourage applicants to increase their spending rates to help the city stay within compliance with HUD spending timeliness to help applicants stay within HUD timeliness compliance and recruit new applicants into the CDBG at home program.

This was by no means to punish anyone but to help everyone stay within compliance.

The task force made the following funding recommendations for CDBG.

Under economic development, the community investment collaborative financial management program was recommended for funding.

Since there is a lot of applications here, I will give a brief outline, but I can go over them with a little bit more detail if necessary.

So the CIC financial management program, their goal is to assist 15 to 20 entrepreneurs develop financial management habits through mentorship and technical assistance.

For this one, it's important to note that the task force voted that the subrecipient administer larger grants for business support to make a greater impact for business relief just because of the COVID environment that we are in.

So the overage of $17,000 was given to CIC just because CIC did receive a larger score during the review process.

The second

Applicant for Economic Development is the Local Energy Alliance Program Assisted Home Performance Workforce Development.

Their program aims to hire two staff members from the Home to Hope Program.

The two staff members will be taking a weatherization training course then later receiving increased pay through the Assisted Home Performance Rehab Program.

Under Public Services, we have the

Public Housing Association of Residents, Resident-Involved Redevelopment Program.

Funds are being proposed to help fund 16 residents with resident-involved redevelopments.

Funds will go towards program material supervision and program support.

The next public service application is the Public Service Literacy Volunteers for Charlottesville and Albemarle beginning workforce development.

This is a tutoring program for

30 illiterate city residents.

It's an individualized one-on-one instruction to help workforce development skills and helping individuals become self-sufficient.

Under CDBG housing, we have the assisted home performance program for LEAP.

This is being combined with CDBG and home funds to fund 20 low-income homeowner household energy efficient upgrades in the CDBG priority neighborhoods.

Then we have the Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood for $150,000.

This is the one portion of CDBG that gets sectioned off for the council appointed priority neighborhood as stated in the 2018 CDBG consolidated plan.

The goal is to use CDBG dollars to enhance and improve access to neighborhood amenities within the priority neighborhoods.

The neighborhood corresponds to the census tract that encompasses the Ridge Street area.

The Ridge Street Task Force actually is the body of community members that comes together to discuss important neighborhood priorities that need to be addressed with the CDBG funds.

Right now they have been meeting since September to discuss those priorities.

Discussions have so far included sidewalk infrastructure, traffic calming concerns, and transit.

once the registry task force decides on a project the proposal will be sent to Planning Commission for public feedback and input that will be presented to City Council and adopted as part of the larger CDBG budget CDBG budget from there it'll get submitted to HUD for final approval the priorities are actually on the city website right now and then we have the CDBG administrative and planning this covers all the staff costs citizen participation Davis bacon and section three for all the programs

for under home for fiscal year 21-22 we have the Habitat for Humanity down payment assistance program this will be covering four down payment assistance projects in the CDBG priority neighborhoods and then we have the Admiral home improvement program homeowner rehabilitation in the Ridge Street priority neighborhood this is funding one homeowner rehab in the historic tonsillar homes and then we have the

Again, this is being paired with CDBG to provide 20 energy efficient upgrades for the CDBG priority neighborhoods.

That is the CDBG 21-22 budget.

I just wanted to make sure that the 20 homes, there is a good feeling that they can be done

So they don't get dinged again?

They usually receive funding from the CIP budget.

Okay.

Yeah.

The only real comment I wanted to make is that I'm just very impressed with the amount of work that the task force has done to go over all of these different proposals and obviously with a lot of attention.

I'm not going to say that I routinely rubber stamp what a body like that does.

So thank you all.

And Erin, thank you for shepherding things through their processes and getting so much good advice from them.

I just have a question about the report, though.

I think that this happened once before where there's so many of them that have similar time from like a TED, like I'm sorry.

Okay, so let's just move to, so that's fine because it'll be on the next.

So per the report that we just received, is there a there's consensus to move it to the February 1st agenda or

Do we want to leave it on the regular agenda for any comments?

I'm comfortable with consent.

Okay.

All right.

So it's moving forward to consent for the February 1 meeting.

Thank you.

All right, next up we have ordinance, Human Rights Commission ordinance recommended amendments.

Hello.

My name is Mary Bauer.

I am the new chair of the Human Rights Commission and I am here to talk about the proposed amendments with Todd Niemeyer who is right now the only staff person at the Office of Human Rights.

became the chair in December and I've only been on the commission for a couple months so Todd has a much better sense of the history of kind of how we got to this place and the process so he'll probably be in a better position to answer those kinds of questions but I want to kind of take you through the kind of a summary of the proposed amendments and why they are before you.

You should have received or you have received

a memorandum summarizing the amendments and then the proposed amendments that track changes version of the of the document.

I would just

I want to start off briefly by kind of telling you my own approach to the Commission and the work that we want to do.

I hope to be back here regularly, including with potential

We're going to have additional amendments in future months as we look to having an agenda for the Commission that is both ambitious and focused on bringing about the equity that we all want.

The commission in our view should be bold and we should be ambitious and we should be talking about setting important goals as obviously should this council.

We have strategic planning set for February for this year to talk about ways that this commission and the office can be effective and ambitious in proposing and working toward change.

toward equity in the city.

The changes that are proposed here are relatively modest, but they're important.

They are in some ways brought about because the Virginia General Assembly passed some very important changes to the human rights statute to the Virginia Values Act that was passed by the General Assembly in 2020.

and that has made some changes possible that were not

that were not possible before in terms of really broadening the enforcement that the office can take on.

And before I just get into the brief summary that we have prepared for you, I would point out that although we're excited about these proposed changes and we think that it really does open up the office and the commission to being able to do incredibly important work that couldn't happen before, that's not really going to be possible.

if a director is not hired for the office I mean with one staff person as fabulous as Todd is cannot play the multiple functions that are required by this office and so we can pass all the amendments in the world or you can pass all of the amendments in the world and have this broad authority to take on more enforcement which we're excited about but without staffing

it will be effectively meaningless.

It's been a year just about since there was a director in the position and I can say as chair that we are very concerned that there does not seem to be a imminent plan

to hire a director.

So with that, we have just a little PowerPoint to summarize some of the changes and maybe explain them just a bit.

Okay, that sounds good.

All right, let's advance the slide.

All right, so these are the primary purposes of the amendments, to expand the protections against illegal discrimination, to ensure that the composition of the commission is diverse and inclusive, and to clarify the intake and investigation process.

Next.

So I'll just summarize.

This is not actually part of the changes, but I think it's an important sort of backdrop to why these changes are coming about, the changes that were made to the Virginia Human Rights Act by the Virginia Values Act.

And I don't know.

I mean, I think

The changes are incredibly important.

They made Virginia, for example, the first state in the South to expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

So yay for Virginia and the General Assembly.

So that is now a kind of enforcement that is possible that was not possible previously.

In addition, the law also creates protections in employment on a broad basis of discrimination and places of accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbearing, age, marital status, disability, and status as a veteran.

And importantly for the work of the office, the law repeals the prior provision that limited the application to large employers.

And that was really a very significant problem because so many people coming into the office worked for employers who just were not covered by the act.

Next.

So here's the change of the definition of employers.

I won't read all of this to you, but in general, the law used to say that employers that employed more than 15 workers were not covered.

So there was a very narrow band of employers who were covered who employed between 5 and 14 workers.

Now, for the most part,

employers over 15 workers may be subject to enforcement in all of these areas of discrimination with the exception of age in which for some reason that probably the General Assembly had some reason but I was not privy to that an employer is

may only be is only covered in that narrow band when unlawful discharge occurs on the basis of age.

But this is still a very broad expansion of the definitions and the enforcement authority that our commission can have, the office can have and that are permissible under the Human Rights Act.

Next.

Right, so we mentioned sexual orientation and gender identity that is added to the protected classifications under the Fair Housing Law.

It also adds source of funds as a protected classification under the Virginia Fair Housing Law, which is really important, particularly for low-income renters and purchasers.

Next.

So a number of the proposals, the proposed amendments are really informed, things are moved around, things are reordered to more closely follow the language of the state act.

So, for example, housing is moved to a separate subsection, several classes are reordered, and we've added sexual orientation, gender identity, and status as a veteran.

Next.

Housing has moved to add several specific classes.

I'm not crazy about the word elderliness, but we use that because that is the word that is used in the statute.

Familial status and source of funds.

Again, sexual orientation, gender identity and status as a veteran are added.

Next.

There is an additional we include the definition of gender identity from the Virginia Human Rights Act so for the purpose of understanding and clarity of enforcement.

Next.

And additionally there's a definition of source of funds that is borrowed from the Virginia Fair Housing Act.

Next, the proposed amendments include a provision to cap the number of commissioners appointed by the city council to the commission at 15 and provides clear guidance to the council when making appointments.

It also expands eligibility for the commission to include

a certain narrow band of people who live outside of the city who use this definition of being representative of city demographics and who have demonstrable ties to the city.

Next.

Right, so this section 2433 is really just about reordering matters.

Next.

Right, so...

This section relates to the investigation of complaints and the issuance of findings, removes language that limited the scope of enforcement to reflect the changes to the act.

State law now permits the investigation of employment complaints that were formally referred to the EEOC, and it also removes language related to the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Additionally, clarifies the intake process for individual complaints, removes gendered pronouns, replaces them with more inclusive pronouns, and specifies the action that the office can pursue when the director authorizes for their action.

Next.

Investigations of complaints, removes mention of the determination of probable cause, clarifies that informal resolution and mediation are optional under these circumstances.

Next, I think we're getting toward the end here.

Again, additional clarification about the process of investigation of complaints and issuance of findings clarifies when the investigation is initiated and specifies what the purpose of the investigation is.

I think all of these are pretty straightforward.

Next, again, substituting more inclusive pronouns.

And that's it.

So glad to respond to any questions.

Todd is here.

He's in many ways the expert on this.

Great.

Thank you.

I do have a few questions.

You know, we've received some

emails and letters over the last number of months with some requests about the ordinance.

And I was wondering, one of the requests is about to enter into a work share agreement with the EEOC for a FIPA agreement.

I guess I'm not totally sure what your question is.

But was that originally proposed because we couldn't because we couldn't represent people

I believe that was one of the reasons, but another reason is that we would be able to actually directly play this role and not have to refer matters to the EEOC.

And it would also mean that if the EEOC in Richmond receives complaints related to someone in Charlottesville, they could send those matters to us.

Todd, do you want to also jump in here?

Sure, I'll try to add a little bit to that.

So I think it's a good point that with the expansion of state law, we can do more without entering into a feeble work share.

That said, there may still be some advantages, and we've been talking with a gentleman by the name of James Yao, who is a representative in the field office at the EEOC up in D.C., and he's offered actually to meet with

with us to kind of delve into a little bit more what would be required of the office to actually enter into the work share, because as Mary mentioned, staffing would be kind of a prerequisite to even enter into something like that.

But additionally, I think there's some other things as I've been looking through the guiding documents and at the federal level, what we would need to do.

So there's more conversation to be had, but I think to try to determine what is the

additional advantage aside from maybe the referrals from Richmond coming to our office for cases that originated out of Charlottesville.

And if we went that route, I just want to, and again, these are just some clarifying questions because I've had a lot of bits and pieces and stuff.

It would

I will tell you, you know, my own view is that having somebody, a civil rights attorney, somebody with that kind of background makes the most sense to me in order to move these kinds of issues forward, to be able to

to be able to move the office in light of these enforcement opportunities that have been made possible because of the changes to the law.

Yeah, I can't speak to the discussions that have been had before, and maybe Todd wants to jump in there.

I will say that if we are going to view this role as taking on this broader enforcement authority, it

There are two things that we need.

One is that we need somebody there.

We need the staffing to be able to do that period.

But I do think that looking at somebody with a legal background and particularly kind of a robust background in civil rights advocacy makes the most sense to me.

Yeah, I'll try to briefly add to that.

So the commission has addressed the position description for the

Right now it's called the Office of Human Rights Manager.

Human Rights Commission Director has kind of a split title.

And they provided, I guess, an amended or set of recommendations for revisions to that position description, I think, back in, I believe it was in July.

So it was after the General Assembly passed the Values Act.

And so in terms of, you know, the scope of enforcement that they were

considering they were also thinking about this director also leading the office and the commission through FIPA work share negotiations as well as FAP negotiations.

So all of those things were, I think, of equal caliber in terms of what would be required of the director to be able to pursue those things and engage in the actual work of determining cause and all that stuff.

So yeah, I believe if you take a look back at that

You know, I do agree, and I know that it's a conversation that we'll need to have once the new city manager starts, but if we aren't able to go with the original plan of hiring the deputy city manager and then hiring the staff below, I understand that it has been a wait and that it's something that we need to resolve immediately, so I hope that that's something that we are able to do.

and then the only other thing that I'm struggling with a bit where the only thing that I'm struggling with a bit period is just the change with the residency allowing county residents to participate and

and we had this conversation back when they're the applicants back in the fall or winter when we were talking about appointments I have just seen you know throughout our time where this could be problematic and I just want to for me the need to remain consistent

I have a couple of sorry, I was just going to ask Todd if he could speak at all to the thinking of the commission and in proposing that particular moment since I wasn't there.

Yeah, so I think a couple of things were considered there.

In previous councils, there were actually appointments made to the commission and some of those appointments were county residents.

One in particular I think that really raised this issue for us was the director of the sort of the equivalent office of equity and equity investigation enforcement at UVA and so she brought a lot to the commission in terms of her experience and her background

She was an attorney, a civil rights attorney as well.

And so realizing that appointments like that would not be possible without an amendment to the ordinance.

I'm not exactly sure how it was handled in the past, but we did realize that that would render a candidate like her ineligible.

And so I believe that the commission felt very strongly about a recent applicant that was also a county resident who brought a lot of great stuff to the table.

but was ineligible because of living in the county.

So I think that those are some of the main reasons that this was considered just to broaden the pool of people that could potentially apply and bring, you know, really excellent skills to the commission given that we're a pretty small city and there are people living in the urban ring that would probably be interested in participating.

So I think that's part of the logic.

speak too much for the commission's behalf, but that's totally.

And I just want to piggyback on just that point exactly, because I know I've brought it up multiple times when this topic has come up.

Well, so I think that would be probably a matter for council and city management to think about, yeah,

throughout the Commonwealth, the human rights offices and commissions are very locality based.

I don't know that any are actually partnerships across two different municipalities, but yeah, by all means, I think that'd be an amazing thing because I do get a lot of inquiries from people who

had something happen to them in the county and would love to do something about it.

But yeah, honestly, it's the anecdotes that you've shared in other spaces that we've shared together where it's come up, but it just has really had that weighing on me in terms of just people's misunderstanding about what if they apply if they can go to this this sort resource for support.

And many times they just can't.

And

and I know there's a sense of frustration there.

If I could just jump in for a second on that question.

Looking at the Code of Virginia, it talks about each locality may establish a human rights ordinance and commission.

That's something the council wants to look at in the future.

It may require a

an item in your legislative packet.

If the county is serious about getting that enabling legislation for a joint commission, I'm like Mr. Niemeyer, I'm not aware of any joint commissions right now.

And looking at the statute, it doesn't prohibit it, but it doesn't really say you can have a joint commission.

Thank you.

Well, my own reading of it would be that it means and.

So that's not really a lawyerly answer.

If that's the case, then it would be with priority given to basically given to with priority given to city residents may as well say who have demonstrable ties with the city.

No, I think it means with those residents of the city and other individuals who have demonstrable ties to the city that may not be as artfully crafted as it could be.

Maybe between now and next time we take a look at it, the city attorney's office might take a look at that in particular.

I don't want to nitpick it here with a whole group going, but it's a point that concerned me.

I also say I'm not convinced that I want to make the change to specifically allow non-city residents to sit on the board on the commission.

I start from the proposition that I suspect rather strongly that we can find seven to nine people in the city of Charlottesville who have good credentials who are interested in serving on this human rights commission and I don't know that

We would need to go outside the area or outside the city.

Another sort of technical question, though.

In the amendments under Section 2, 437, Paragraph B, it says, for complaints alleging an unlawful discriminatory practice within the enforcement jurisdiction of the city.

And in another place, the paragraph below, that language is used and struck out

as defined herein within the corporate limits of the city.

So I assume that somebody intends the enforcement jurisdiction of the city to mean something different from the corporate limits of the city.

Good question.

I think it's meant to be the same thing.

It's within the corporate limits of the city.

And so I'm not sure

have to look back at what you're referring to specifically there.

And actually now that I look at it in paragraph B, it makes it even more confusing for complaints alleging an unlawful discriminatory practice within the enforcement jurisdiction of the city defined herein as within the corporate limits of the city.

So we've got in one place we've specifically struck the language out, another place we've specifically written it in.

Again, it's the kind of draftsman thing that somebody in the city attorney's office can take a look at.

The only other comment that I had on the language of what was given to us is really not so much a change or anything, but just to note

for the commission's benefit that with a provision in here that says make recommendations regarding the city's annual legislative program.

We have sometimes had problems in that recommendations to add things to the legislative program arrive in December 15th.

which is too late and it shouldn't be in the ordinance but I would strongly encourage you to have any recommendations available by say September 30th so that we have a chance to really incorporate them into what we're doing.

Looking at some of the comments from either from Mr. Heinecke or from the letter we got back in March there are a number of suggestions

that they make, and they make many of the same suggestions.

They're not quite identical, but close.

Many suggestions of things that might make good policy, but I'm not convinced at this point that they need to be in the ordinance.

For example, to say hiring a manager of the OHR, director of the HRC, who has legal and civil rights credentials

and significant experience with human rights compliance.

I completely understand the desire to have that as a characteristic.

I'm not convinced that that needs to be actually in the ordinance.

It's not in the draft of the ordinance that has been submitted to us, but as by way of comment to either to the various folks who have suggested it.

I don't know of any other

job in the city code and either Mr. Blair or Ms.

Robertson may be able to correct me on this.

I don't know of any other place where we recite a specific qualification unless perhaps it is something that is required by law.

Hi, not to my knowledge.

I think typically what would be done is to develop a job description through the Department of Human Resources together with the particular together with the city manager's office and the particular department being served and make sure that that job description

I mean, I'm fine with having it as a policy, as an understanding with the city manager, as something that would go into the job description.

I'm generally not a great fan of getting overly specific on some of these things in the ordinance itself.

So anyway, the ordinance as it is drafted does not include a number of very specific things that some of these other folks wanted included.

And I'm not sure that they need to be.

The one thing that I did note that maybe is something we want to put in, I don't know, maybe we don't, is the suggestion that in the

The letter that was sent to us by Legal Aid and FAR, Virginia Organizing and so on, they called for four commissioners to have subject matter expertise in housing, health, employment, education, and at least two commissioners be from organizations representing citizens from historically marginalized communities affected by housing and employment discrimination.

Mr. Heinecke phrased it a little bit differently and he would have had four in the second category.

But putting the differences aside, I don't see anything in the draft ordinance that would specify those kinds of expertise in the members of the commission.

I would just pose the question to the rest of council.

whether we would rather leave it to basically leave it to future councils to decide on a year-by-year basis what kind of a mix we need or whether we want to try to build into the ordinance the very specific descriptions that are offered here.

The only other time that I can think of course we have a lot of commissioners where we have our commissions and boards and so on

where we've said we need to have a landscape architect and we need to have this various other categories.

We've got the PCRB where we say we've got to have a certain number of people from low income and marginalized communities or whatever the language is.

I just wonder whether other folks share the desire of the other suggestors

to build into the statute or to build into the ordinance specific criteria for the selection of the commissioners.

No, it's definitely something I think I would like to see for the future.

As I'm understanding it, though, the Human Rights Committee is going to continue working on this ordinance, especially during their retreats.

But right now they're trying to get

As I understand it, the commission actually did have a lengthy discussion about this suggestion.

And as I mentioned, I wasn't there, so I'll reflect to you what I understood was discussed.

But there was a healthy discussion about this issue, and the commission concluded that they didn't want to

so specifically propose those kinds of limitations, right?

That they felt like that they would be unable to say yes to the highly qualified candidates if they didn't fit into a particular slot that was open.

That might be particularly true because it looks like you're talking about prescribing anywhere from two-thirds to six-sevenths to eight-ninths of the membership of the commission in these various categories, which wouldn't leave very much opportunity for people who don't fit into these little cubbyholes.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

I knew when you asked the question I thought there was something in here and you were asking about specific qualities of a candidate hired by the city and section 30-62 for our assessor of real estate the ordinance says the assessor shall be chosen on the basis of knowledge of an experience in real estate appraisal practices and procedures.

I'd say, you know, I'm not necessarily opposed in order to try to set out some

more specific requirements of who's on the board to give it structure.

And to me, the end goal is to have the strongest board possible that's empowered to be both representative and empowered to actually take action on the things we want it to.

And that's really the end goal.

And I'll say

of the proposed changes, I'm pretty comfortable with them.

I'm also comfortable with giving preference to city residents, but allowing the possibility for people in the urban ring to be able to serve if they have assets that they can bring to the board, especially if there's not other applicants in the city.

I know there's definitely a need to collaborate with Albemarle County, but

and employment and so many other issues.

I think we're just clearly one region.

And I think if we're just trying to get to the strongest board possible, I don't have a problem with opening it up in that way.

And also with the recognition of these changes are just the beginning.

I think I could speak for all of council in saying, you know, we really want to, we really want to be able to grab this by the horns and, you know, as a council, give clear direction and be able to grow the Human Rights Commission and really see the potential for it to grow and become a core part of the city, even engaging with things like

potentially things related to evictions or housing voucher discrimination.

And so I think we would all agree we really need to and want to get someone in that director position to allow you all to be firing on all cylinders.

And my personal perspective would also be, I think, the strongest director for housing

The future and thinking about what we could make this become, you know, is someone with legal and particularly civil rights credentials.

I think that will put us in the best position going forward.

And it's kind of a catch-22 for us because we really want to engage and grow this.

But as you said, it's a lot harder when there's not a director in place and you don't have the staff there to file on all cylinders.

So yeah.

just to speak for all of council and that that's really something we want to see happen to set a stage for you all to grow and be successful.

Sena covered some of the things in the letter from several months ago and we'd also see some feedback.

And then Lloyd brought up the recommendation of including people who fit specific categories to be part of the board.

Curious, you know, maybe uncertain at this point, but would you think, you know, once staffing is fully in place, that it's something that would be

I do think it would be useful, and there was one other kind of related issue that I had intended to mention that I just wanted to bring up, and that is the kind of suggestion that is both laid out in the ordinance and then in the letter from Mr. Heinecke about the commission taking on kind of studies of systemic racism and, you know, systemic inequality, and I would suggest that that

is that requires a particular skill set both of the director and of the members of the commission.

So to me, that is a bit of an argument for considering folks from outside the city if they bring considerable skills because not all of us can put together a powerful study of systemic discrimination.

So I do think

moving forward because we do want to be pushing kind of a bold agenda.

I think it will be very important that the commission works closely with council and that there are regular channels of communication and however you care to set that up with regular reporting or

you know, a designee from the council and Councillor McGill has been attending.

Again, I'd say my personal perspective would definitely be I would like to see those things from council going forward to have that guide some of the structure to have more formalized reports, formal liaison, as well as having, again, a director with some legal and civil rights experience and

You know, to the letter that, you know, was set several months ago, at least my perspective is I would definitely want to see, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of specifics and details to hammer out, but I really think that's the direction it needs to go and could allow this to be an even bigger and better part of our city government.

And again, dream big thinking about, you know, long term, whether this, you know, there can be connections to things related to evictions, housing voucher discrimination, source of income discrimination.

I know that our housing

Draft Housing Plan, there's a recommendation for guaranteed right to counsel, having a staff person, perhaps there's some connection in the Office of Human Rights long term when we're thinking big.

So I definitely want to see, my perspective would be I think that's really the most powerful direction to go.

And I think

you know imagine all of council also recognize that this is definitely one of those areas where personnel is policy and you know we as council just have to make it a clear priority to get the right person in place as director because until that's done

I think you would agree and acknowledge earlier, we're just not going to be able to get there.

And you all have done a ton of work, but it's really, I think, on us on council to, you know, it may take a little bit of time and patience, but for me, and I think for all of council, it's definitely a priority to get the right person in place there and then have that vision guide us to get where we want to go.

And then one final question is another one of the recommendations we got is about the size of the commission.

And I know a lot of our some of our most important and powerful commissions have a smaller size in terms of just allowing them to operate or vote in certain ways.

Do you or the commission have any any thoughts on

I think I have two answers to that.

And the first is the view of the Commission as they discussed in response to Mr. Heinecke's letter and the letter from the various groups.

And my understanding is that the Commission was not able to reach kind of an agreement about that or to propose any specific changes.

Finally, I would just say my individual perspective is, I think longer term, I think we're probably going to set the Human Rights Commission up for the most success if we're narrowing it down a little bit to seven or nine.

And I know in the past, I've had different thoughts about it.

Just thinking about like our Planning Commission, Board of Architectural Reviews, and those really effective commissions that are doing the most work, which I think is where we

We want to empower you all to get to that level of importance within the city organization that

It's probably just going to help you all get there if we're having a smaller scope and filling it with subject matter experts and people who represent the community.

I would just say it has to be that we as a city believe that a commitment to equity is as important as good planning or as any other work that gets done.

That that just has to be

And I agree.

And I think that the main point when I was looking at the recommendations you made, one of the biggest things that looked like for me was just the size of this group.

And I understand that getting it to the size that Councilor Payne is alluding to, and I think I certainly share that opinion.

It's going to happen over time, but I think it's important for the commission to kind of have that as you're considering kind of the evolution of this commission so that we can strive to get

I had one just kind of I guess it's more of a policy.

Some of these recommendations that we've been talking about, are they really ordinance recommendations or more like a work plan expectation recommendation?

And do they really belong in the ordinance or?

The ones that are coming from other sources, like the idea of the research and review, the quarterly reports, are these really part of an ordinance or are they more part of direction on the mission of what the commission is tasked to do from council?

I mean, that's obviously your call.

My own view is that one way or another, you know, having those expectations made clear to the commission and to the office is is really

is the most important thing, whether that's made clear through an ordinance or that's made clear in some other way, you know, for us to understand kind of what the expectation of the core mission is and to be able to have the appropriate staff to get that done because we

We absolutely need staff in order to be able to do a hard-hitting, really well done study of race discrimination in the city.

Yeah, I would just ask Ms.

Bauer if there's anything that hasn't come out clearly.

I think it sounds like there's support for these changes.

Obviously, Mr. Counselor Snook identified a couple more nits that need to be taken care of.

there's areas that we know are gonna continue to evolve.

Yeah, and I think we certainly intend to keep working and we're exploring these partnerships with HUD and the EEOC and are going to be working hard to see whether those make sense for the city and what the benefits to our city residents will be.

But just say thank you.

And I'm 100% on board for that.

This is only the very first step.

There's going to be a lot more that we're going to need to codify in the ordinance.

A lot more support council is going to need to be providing with that director and

It's going to take time.

It's not going to happen overnight.

But I'm 100% committed to trying to dream big and think about how this can be a core part of the city structure on par with the Planning Commission and Board of Architectural Review.

And like you said earlier, thinking about how this can be part of making

Equity, Economic and Racial Justice Interdepartmental and core to the functioning of the city.

So I know that's not we're not all the way there tonight.

We're not going to get there overnight, but I'm 100% committed to getting there.

And I think this is one of many first steps to help us get there.

I would ask if councils are right and Mr. Blair that

In the when it's talking about Charlottesville and the surrounding area and it's and it's requesting to prioritize I would just like the word significant added demonstrate instead of just demonstrable a significantly demonstrable um ties to the to the city.

because I mean demonstrable means I go shopping at what I mean I go shopping at barracks road is it's I'm demonstrably having ties to the city I just you know I'd like to see I mean I'm still I've been on the fence about the whole idea of do we allow people from Albemarle County in this on various boards and commissions as well as the mayor brought up what why I start leaning over more is when I start seeing people who grew up here

having to move to the Albemarle County urban ring but still working and having family affected who live in Charlottesville.

And just a question follow up.

Is there a way to achieve?

I mean, we know that there has been a request that we have received an application that there's a person in mind.

Is there a way around this without changing the entire ordinance?

and that that and my concern isn't this board is just attempting to make sure that the people who sits on boards and commission across the entire city are Charlottesville residents and you know and that

there's a significant effort to make sure that they are prioritized.

We're still lacking a lot of diversity on the boards and so that's still concerning and we haven't been able to figure that out

you know either but there this comes up often where we vote on you know Charlottesville resident anytime you change it and allow it in an ordinance that means that it becomes um the norm for or you know it can be referenced as when you know you did it in this situation so this is why it's okay to do it here just sets a precedent that I don't think um

that we should set.

So I don't know what, I understand fully why the value that the individual who this was probably brought up for would bring to the HRC, so I get it.

I think generally that is our preference but I mean I think about our appointments we certainly haven't there are a number of boards and commissions that it's not a hard fast requirement and you know that other people outside of the city have participated and continue to participate in whereas there are some like namely like the CRB where we're very clear that it is only to be city residents and I'm not just taking away that it should certainly try to always be our preference but as some people have noted already sometimes there's not even people to fill seats and if there's someone who

There's a concept in immigration law that people are permitted to immigrate if they have exceptional demonstrable skills or extraordinary talent, I think is the one.

So it would be possible to have, as Ms.

McGill suggested, a kind of adverb to make clear that this is limited for kind of really exceptional candidates with a particular skill set that can't

that isn't found in other applicants.

And my whole point there is that I think all of us on here, and I've been consistent in every time we have received applications about this, because I just feel that if we search for

You know, Charlottesville residents in a different way.

And I'm not talking about this case, but just in the past that some of those seats could be filled.

And if we go this route, not for this particular, but in the past, what I've said is that, you know, we don't have to look for individuals.

to fill boards because we fill them with who applies.

And in that case, it's usually not representative of the diversity of the city.

So we have primarily boards with white citizens who I'm sure if we took, collected that information are a certain socioeconomic class.

And so that's all that factors in.

Finally, I know as you acknowledged the changes here are minor and not all even coming close to encompass where we ought to end up.

Is there any kind of

Well, as I said, we've got a, you know, a full day strategic planning process set for February.

And I think we, you know, my goal is to come out of there with some very specific, you know, and ambitious goals for what we want to achieve during this year.

And then I think we will have some asks of counsel.

I would say, though, that

not to be too flippant about this.

We're not going to get a director until there's actually an ad to hire a director.

So we can sit here and talk about that.

But we really need to take those steps because even if we decided tomorrow that this was our number one priority, it takes a while.

And the commission, the office has been a year without someone in that position.

So that would be my number one ask.

So at this time, I guess the changes that need to be made, someone has captured all those and will be making them and they will appear on the February 1st agenda.

Mayor Walker, while we still have Mary and Todd on the line, I wanted to mention that those the document will be due by Friday for the next meeting.

The next meeting after that will be February 16th and the documents are due on February 5th.

I think we would need some sense from the city attorney's office whether, you know, they're very modest changes, but I know you all have to review them.

Probably, probably yes.

One way or another.

Okay, great.

I'm not concerned about having to have as an agenda item given the scope of the changes that are being proposed are relatively minor.

My question and Miss Bauer and Miss Robertson is the

The various counselors you all have talked about the residency requirement and I guess before it would go on a consent agenda there would need to be some true direction at this meeting on what you want there.

I'm comfortable with it being strong, I think how it's written, but then Councilor Snook clarified a little bit whether it was and or that there's strong preference for city residents, but that there is that clause that we could go beyond that if you know, someone's whatever language you decide like significantly demonstrable, whatever Sena said, I'm comfortable with that.

But on the core of what's written here, I'm comfortable with what's written here with just those language tweaks.

My preference, but it's a slight preference.

My preference is to limit it to city residents, but if other people feel strongly the other way, I'm not going to throw a fit about it.

I don't think it matters that much.

I do think

If we're going to do that, we ought to clarify that language.

There are a couple of spots where I think some language ought to get clarified.

Clarifying language between now and putting it on a consent agenda, I don't have a problem with because the specific things I mentioned are really kind of nitpicky things, provided I think the only substantive disagreement or the substantive discussion we've been having is over the residency issue.

And if we get an understanding of

So if that's the only, unless they're, so I think, Vice Mayor McGill, where are you with this?

Just was so I would like to say like city preference or showing significant ties to the city.

Again, I would rather have much rather have city resident.

But I do know we have had times where

commissions just haven't been able to we whether for you know putting out there asking people to apply and there just haven't been people applying um or that if somebody comes for I mean again who has you know who grew up in the city whose family is still in the city but um because of housing prices they've just had to move into the urban ring I hate to then

push somebody out of being part of that.

You know especially yeah so I mean again I'd like as long as it's worded that preference to the city with the again significantly demonstrable and then I'm also kind of putting things together kind of written down as this idea for like a work directive

Okay so it sounds like consent moving for February 1st.

All right.

Thank you all.

Have a good evening.

Thanks for staying with us and presenting.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Next up, we have the resolution acquisition of land at Reagan Mountain Reservoir.

Good evening, Councilors and Mayor.

This is Chris Genzik with the Parks Department.

You've seen this item before in November for an appropriation, so this might be a very simple thing this evening.

Basically, the land I think most people know we bought next to Ragged with federal money going on two years back.

We had a bit of leftover money in that account and a piece of land adjacent to that piece between that and Camp Holiday Trails popped up on the market.

for a really good price.

We got a private grant through the Virginia Outdoors Foundation to cover the gap, and we said, well, if this is effectively free to the city, should we pursue it?

The biggest advantage to getting this extra little piece of land is with the idea that we can keep people off of that curvy reservoir road that's dusty and curvy and narrow.

If this piece of land was not public, we would have to get back onto that road to get up to the very top.

By putting this into the system, we can keep people

off of Reservoir Road all the way up to our parking lot and to Camp Holiday Trails.

Camp Holiday Trails is very happy to see this potentially becoming part of the parkland because then their kids could leave the camp and immediately come out into this parkland without ever setting foot on the road, which would be wonderful for them.

Just wanted to point out that the community partners that we have on this, various trails groups, not only support this, but they paid for the appraisal.

They've

put their name on the contract to hold the land while the city works out these two other grants.

So it's been a really neat partnership to see these groups.

Don't expect the government to do it all.

They're putting money on the table because they're the ones that want to use it.

So it's been really neat to see how that works out.

So basically, we paid $350 for the title search, I believe, and we would get this five acres.

and more open space.

One thing I'll plug real quick is the parks and open spaces.

It's really great to see everybody out there in this COVID times when they really need it.

It's also really good to know that we're going to need some more to spread them out.

It's getting hard to socially distance even at places like Ragged Mountain because so many people are out there right now, which again is wonderful to see.

This piece of property will help us give them some breathing room literally and spread them out even amongst that area.

So for this evening,

I believe this is a simple resolution to ensure that all lights are green to proceed with taking this to closing, which the city attorney's office is prepared to do after tonight's consideration of a resolution.

So with that, I'll open it to any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Genzik, and thank you to all the great partners that have stepped up to make this such a fluid process for the city.

it's a great story to tell and I couldn't agree more that every time I go out into what I think is more of the rural parts of our park spaces there are a lot of people enjoying it and so the more I think that we can provide for them especially in this time the better and I just again just really impressed with this partnership and how many people have stepped up to contribute not even just to this specific parcel but to so many of the initiatives that we have in our parks and our trails.

We just second that.

And it was definitely a connection with the report we got earlier this afternoon from the tree commission and canopy in the city.

Serving this natural space is wonderful.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

Thank you very much for a wonderful evening.

That carries.

Great, thank you all very much.

We have a slide deck that I think Brian will be queuing up for us.

For tonight, presenting is myself, Susan Elliott, the Climate Protection Program Manager for the City of Charlottesville, as well as Crystal Ritterbold, our Environmental Sustainability and Facilities Development Manager, and also we have David Brown, our Department of Public Works Director, available to help answer any questions that come up.

Next slide, please.

So to give you guys this update, we're going to first talk through where we are with this plan development, a couple of key highlights on that, and then we can talk through what we're seeing, or sorry, foreseeing over the next several months for it.

Next slide.

In terms of an overview, we presented what we were proposing to go forward with to you all back in October at your city council meeting.

Further information on that as well as more background just about this project and policy statements and commitments the city has made for the climate protection program are included in your council agenda memo for tonight.

We are trying to move this process forward on an expedited timeline.

We had originally planned to begin back in April of 2020.

And then, as with many things due to COVID, that got put on a slow delay pause while we saw how it was going to develop, and then it got put on a longer pause as things were developing.

We picked up then, because this is a process that needs to move forward, we began looking at it in the late summer-fall in terms of what we could then move forward.

We are planning to frame this plan as using a strategic plan-like framework.

What I mean when I say that is having policy goals and objectives.

These would be the things that have that longer term view of what we're working towards to enable us to achieve our 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

We're looking at identifying actions for implementation.

This is near term.

So looking over the next three to five years, what are the key things and actions we need to achieve in order to get us on the right path and moving forward and getting successes?

and also including in their recommended performance measures for each of those different objectives and then the actions that we can then track how we're moving forward.

As part of this process, we are also producing some new resources and materials for the community consideration.

And we are hoping that these will also have a longer lifetime than justice plan process in terms of their usefulness.

And then there's also ongoing climate action efforts and programs that we have within our program.

The city's climate protection program was begun in 2007.

So there's a lot of work that has been done and things in our background that we're able to pull from.

Next slide, please.

In terms of our community engagement, we are leading us with concurrent and layered community engagement.

So you've seen this information before, but we're putting different efforts out there for different segments of the community, different topic expertise to get input on, and different pieces of our focus.

Part of the reason why we're doing this concurrently is because we are trying to move this forward on an expedited timeline for that.

Next slide, please.

In addition to that, running in parallel, we are building on other efforts that are happening in the community.

These are pieces that are projects that really have their own life within them, but what goes into these and what comes out of these does affect what we're having as context for within our plan, but also potential for us to move things forward later.

Some of these include climate justice mapping from the UVA Equity Center, the housing strategy, comprehensive plan piece that's moving forward that you heard more about recently, a landfill diversion study that's being led out of public works, and then a foresty greenhouse gas emission assessment, which is something we have not previously been able to include in our greenhouse gas inventory, and we're working on that regionally with UVA and the county on that.

Additionally, some examples of the ongoing related climate action initiatives that we have out of the climate protection program.

There is our program support agreement with the local energy alliance program.

We put some information and recommendations in with the legislative packet that came to council last month.

And then there's various other programs, projects that we're supporting around the community.

Next slide, please.

In terms of specifically for the climate action plan, from

November through now we offered two different sorry a single community workshop that we offered virtually twice and then have the recording online as well as an online feedback form so whether attendees were able to attend live or they were able to watch the recording they have the same feedback mechanism available to them we hosted two of the four small group stakeholder discussions and we also added a pre-meeting in with the SEVA 100 group ahead of those

to hear from them at the very beginning of the process what the key priorities were that they see on this topic, but also to sort of test out some of the framing and types of questions about community engagement that we wanted to really get feedback on.

Were these pieces going to be useful for the community conversation?

Were they things that were going to be able to get the high priorities that

The folks in our community who have really been looking at this issue for a number of years and are very passionate to do their own research, their own activism and involvement, their own learning on where we're getting the right points included in what we're looking at as our process.

We had reached out around Thanksgiving to try to get those scheduled.

and due to just different scheduling conflicts and delayed hearing back from people, we were not able to get those scheduled prior to the December holidays.

Next slide, please.

Additionally, what we have paid up is we are preparing to announce when we will be doing an equity meeting, so a convening

of stakeholders from across the community to help define when we talk about equity in the context of climate action in Charlottesville, what are we talking about?

What are the key issues that we need to make sure that we are screening for?

What are the risks that we need to be sensitive to and watching to make sure we're not exasperating?

What are those opportunities that we really have to really improve what we're doing here as a community?

And depending on what we hear of those, it depends on how

will then be shaping them to be informed into the plan.

In addition to this, we are in parallel, we are doing direct outreach to other groups.

For example, the CIFAR, I'll be meeting with their technical group sometime in the next month when they schedule that meeting.

And at the October meeting, you also heard a presentation from Pamela Boisim.

and she and I have had follow-up conversation to dig in a little bit more into some of the things that she spoke about and talking about how to be able to bring those pieces into this process.

The Municipal Climate Action Plan chapter draft is under development.

We've been focusing thus far on drafting up stationary sources of emissions for the municipal.

The fleet part will be coming up.

We'll be picking that conversation back up over this next month or two, or sorry, within the next month.

and then developing it over the next couple of months.

In parallel with all this, we've been developing other resources and reference materials.

There's three little thumbnail screenshots of some of these.

One is a rooftop solar PV potential map.

It's an interactive map that is available on our website.

You can scroll over to any building in the city, click on it, and it'll give you a pop-up of what the estimated solar generation potential is for on-site rooftop for PV, as well as estimated costs for that.

We then used the data that came out of this mapping tool to help inform the emission reduction scenario models.

We did this around activities that we've already seen in the community for energy efficiency emission reduction, as well as looking at the renewable energy for on-site generation potential to really start getting our arms around what that sort of scope, depth, and scale is in terms of project number of properties that would need to be touched over the next 10 years to meet our 2030 goals.

and also just trying to get our hands around what's that level of investment that would be needed.

Following from that, one of the things we're doing final tweaks on an interactive greenhouse gas emission data dashboard, which will also include updated greenhouse gas inventory data.

This project is one of the things that we've heard from community members that they want access to the data more frequently than we've been able to produce it in the past.

We also, whenever we put out a greenhouse gas inventory, we get lots of questions back about what the data is that's behind it.

And so we're hoping the combination of having the interactive dashboard with then posting the data that's behind it on the city's open data portal, that it'll help meet that need.

But it will also make it a little bit of a lighter load on city staff that we can then get the data out there sooner and quicker to people and also in a more accessible format for them.

We also have fact sheets about the key topic areas within our climate action plan that are under development and we're hoping to have this available soon, too.

Next slide, please.

In terms of key areas of focus within our emissions plan, one of the things that we are focusing on is the largest sources of our greenhouse gas emissions really come from three sectors.

It comes from our residential buildings, our commercial buildings, and our transportation.

Combined, these three sectors are about 90% of where our emissions are coming from right now.

Within just the residential and the commercial, the majority of that 42% is coming out of the entire pie.

So when we're looking at what are the strategies, what are the focuses of the types of actions and results we need to see in emission reduction, these are the type of sectors, the type of individuals, the type of activities that are where our emissions are coming from, and we need to make sure we find strategies and actions that work for the individuals and the businesses that are within these areas.

how we go about doing that what we're targeting that's all part of what our plan and what the community engagement is to understand better what will work for our community what are those gaps that we need to fill with it in addition to this next slide please there's also the city council direction from the 2019 resolution of these different these seven different points that were identified that they want like when previous council adopted to see in this plan

Of the first two, we've been working towards these by developing those example emission scenarios in terms of being able to understand what that scope scale is for us just to achieve our 2030 goals to see from the community how feasible those seem so that we can then inform, well, what does it mean to try to front load some of that?

Additionally, for number three and adjusting equity specifically, I mentioned that we do have this upcoming equity meeting.

There's also been discussions with Todd over in the City Human Rights Office, previous chair for the Human Rights Commission, talking with UVA Sustainability and UVA's Equity Center, as well as the county's equity and sustainability staff on this.

And so we are trying to build and coordinate with what's already happening in our community and further these conversations as we're moving forward on that.

For number four, in terms of the measurement frequency and accountability mechanisms, there's more work to be done on this in terms of the community-focused sectors, but we are bringing these into the draft of our municipal climate action chapters, as well as thinking through who are the key actors who need to be taking ownership and involved in moving these strategies forward.

In terms of addressing funding and financing options, one of the things that was a product out of our

The program support agreement with LEAP supports the climate protection program from this past year.

One of the research projects that we worked with them to have produced, they submitted it out to the community climate collaborative.

It was a development of a local government financing review of programs to understand the mechanisms of how these work, what sort of programs are available, how they work, and how they are set up within governments around the country.

In addition on this topic, we are also bringing in this to when we're doing our small stakeholder discussions and other parts of our team engagement to start understanding a little bit more about what is needed or how some of these might be perceived by local actors.

And then we are also tracking what's going on at the state in terms of funding.

This past year's General Assembly authorized the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will be bringing funds into the Commonwealth specifically for energy efficiency.

The Department of Housing and Community Development is hosting their stakeholder advisory group on this to determine what the guidelines are.

And we have offered public comment on that of how we think it could benefit and align well with our own programs here in Charlottesville.

And we also included recommendations in the city's legislative packet that was adopted that does speak to these other pieces at the state level that can help provide funding and programs to support our local actions here.

In regards to number six, within the city fleet, over the summer, we worked with the Virginia Clean Cities Nonprofit to complete their Clean Fuels Transition Project analysis of what our vehicle fleet is and the emissions that are coming from different segments of that.

We will be picking up those conversations, as I said, within the next month and then continuing to develop the municipal climate action plan piece around our fleet.

In the meantime, also, Kat has hired new staff who will be involved in our planning discussion or for planning that will be involved in our climate action discussion.

And the city's fleet manager has been moving forward with vehicle acquisitions for EVs as well.

Lastly, on this topic, Charlottesville has submitted as a site partner to a grant to the United States Department of Energy.

The lead applicant on this was the Department of Mines, Nails and Energy.

And

It is a tri-state plus Washington, D.C.

project to build an electric vehicle charging ecosystem across Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia.

By working on this and being a site partner, we'll be able to get some planning research that helps us understand where we should site electric vehicle charging.