City Council Special Meeting - Reports   1/19/2021

All right.

Well, it's four and I see all of us are here.

All right.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Here.

Councillor Hill?

Here.

All right.

All counselors are present.

First up, we have first report, the recognitions, the police department accreditation.

And I have Chief Brackney presenting.

I'll be presenting in lieu of Chief Brackney.

Okay.

First off, I've asked Corporal Best to sit in on this because this was mainly her endeavors.

The Charlottesville Police Department is pleased to announce that it has earned reaccreditation status for the sixth consecutive time with the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission on December 3, 2020.

Accreditation means that law enforcement agencies have voluntarily agreed

to conform its policies and procedures to coincide with the professional standards set by the Virginia law enforcement professional standards.

Between October the 27th and the 29th, assessors from the commission spent three days assessing CPD's policies and procedures, including the CPD's required compliance

in every aspect.

The in-depth assessments include a static display of police vehicles, equipment, specialty units, and a ride along with officers.

Officers were tested on their knowledge of the department's operational procedures.

Each officer successfully demonstrated their understanding and compliance to specific policies and procedures, as well as many new state laws.

accreditors or the assessors also reviewed 190 files, each containing evidence of compliance to the standards.

All 190 files were found to be in compliance.

CPD's reaccreditation studies was greatly enhanced by the dedication and diligence of Corporal Lisa Best, the department's accreditation and compliance manager.

if without hope this wouldn't have been so.

She had spent months combing through records, obtaining proofs, and ensuring our policies and procedures were consistent with the standards.

Accreditation and compliance is part of the CPD's support operation, which is led by myself.

Assistant Chief Mooney also put a little quote in there I'd like to share with you guys.

CPD is proud to once again earn a full reaccreditation which should show our residents and the city's constant strive to provide the best service to the community we serve.

I'm proud of Corporal Best's efforts and all of CPD's personnel who assisted her in making sure the accreditation process

when smoothly as possible.

CPD undergoes the early accreditation process every four years and has been fully accredited since 1996.

All right.

Thank you, Captain Direct.

I would just like to say I appreciate the recognition, Captain Durrett, but I just want to state that I am just the manager.

I'm the one who collects all the proofs and ensures that we have the proofs to show to the commission when they come.

Well, thank you and congratulations.

And to put it in perspective, that board behind her, those are all the policies and procedures that she must maintain on a regular basis.

Also, no questions, but I know any types of accreditations are never easy to get or maintain.

There's always the little details, and to have that every single one of your cases came out fine, that's pretty impressive, so

All right.

Other comments?

Well, thank you all for joining us today and sharing with us and the citizens of Charlottesville.

And we appreciate, again, your service.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Thank you, Mr. Blair.

So we've got a brief presentation we'll go through here today.

Jerry, you can go ahead and put that up, if you would, please, Mr. Rice.

Okay, thank you.

So, this afternoon we're going to continue to provide council with a kind of a monthly snapshot of the revenues and expenses for the general fund and the utility funds and discuss, at the end we'll discuss potential steps that can be taken to manage the shortfall we're going to discuss here shortly.

The following slides are just meant to show highlights of the information.

More detailed information can be found in the report that was given to council and is posted online.

Next slide, please.

So on this first slide, we had informed council that we would come back to you at the end of each quarter with revised projections should they vary from our previous versions, previous scenarios.

As you can see, there has been a marked decline in many of our revenues and our new revenue projections are approximately $5 million lower than what we had previously presented to city council.

This month, we're going to be presenting our revenue projections slightly different than we have in previous months.

We're showing multiple scenarios, just as opposed to the latest projections.

Just as a reminder, our revenue team that develops these projections meets every week, every other week, depending on the week, and it consists of our Commissioner of Revenue, our Treasurer, Director of Economic Development, City Assessor, Director of Finance, Budget Team, City Manager, Deputy City Managers.

Many of whom are on this call to answer questions, should you have more detailed questions.

And so I wanted to talk about each of these scenarios that the white column is our adopted was the original adopted budget.

The green scenario was our September forecast that we

brought to council.

The blue scenario is our current forecast where we believe that we will now anticipate finishing out the fiscal year.

And then our final scenario in red would be our further downturn scenario, which would be if things got into the worst in terms of cases and the economy shutdowns of the university, things of that nature.

This shows what we would be anticipating if things continue to get substantially worse and we continue to revert

Backward through the stages or phases.

So on this slide, as always, we monitor our revenues as we progress through the fiscal year.

And on these slides, we'll show all three scenarios so that you can see where these changes are.

But right now, what I'm going to be discussing will be the January 2021 forecast for these revenues.

And so we can

My explanations will center around that, but you can see if things were to get progressively worse what that could look like.

So for real estate taxes, the revenue was slightly reduced from the original September forecast based on the collection rate experienced from the December 2020 deadline, which was only off by about 1.2%, but based on that information, we wanted to have a slight revision of this.

City-county revenue sharing, there's no change.

For

Meals Tax, the revenue projections were based upon recovery rates that are exceeding our rate of recovery.

We were showing continued improvement until December, and then there was a sharp decline for the December payments.

which caused us to rethink and re-look at these projections moving into the winter months.

We expect there to be even more of a potential decline as we move through the winter and the revised recovery rate is slower and we don't anticipate returning to 100% to well into FY22.

Sales, this is another one that had initially performed better than what we had anticipated as you can see from our September forecast.

working, excuse me, we were showing good collection rates and good returns on the sales tax.

And so we needed to revise that down slightly as well.

This was one where based upon the revised book values and the collection rate from the December 2020 deadline, we had a slight reduction here from what we had initially shown you.

Lodging tax.

Lodging tax, again, this is a broken record.

What we were seeing with sales, meals, lodging, we were seeing a continued increase as we progressed through the beginning of the fiscal year, and then as we got into the last month, we've seen, again, another sharp decline in the December payments, and it's still not increasing at

at the projected rate that we had initially.

So we've, again, taken an even deeper dip in this.

This is professional licenses.

This is still our best estimate for this.

This is based on 2020 receipts.

So while COVID affected the last quarter of the year and we did adjust for that from what we had originally projected, we're still waiting.

We will not have those until March.

So that's another big one that could see some

potential fluctuation, but this is our best estimate, and we really won't know that until the March timeframe.

Utility taxes, this was one where we had, it's continued to lag behind what we were seeing.

COVID, the weather, mild weather conditions are continuing to impact this and what we're seeing here, and so we decided that we needed to reduce this one as well.

Recreation is showing a slight

decreased from what we had initially projected in September, but still it's less than half of what the initial budget was.

And then the transfer from the Parking Enterprise Fund, we're now projecting an $800,000 decrease in this.

So here's some of the other local taxes.

We're seeing slight increases and decreases among those, but not much of a change in our other local taxes.

Licenses and permits, this is one bit of good news.

We are seeing continued strong performance in our building and plumbing and those types of permits and our other permits, and so we're actually expecting a

almost half a million dollar increase in that particular item there.

Under governmental revenue, this was adjusted due to some increases and decreases in what we're now receiving from the state.

Other charges for service, the big decrease here, reimbursable police, or excuse me, reimbursable public safety over time and court revenue are two areas where we're seeing projecting large decreases.

But however, with the reimbursable

Public Safety over time, that should also show a corresponding expenditure decrease, because those are what we bill out directly for things such as basketball games, football games, since we're not seeing those kind of concerts, since we're not seeing those events, we're seeing some change there.

And then some slight changes in the other miscellaneous revenue, and then the other designated revenue, the big change here is we projected roughly $160,000 for

school bus trips, field trips, school bus rentals, those kind of things as part of our school pupil budget.

And obviously there were there are no field trips and those rentals are not happening right now.

So we're not expecting to see that revenue materialize in this fiscal year.

If you can switch, go to the next slide.

And so again, I just wanted to show, you know, bring up this chart again and just show where we are with our revenues.

As you can see, it's about a $5 million decrease from where we were.

So to put that in perspective, that's about a 5% decrease from our original revenue projections.

General fund expenditures.

We're through six months of the fiscal year, which is approximately 50% of the fiscal year.

Again, I always caution this, each month expenditures do not spread evenly over 12 months.

Some come in earlier, some come in later, but if you're using that 50% threshold as the general basis, you can see how we're performing and get a general idea.

Schools, this is, again, both our contribution to the schools and our contractual for maintenance and transportation.

Healthy Families and Communities, we're a little bit over here because we've reflecting the fourth, excuse me, the third quarter payments for our outside agencies, outside human service agencies, and also this is where we are, have our actuals for the chat program and all of our other tax and rent relief programs, and our actuals are for that, those particular programs are a little bit over

70% because right now they include half of the real estate tax relief program, all of the chat payments for the fiscal year and all the rent relief allocations for the year.

So that's what's driving up that healthy families and communities percentage.

And then finally, the non-departmental activities.

This is our transfers and all of our other non-departmental activities such as grants.

As you can see,

Many of the transfers have been made to this point.

And some of the majority of which have been posted, some will be still to be posted.

And so this is what we have expected today.

So managing the shortfall.

On the final slide, we're going to discuss ways that staff currently is or is proposing to manage this shortfall.

Our management team continues to meet on a regular basis to examine the current trends in both the revenues and the expenditures.

This is not through.

The work here is not done.

It's ongoing work.

It's continuously monitoring and working through these.

As we look at some of the potential ways we can manage this shortfall,

The first one is the COVID-19 reserve that we set aside, plus the CARES funding that you all allocated, the remaining CARES funding that was allocated to cover some FY21 expenses the last fiscal year, that's approximately, or excuse me, the last council meeting, that's approximately $7.6 million to cover a portion of this.

Revenue decreases that have corresponding expenditure decreases, meals tax, transfer to debt service, small vending permits, some of those items.

We're looking at estimating approximately $800,000 to $900,000 worth of decreased expenditures at this point.

Potentially using FY19 and FY20 year-end surpluses that have been set aside.

That could be up to $4.1 million that we could bring in as a potential revenue source to help fill that gap.

And then finally, departmental and other operational savings, both in future savings and those that have already been realized through the first six months of the fiscal year, those could total over three and a half million dollars or more.

It's, you know, that's always a moving target as we go through the fiscal year.

And this is one of those things where

We're continuing to look at those and monitor those.

In terms of the departmental savings, one thing I do want to mention, because whenever you look at a shortfall of this magnitude, people want to say, well, staffing layoffs.

In terms of these departmental savings, we're not including any layoffs right now.

We're not anticipating looking to make any layoffs.

We're going to do our best to manage not to go that route, but that is not included in this $3.5 million figure.

Again,

You know, if you did some quick math in your head while these ranges would potentially cover the decrease, the shortfalls that we have here.

Again, I don't want us to think that the work is through.

On the contrary, this is going to require an ongoing effort by all involved to manage a shortfall from staff, council, management, all the way through to be able to manage this and I'm happy to take

Any questions that you may have on this?

All right, thank you.

Counselors, are there any questions?

The first question I had was we had set aside $6.6 million in the budget as representing the money we did not allocate for the capital account as sort of our first hedge against some of these shortfalls.

Assuming, and I know we talked last meeting about

there's the $4.9 million estimate of the shortfall for the year.

And we were saying, well, okay, we've got $1.6, $1.7 million still left of that cushion.

Am I correct that if we're looking at the sort of the worst case scenario of a shortfall of $13 million,

Is that correct?

Yes.

This would not be in addition to that.

If we include the $6.6 million, then we're basically looking for how we're going to cover, again, assuming the worst case scenario, how we're going to cover another $7 million.

Yeah, and I should clarify that line, the line on that slide was the $6.7 million

COVID reserve that we had spoke of, plus the $900,000 that at the last meeting was allocated towards some of those public safety.

So that's how I got to that $7.6 million figure.

Okay, so I guess what I'm wondering is we had talked at the last meeting about

about being able to use CARES Act funding for covering police salaries and things like that.

We had allocated at the last meeting approximately, at the last meeting you had allocated approximately 930,000, I believe, 20,000?

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

That's all for my first pass.

I apologize.

My internet seems to stabilize it.

Mine is about the revenue projection.

What are the assumptions for the $13 million shortfall, like in terms of what the rest of the year might look like?

Is that saying that it's going to continue just to be like it is in the winter, or is that still showing some optimism for the fourth quarter?

So that other projection assumes continued decline in the economy and in our revenues.

That's

I think it's continuing the decline we're anticipating through the winter months to continue on into the spring and further than just where it is.

And it also anticipate potentially a deeper, as we always talk about, the deeper V, the deeper trough there with some of these revenues.

I have a

I have a question about the BPOL tax.

I mean, how comfortable are we right now?

I mean, the BPOL tax has been worrying me, period.

How comfortable are we with our projections on that?

I'll jump in on this one, Ryan.

You're exactly right.

BPOL,

You know, as you know, your B-Pole, as you probably know, your B-Pole license is based on the prior year's gross receipts.

So for, you know, most everybody who's renewing this year, they're just coming off of a really crappy year.

So, you know, it's a

It's an estimate.

It's a best guess.

I mean, you know, some industries and some sectors have done quite well this year.

And so, you know, we don't see much of a fall off for them.

You know, others have.

Retail, you know, it's bad.

But I mean, ultimately, it's an estimate.

I think we, our first stab at it was we were expecting it to be down, you know, by a quarter.

You know, the more we think about it, the more we could make a good argument that we could, you know, revise it down further.

But, you know, we're just now getting to where this is our busy, busy time for business license renewals.

The due date's March 1st.

You know, give me a couple months.

Is there a...

Sure, it's hard to predict, but is there a sense of even roughly the kind of timeline for when we would become more aware about, you know, in the worst case scenario around $6 million of additional revenue will need to be found.

Yeah, I would say that it's hard to predict a timeline because we get new data and the projections can change wildly from month to month.

This current year, or excuse me, the current month, we were looking at, prior to what we received in the current month, a slight decrease, but then we saw a couple of the current revenues really almost fall off a cliff, so to speak, and that

caused us to take an even deeper dive and deeper cut with some of these revenues based on what we have seen in the last month's receipts.

So it's an ever-changing picture.

Like I said, we're constantly monitoring, and each new data point gives us more confidence in where we will end the fiscal year.

But again, this is an environment that I

I think it's safe to say none of us have ever had to try to project revenues or the economy in.

And so it's, you know, we're just working through the best data points that we have at this point.

And, you know, it's hard to say when we could say, oh, yes, that's the final number.

I'd like to get to February or March.

honestly and see where we are because, you know, get through the winter.

I think it's going to be lean winter.

And then if things start to pick up, I don't mean to step on Ryan or Jason's toes, but I think if things start to pick up at the end of the winter, then we're closer to that.

I don't know what color that projection was, you know.

We're closer to the blue projection.

I guess there's just so what I would also add to that.

I mean, the point of the last slide is that we're not going to wait until February or March to figure out how to address this.

We are addressing it now and as we go.

you know the message we would like to pass on to you is that you know while this is not definite we're not finished there's a still a lot of unknowns we do feel like we've identified a path forward without having to come back to you and say hey guess what council we need you to cut six million dollars but rather

There are some one-time sources, i.e.

the year-end surpluses that we may be, you know, a lot of that has not been allocated and this was the reason why we did not do that.

Some of it may have been allocated and not started yet, but these are sort of one-time sources to try to help you put the budget back structurally balanced.

So we won't

The end goal here is that we're trying to keep you apprised as we go along so there's not this doomsday where we come back and say, okay, we need you to come back with your scissors and cut deep.

So I have a couple of questions.

One, internally, are we looking at department level spending?

Which department maybe the CARES funding is flowing to more than others if that is occurring and how that's offsetting some of the original revenue needs of those departments?

Yes, we're monitoring and looking at all departments.

across the board, not just those ones that are getting the CARES funding.

We're looking at all the departments across the board and looking at where, what, if there's particular areas within the city that we, you know, the city budget that we can save money.

We're not

I wouldn't say that we're singling out one department because they got CARES funding, whereas this department didn't.

We're looking, we're trying to do this universally and holistically across the board.

I'm just wondering if they're, I mean, I watched some other budget meetings and just have seen how they've talked about what savings are happening within departments.

So then maybe there's a possibility of shifting some of that money into other departments based on there's less of a need.

And I'm just wondering if

that's happening on our end.

And you reference the year to date projections.

But yeah, I understand that it just with because we're this month because we're showing the three different scenarios, you know, it was it did to us, it didn't make sense to have the year to date projections because are we talking about year to date projections from September, year to date projections based on the blue column, or is it going to be year to date based on the red, but as we move forward, we can show some year to date projections based on we can determine which is which column makes the best sense to show the year to date projections.

Well, I'll jump in there.

Concerning the question about possible and when you talk about employees, I'm assuming you're talking about either salary cuts or potential layoffs or furloughs.

I think we're not there yet.

And we're looking right now at not the direst of forecasts, but we're still looking at a very conservative look at revenues right now.

And we have identified some potential savings, but again, I don't think we're

Can I just do one quick follow up on that?

But how we thought, so if we

If we're in the pink column, do we know what impact that would have on, so we have this new variant of COVID, we have UVA already coming back and more restrictive measures than they had previously imagined that they would bring the students back in.

There's a possibility since we're still learning this that there could

a actual shutdown.

We'll see how this new federal administration handles things.

So if those things happen, does that mean that we might be in the pink column or blue column or we don't know until?

Well, I'll go first, and then, Ryan, I'll turn it over to you.

I think, Mayor Walker, to your questions, no, we're not at that point talking about those scenarios in terms of the worst case.

However,

I do think you mentioned a point that we have discussed that's sort of the variable here that makes this even more challenging, which is the federal government's response.

Looking at the proposed stimulus package from President-elect Biden, I believe I saw it's either 200 or 300 million he had for state and local aid.

that's in that $1.9 trillion.

Now, we don't know, again, how that's going to shake out through the legislative process and ultimately what dollars we see at the local level, but that, you know, I think we hope if these variants do lead to a worsening health situation that the money from the federal government will help bridge that gap.

In terms of UVA and further restrictions, I think it is fair to say that right now, as Commissioner Divers mentioned, we're already basically saying January and February are not going to be good months.

I think that's where we are, that we're not looking at

Anything above our worst case scenario.

I mean, right now the revenues just don't indicate that either January or February will be anything but very poor returns.

Now, I think where your questions, and then I'll turn it over to Ryan, where things could get really

a lot more difficult for the city is number one if the federal government doesn't provide any stimulus to the local level of any significance and number two if revenues in March and April don't improve from January and February.

I think like other localities there is some

Perhaps it's a hope, but that in some way that March and April will not be quite as dire as January and February in terms of meeting our revenue projections.

And, you know, one of the things I wanted to mention was that, you know, when the budget management team met

this past week for, you know, we met for every three hours.

And one of the things we talked about was, let's try to manage to the worst case scenario.

And if things are better than that, then we'll be prepared for that.

And if they're better than that, then we have, I don't want to call it extra, but we have levers that we haven't had to pull or sources that we haven't had to use.

So I think the eye is always to try to manage as close to the worst case scenario as we can and hope for the best.

Hope for it to be better, but to, you know, you can't, as we've seen, we, you know, when we came in September, we were looking at four and a half.

Now we're looking at nine and a half.

So we need to make sure that we're looking forward to the future to make, to be able to cover ourselves and be able to give ourselves potential flexibility and be able to look at what leverage we may need to pull on the expense side or revenue side moving forward to manage to that worst case scenario.

The reality is it will probably fall somewhere in between, maybe, but we just don't know that at this point.

We're going to manage to do it as best we can with every new piece of data.

And two

Quick additional questions.

One, I definitely appreciate the conservative approach of trying to plan for the worst case scenario.

I think that definitely puts counsel in a much better position.

And the unexpected Senate results, I'm cautiously optimistic, may provide some additional relief there.

The first question is,

In general, the previous allocation, sorry, Chris, I don't mean to jump in.

In general, the previous allocations that has been a condition with the new

And that's my understanding as well, is that the next round would

Revenue replacement will be an option, whereas the previous rounds of funds had to be expenditures resulting from COVID with some significant restrictions and limits on those uses around those.

Okay, and second question is just a question from the public to relay.

They asked about a recent court decision about the author tax being illegal and needing to be reimbursed.

I'm not going to.

I mean, that's litigation about a taxpayer.

I'm not going to get into that here.

And a question to Mr. Vanderburn, Mr. Divers.

The real estate tax,

Could you, it looks good, the collection.

So I'm wondering if the percentage of citizens who paid through mortgage companies and the percentage who paid directly, did you see, were they, it seems like they were about, that they were good collections on both ends.

Sure, I can address that.

I think

For the most part, anyone who is paying through a mortgage company paid just like normally would.

And that's a significant portion of the revenue that comes in for the real estate tax.

The vast majority of our largest taxpayers paid on time and in full.

I think some of what we did see was, you know, we mentioned last time there were some taxpayers who took advantage of an extended payment plan.

So that's revenue that will come in this fiscal year, just didn't come in in December.

So in terms of the shortfall that's represented there is that individuals who requested a payment extension

but haven't paid yet, but may have started.

All right.

Are there any other questions?

No.

All right.

Well, thank you all.

Thank you.

And just before we move on to the next one, just want to point out that I ask that because we may have citizens who have issues with their mortgage company, even though it's been paid if they can't make those payments on those end.

So it's just something to think about while we think about relief measures with CARES funding.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

You know me, I'm Bill Moyer, the executive director of both authorities.

Mr. Morrow, this is Joe.

You do have the ability to share the screen.

All right, great.

Okay, again, I want to provide a brief update on how we're doing at your partner authorities for the city and the county.

So just a quick reminder, refresher, the Water and Sewer Authority was created in 1972 by this council and Albemarle Board of Supervisors.

We manage water supply for the area and we have five reservoirs.

We have six water treatment plants and four wastewater treatment plants.

We have an operating budget this year of 37.1 million and a five-year CIP of about 132 million.

with 93 employees.

Similarly, in the Solid Waste Authority, which was created in 1990 by Council and the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, and we manage refuse disposal and recycling at the IVMUC and also at McIntyre and the paper sort facility on Mead Avenue.

That authority has an operating budget of just over 5 million with 19 employees.

And I would mention that most of our employees have worked throughout the pandemic.

We can't make water or treat wastewater from home.

And so most of our employees have been on the job since day one.

We talk about the urban area is what we serve water, drinking water, public water, and that's represented by this pink map.

So of course, it includes all of the city and the university as well, 29 North out to Ivy and Glenmore is all in what we call the urban area.

And we allocate charges to the urban area between the Albemarle Service Authority and the city utilities.

based on the expenses for the urban area.

This is drinking water.

This map shows you similarly but different the urban wastewater system.

It's generally the same with the yellow and the blue in this area, but the difference is Crozet is actually a part of the urban wastewater system and all of the wastewater from Crozet is piped and pumped

back to Moore's Creek.

And so when we allocate costs to the urban wastewater system, the city does participate in that along with Crozet.

So we have three reservoirs that serve the urban water system in the city, the South Ravana Reservoir, the Sugar Hollow Reservoir, and the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

And they provide about 2.6 billion gallons in water storage for the urban area.

And I'll mention that all three of these reservoirs are owned by the city.

The South Ravana was built in 1966, Sugar Hollow in 1947.

Ragged Mountain was originally built in 1897, recently upgraded in 2014 for what we would call the current Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

It has a new dam.

There were two old dams there and they were demolished.

So these three reservoirs provide all the water to the city and the urban parts of the county.

We have three water treatment plants that serve the city and the urban parts of the county.

The south of Havana is our largest plant which can create about 12 million gallons

per day, and this is over near Hilton Heights in Walmart on 29 North.

We have the second largest.

It's the Observatory Water Treatment Plant, which is located on University property on Observatory Mountain.

You can catch a glimpse that this is Scott Stadium in the foreground, and that's the observatory treatment plant.

Lastly, we do have a small plant on 29 North, the North Ravana treatment plant.

So collectively, these three plants make all the drinking water for the city and the university and the urban areas of the county.

Wastewater, I mentioned our primary wastewater treatment plant is here at Morse Creek.

This is I-64, the Woodland Mills and Belmont area of the city.

So we treat about 10 million gallons a day here at Morse Creek.

We can treat up to 15 million gallons a day of wastewater.

And again, we pipe and pump wastewater from Crozet back to this plant.

Our major projects are included in what we would call the community water supply plan.

And if you recall, there was a drought in Charlottesville around 2001 and two, and the community wrote a community water supply plan and approved that council and the board of supervisors approved it around 2012.

But that basically included building the new Ravana dam at Ragged Mountain, which has been completed, renovate the South Ravana treatment plant,

which is under construction now.

Renovate the observatory treatment plant which will follow the South Ravana treatment plant renovation.

We plan to replace the piping that goes from Ragged Mountain Reservoir to the observatory treatment plant and there would be a new water pump station out of this general area.

Then we're going to need a new water line to come through some portion of the city which we're calling the central water line.

to help distribute the treated water to the city and the county through the city.

The big project that you hear most about is we're planning to build a pipeline from the Ravanna Reservoir all the way around to Ragged Mountain and so that we can pump water from Ravanna Reservoir to fill the

Ragged Mountain Reservoir and be treated at observatory.

We would also be able to treat pump water from Ragged Mountain back to the South Rivanna treatment plant out on 29 North.

So it gives us a lot of flexibility, versatility, and redundancy to have that project.

And that is scheduled for 2027 through 2033.

And lastly, we intend to raise the water level at the Ragga Mountain Reservoir 12 feet, 12 feet in the vertical.

and it was built to accommodate that rise in the water levels so collectively this would increase the water supply for our area and help us have a sufficient water supply for about the next 100 years so so this is what we spend a lot of our time and money on are these projects and we work closely with Lauren Hildebrand as your utility department and our board member

on these projects.

Just a couple pictures of what I've somewhat talked about.

We do have a major renovation.

This is the South Ravana water treatment plant.

Here's the reservoir in the foreground.

This is 29 North.

The observatory treatment plant at the university, and you see Scott Stadium here in the foreground, that's going to have a major renovation, collectively about $43 million, of which the city share is approximately 48% of that cost, almost half, not all of it, but about half, and that should be finished by 2023.

I mentioned the major piping project from the Ravanna Reservoir to Ragged Mountain.

We've already completed this little section, the green pipe, which is adjacent to the Birdwood golf course.

That work has been completed and we're in the process of procuring the easements for the full route.

And we appreciated council back in September, you granted four easements near the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to help us get this project in place.

The city's share of this project by agreement is about 20% of the cost.

So that is the share that the city and the Albemarle Service Authority negotiated many years ago.

I mentioned we're going to replace the piping from Ragged Mountain Reservoir all the way to Observatory Treatment Plant and there are two pump stations, so one at Stadium Road right below the football stadium and one in the Midmont housing area.

We're going to eliminate those pump stations and eliminate the two pipes and build one larger pipe all the way

near Fontaine and to the treatment plant at observatory and then build a new pump station that will be dual purpose.

It will pump raw water from Ragged to the observatory treatment plant.

It will also pump raw water from Ragged back to the South Ravanna water treatment plant if we would have a need for that.

So this project collectively is over $18 million and we plan in the next five years to get this built.

We're in a detailed discussion with the university about where the new waterline can go near Fontaine Research Park and an observatory mountain.

We also have, I mentioned the central water line is going to take the treated water from the observatory treatment plant and distribute it throughout the city to help strengthen our whole piping or the city's piping infrastructure in the city.

These blue lines are major water transmission lines that come from the South Ravana treatment plant.

and they end here and they end here and here and you can sort of see that this red line, the new line is going to connect some of the end points of those major lines and that helps to add a capacity and water pressure throughout the system if we can do that.

So I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that in the weeks and months to come.

We do have under construction right now at Sugar Hollow Reservoir.

This rubber, we call it a crest gate, sits on top of the concrete dam.

It had served its life of 20 years and now we're going to replace this bladder and this gate.

It helps to control the water level in the reservoir.

That's under construction now.

It should be finished this fall.

This is a picture of Morse Creek at night.

We have been talking with the county about compliance with their lighting ordinance and so we're going to replace many of the light fixtures and poles at Morse Creek to bring us in compliance with the county lighting requirements as well to improve the safety on this industrial site.

So that is underway now and should be finished in about a year.

Switching gears to solid waste, this is our ivy transfer station, the white building.

These fields in the back are all landfill cells that were filled with refuse and clothes, so no trash is landfilled anymore in Albemarle County.

So these are closed cells.

We bring trucks in across the scale and they dump their trash in this building and we push it into a hole in the floor that goes down to a truck that's below and then we truck it out of Albemarle County.

We also recently completed a small convenience center at Ivy for recyclable products and

And with the construction of this new transfer station and with approval from Albemarle County, we went from five days a week operating the the Ivy facility to six days a week, and we lowered the refuse fee from $66 to $52 per ton.

and consequently, we improved that in 2018, December 2018, we were processing about 28 tons per day of refuse and now with a yellow graph in 2018.

We were processing almost 120 tons of refuse per day.

So that's that's helping to make the financial viability of this project more feasible.

This, of course, is your McIntyre Recycling Center on McIntyre Road that we operate.

And that is our major recycling center.

So I mentioned here that last year we transferred 30,000 tons of municipal waste out of this facility.

And we also recycled over 2000 tons of paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastics, largely from the McIntyre facility.

So things are working well at the Solid Waste Authority.

All right, thank you for your presentation.

I have just a question about water usage.

I know, I mean, I remember the drought very well.

Have we, I mean, I'd just like to know if this, the plan that we put in place in regards to the drought still is necessary, I guess.

I mean, just that $80 million pipeline

Yes, ma'am.

We believe so.

We just completed a study last year in 2020.

And

It forecast in the next few decades our water demand would equal our water supply if we didn't put in the new pipe so that we could increase our water supply.

You're correct that the per capita water usage has declined nationally.

It used to be close to 110 to 120 gallons per person per day, but through the

the advent of more economical shower fixtures and low flush toilets and low water usage washing machines as well.

Just a culture in our country of being conservative with water.

Currently, the city, as an example, uses about 60 gallons per person per day.

So the city and the area have been able to add more people

without greatly reducing the water demand.

In fact, our water demand now of about 9 million gallons per day is similar to what it was many years ago.

The university is making a big effort for water conservation and they

based on the data that they give us, they predict that they will continue to use less water until about 2035.

And then their volume of the number of students and staff, on average, they're adding about 200,000 square feet of facilities every year, even now, and that eventually the efficiencies that they're gaining with some of their programs are going to be overcome

by technology and just the volume of people that they're going to have on the grounds.

So collectively, with the growth of the city that's predicted, the growth of the county, and the increased usage and growth of the university,

that we are going to need more water in future generations and that's the purpose of that pipeline is to make sure that we have it along with renovating the water treatment plants and building the central water line because we have to not only have water in a reservoir, but we have to be able to bring it into a plant and treat it and then distribute it through piping and pumping systems to your faucets in order for that benefit to be enjoyed.

Yes, we do predict that we need more water and we update this projection of supply and demand every 10 years.

So in 2030, we will look at it again.

but right now we still believe that the water pipeline is necessary and it also provides a redundancy to our system if we would have some sort of natural or man-made disaster.

As you know, Interstate 64 crosses the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

We have two bridges that cross the South Ravana Reservoir.

We have an airport

fairly adjacent to the South Ravana Reservoir and the South Ravana Water Treatment Plant.

So if we would have any accidents, spillage of significant products that would get into the reservoirs or damage the treatment plant, right now we would be limited in our ability to provide adequate supply of water to all of the urban area.

So the pipeline, in addition to capacity, also provides a redundancy and resiliency that we can move water from one plant to another and still continue to treat it, which we cannot do right now.

So we have our largest reservoir at Raggin Mountain, but it is not hooked to our largest water treatment plant at South Ravana.

What's the rationale for raising the reservoir last rather than before construction of the pipeline?

Well, the Raggin Mountain Dam Agreement, which is an agreement between council and the Albemarle County Service Authority when that was negotiated in 2012,

It was a term of that agreement that Ravana would not be allowed to raise the water level in the reservoir until the demand of the community reached 85% of the supply.

That was supposed to be the last tool in our toolbox for adding water supply was to hold that until the end of to raise the water level in the reservoir.

It's my understanding that was because of

environmental concerns and use of the Ragged Mountain Park and that when we raise the water level, it will flood more of the land around the park.

And so the agreement between Council and the Albemarle Service Authority would be that that would be the last thing we would do to add water supply.

It adds about 700 million gallons

of water with that 12 feet.

So it is a significant amount of water.

It's almost equal to all the water in the South Havana reservoir.

So why is it understood to be the last item?

And that's because that's what the agreement is and that's what it says.

Well, certainly, and I understand the agreement certainly locks in the pipeline, should there be sufficient water capacity from that action, if we were to reverse it and find that there was sufficient supply through that action alone.

And then finally, you know, I know you said there's that recent report, what data is there in that report in the timeline for when

you know the capacity added by the 80 million dollar pipeline would actually be necessary because as Councillor McGill brought up my understanding is even through population growth you know the amount of water needed has stayed pretty steady and the data hasn't reached a point where the capacity of that pipeline is necessary and you know I don't know if that situation is anticipated to change or what data is

Of course, the data is the estimates that we got from working with your planning department and the county's planning departments on what growth there would be in the area.

And then we translate that into a water demand volume.

I don't have it right in front of me, but I believe our plan predicted that by around 2060 that the supply would be equal to the demand and logically with the 85% requirement of the agreement that we would start building more water supply at 85% of the supply, which would be around 2040.

So

So that's what the data showed us just based on capacity.

And as the schedule indicates right now, we're planning on finishing the pipeline around 2033.

So a little bit ahead of the capacity requirement.

Well, all the costs are paid by the ratepayers of the city and the Albemarle Service Authority.

and we do work with your utility department and Chris Cullinan every year on what our charges would be to the city and the service authority.

The Rivanna authority is very debt heavy.

We have almost $200 million in debt.

We finance most of our projects with utility debt and we calculate and we do have a 10-year rate model on what our charges would be

on how they get translated into a rate increase for city or county public water users is really up to your utility department, finance department, to

to calculate that because they have to combine the other costs that they have in the city and the revenues to come up with the rates.

So we can only predict on what our charges would be to the city utilities and to the county.

And then those two departments have to translate that into retail impacts, if any, to the rate payers.

I know several years ago we had almost a 10% increase, I think, to the

County and like a 5% to the city, but both the city had like a zero increase to its rate payers.

Thank you.

And I have a quick question, just a follow-up to that.

Based on the statements that even some of the cost-saving measures UVA is putting in place, I guess this would probably go to Ms.

Hildebrand.

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding your question.

You went out, you were a little blurry there.

Just wondering when we are calculating rate and if part of the increase will be based on the need for this water, we are calculating UVA additional infrastructure at about 200,000 square feet per year.

Of course, that's not, that's predicted many, many years in the future.

It's probably what bill, it was like 30 years in the future.

So we haven't really taken a close look at it.

But right now they're paying their, as you know, based on the phasing in

It started this last fiscal year where they are paying their 100% of the rate, whereas before they got a reduced rate.

But that went into effect at the beginning of this fiscal year.

And it's certainly something we could look at, but it's not, you know, this is, as Bill described, it's pretty far into the future when we would see some increases.

And by then, there were

Some slight increases in the rest of the county and the city, too.

Okay.

Well, there was a mention of a 2035 date, and I was just wondering if

Yeah, so nothing that Bill mentioned is absorbed by taxes or general fund taxes.

It's all through the utility rates.

So I just want to make sure we clarify that.

Yeah, no, I understand that, but if the city outside of the university is, if we are not able to build at the same rate that they are, but the usage, it just seems to me that there would be, that if it's not, that we're,

What I hear happening is that all taxpayers would be equally responsible.

And you're saying that even the future debt that we take on will be based on usage, but there will have to be something to cover that those increases.

Right.

Well, if you look at it, I will add that, you know, if they have additional volume, so they'll pay for that volume that they use.

So say if they

If they start using an extra million gallons a year, then they will pay that additional volume.

So all the rates are spread evenly through the volume that people use.

So I guess that would be how it would be kind of equitable by the volume of water.

So if it fills projections and if it holds true based on the last demand analysis we just finished where it shows they have some

Well, so the $80 million investment for the pipeline is already established in the agreement between the county service authority and the city.

And correct me if I'm wrong, Bill, because I always get this off, that the county

pays 80% as what was negotiated back many years ago, and the city pays 20%.

So that is my understanding.

Yeah, that's right.

I get that part, but it just seems like there would be a more upfront contribution is what I'm saying if the calculations are based on their growth, too.

All right.

Are there any other questions?

All right.

All right.

So we have about less than 15 minutes before we supposed to go in closed session.

And we have another report from the Tree Commission.

Mayor and Council, thank you for the opportunity to address you today and to elaborate upon the written report the Commission submitted earlier this month.

This presentation marries many of the concerns the Commission expressed in its November statement on the revision of the city's strategic plan.

This past December marked 10 years since council established the commission with the charge to quote protect and improve the urban forest in pursuit of a better quality of life for city residents and environmental and aesthetic benefits.

Throughout the pandemic year, the year of social upheaval, environmental crises as well, the commission endeavored to execute this charge as best it could.

Beyond addressing environmental sustainability and aesthetic benefits, the Commission has more fully embraced the reality that improving the urban forest is also a matter of environmental justice and social justice.

Commission believes that these are all defining challenges for Charlottesville and it is grateful for Council's commitment to our green infrastructure to more livable city and for providing resources necessary for this purpose.

I turn now to the State of City Trees, and I would like to briefly summarize data presented in the Commission's report and to highlight the Commission's primary persistent concerns.

Much of this presentation reiterates prior annual reports, though I do want to note that the Parks and Recreation Department, in particular City Arbor's micro name,

have worked with the commission to address its persistent concerns, including increasing the percentage of large canopy trees planted, identifying all opportunities to plant in neighborhoods, and creating a weighted scale to help prioritize the planting of trees in public right of ways within low canopy and extremely low canopy neighborhoods.

Our first concern

Planting more trees and preserving the trees we have is critical for the urban forest, which in turn is critical for achieving multiple community goals.

These include public health, energy conservation, environmental sustainability, water and air quality, stormwater management, and environmental and social justice.

Sadly, Charlottesville's urban forest canopy continues its nearly decade and a half decline.

An interim data analysis in 2020 shows this and a 2021 aerial survey will surely confirm it.

This means a 7% decline or 460 acres of canopy loss since 2004.

Next slide.

The goal of planting 200 trees annually has not been met in each of the last four years.

Plantings have not kept pace with removals.

They average about 129 trees per year, which is 65% of the planting goal.

Also, a significant percentage of plantings simply replace dead or diseased trees.

In addition, most plantings are not street trees in right of way in neighborhoods.

Further exacerbating this situation is the rising cost of trees over the past several years from $300 to $450 per tree most recently.

Second concern, protecting the trees we have is critical as well for the urban forest.

The urban forest is suffering further fragmentation and degradation as a result of the development of private land.

City review and regulation is limited and uneven.

A substantial number of trees are damaged or destroyed each year.

Zoning regulations inadequate to addressing green infrastructure needs contribute to this decline.

Existing minimum setbacks often result in the elimination of mature large canopy trees, as in this example from Garrett Street.

Next slide.

And also the potential damage further,

Potential Damage from Future Development, also on Garrett Street.

These projects are shown as examples of an underlying systemic problem and not as criticism of any single development or developer.

Also of great concern to the commission are new developments not in accord with existing ordinance and lacking trees, which means more heat islands in the city.

Next slide.

as seen in the following several slides.

Please forward ahead.

You see here instances of trees lacking in frontage, also examples of trees lacking in the alleyway.

To be clear, the commission fully understands the need for and supports the need for more housing, especially the critical need for affordable housing.

But it believes that there must be a balance that recognizes another critical need, which is to preserve and expand our green infrastructure.

Beyond their aesthetic benefits, trees are every bit as much of the overall infrastructure of our communities.

Finally, and most important, environmental justice is social justice.

Next slide, please.

The city's low canopy and extremely low canopy neighborhoods correlate with historically and predominantly African-American neighborhoods and with lower income neighborhoods that are designated CDBG eligible.

As we know, this reflects historical racist zoning policies of redlining and restrictive covenants.

And there's plenty of very good work done on this through the mapping inequality and mapping civil programs.

Simply put, less shade equals higher levels of heat

negative health outcomes and higher energy costs.

Neighborhoods with tree canopy below 40% are effectively unhealthy neighborhoods accounting for the majority of heat related illnesses in any community.

Neighborhoods with less than 20% canopy face even higher surface temperatures and greater utility costs and their residents suffer the greatest physical stress.

By this measure, Star Hill and Tenth and Page, both below 20% canopy and Rose Hill and the Meadows below 30% canopy are the neighborhoods that fare worst in the city.

Failing to address this all too obvious and endemic inequity means that existing heat islands will only grow hotter as the climate worsens.

The following four images show great disparity within our community in terms of trees and the benefits that trees bring

reducing heat, reducing heat related illnesses.

I want next to reflect a moment on the tree commission.

I mentioned earlier that it was 10 years ago in December.

So to reflect on the tree commission at 10 years and especially on this past year in its 10th year of existence, the commission confronted pandemic as did most city boards and commissions by suspending meetings for nearly the entire second half of FY 20.

and having no public activities.

The commission is grateful to council and the communications department to have begun meeting again in late summer and have regained much of our lost momentum.

Our written report details that despite the severe limitations and dislocation of the pandemic, commissioners continued individually and in small groups to engage in the planning and regulatory activities of an array of city and regional bodies

to collaborate virtually with allied organizations to advocate for trees and to educate citizens about our green critical green infrastructure.

As you can see in this slide in executing its charge, the commission interacts with a variety of city bodies and departments, beginning of course with council through the planning commission and a number of city departments.

These are essential and beneficial interactions that the commission looks forward to strengthening in the years ahead.

For the remainder of FY21 in this calendar year, the Commission's primary objectives, which all relate to the concerns that I mentioned earlier, are the following.

To step out slowly and responsibly into what we all hope to be a safer world, perhaps to engage with the public in activities such as celebrating Arbor Day and planting community trees.

to continue to strengthen collaboration with governmental and nonprofit groups working on every aspect of the local environment.

And you see the broad range of groups listed here.

To develop a public private government nonprofit coalition with most critically residents of Heat Island neighborhoods to address social and environmental injustices and inequities.

to develop a detailed and comprehensive package of recommendations for updating the comprehensive plan and revising the zoning ordinance and to complete work on the city's standards and design manual to address tree preservation and replacement.

And finally, to continue to monitor the deleterious effects of development on our green infrastructure.

So what can council do for trees beyond what it has done over these many years?

First, Council can sustain essential funding.

It is essential to provide sufficient funding to meet the annual goal of 200 trees planted.

That has become even more difficult, as I mentioned earlier, with the quite sudden rise in the cost of trees.

Commission greatly appreciates that Council increase the FY21 allocation exclusively for tree planting to $75,000 to try to reach the goal of 200 trees.

Regrettably and understandably, the pandemic caused this allocation to be zeroed out.

However, approximately $7,600 remained in the previous year's operating budget, which Mike Ronain found for us.

And this, along with private donations, will allow for planting 23 trees in FY21.

So that is a moral victory.

The Commission is seeking $75,000 in FY22 CIP funding to reduce the several years gap in the city's tree planting goal.

As you see that will still bring us under at the current price will still bring us under 200 trees, but will bring us closer to that planting goal.

Most immediate and serious threat to the city's urban forests and to private property and personal safety is the emerald ash borer.

Funding is essential for dealing with the devastation caused by these insects.

Parks and Recreation has been taking measures to protect the city's most important and vital ash trees, but the current inventory shows that approximately 270 trees will need to be removed at some point.

The Commission's FY21 request for $50,000 for removals was not approved.

The Commission is seeking $50,000 in FY22 CIP funding to address Emerald Ash Borer because removal is time sensitive.

and safety critical as disease trees deteriorate rapidly.

Lastly, the commission greatly appreciates that council recognize the important need for tree preservation generally, and for several years has provided substantial funding through the operating budget.

These funds are used for pruning, repairing and protecting existing large and valuable trees in the community, especially those now protected by city ordinance.

The second thing that we respectfully ask Council to consider doing is to strengthen the Commission's charge.

The Commission continues to advocate for changes in organizational structure to better support its charge and to recognize its necessary collaboration with city departments in addition to parks and recreation.

These changes that we are advocating include providing a city forester position in NDS to oversee and enforce all site plans and offer a vision

not a reaction among allied departments to expanding the urban canopy.

In the absence of a forester and NDS to allow the commission to submit advisory comments on upcoming site plans.

This opportunity, which we had been engaged in for a while has not occurred regularly for well over a year, even predating the pandemic.

And lastly, to staff commission meetings with the permanent public work sustainability member in addition to parks and recreation.

to improve into departmental coordination in sustaining and expanding the urban canopy and green infrastructure.

I want to close by leaving you with the image again, next slide, of the challenge of acres of lost canopy.

One of the very many challenges facing our community, but one that we must begin to reverse.

I again thank Council for its time and interest and for its support of the Commission and the city's urban forest and green infrastructure.

Commission looks forward to working with you and city staff to address environmental and social challenges in the coming years.

I'm glad now to answer any questions you might have, if they're technical, to refer them to our city arborist who is with us.

Thank you.

I have one question.

Or just forward a copy of your

of your PowerPoint or whatever.

Sure.

Because what I've got is a five-page state of the urban forest, which was not what you were speaking from.

I agree.

That was my question, too.

It's obviously just kind of startling to kind of see it in the terms of just how big that acreage is.

And

I also shared in the concern when we saw some of those more recent developments taking away some of the more larger, broader canopy trees.

So I appreciate just the outlining and just the specific asks that are coming to Council, which that's why I'm, I like, not like Councilor Smith, sorry, Snook.

Yeah, I'm sorry if there were any confusion that might have caused.

When we send the report, we're sort of looking back at FYI, the previous fiscal year, the presentation would like to include current recommendations.

All right.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

All right, so we are going to adjourn this meeting and go into closed session and return for the regular session at 6 30.

My only comment here is that we may want to consider like a look some time for public comment at this

You know, for this section, if there are citizens on here who may want to speak to matters that may not be able to join us for 630.

There were some comments in the chat, so we may want to give them the opportunity to share.

Can you guys hear me?

I'm sorry, my internet is really weird.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

I just want to clarify because there was some questions around normally in our webinars for council meetings that we don't normally, I've never seen before we've been able to see chats and it happened today and I'm assuming because Mr. Rice got things kicked off and it might have just been a different setup but there was just some concern about someone feeling like they were cut off but I think that the protocols have been that we use public comments.

I agree with Mayor Walker if we should just figure out if we want to have a formal public comment period time during this session because we don't typically receive

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we should figure out some how to balance some time into at least for a few, you know, a few comments.

I don't foresee a lot of people joining.

Maybe they will, but

you know and if there are a large number we can say or if we even want people to register in advance like we do the other meeting which may be the best thing but it may be helpful to have it here too.

I like the idea of the registering advance to talk about the reports since we all we have the opportunity for full public comment

at our normal time, both at the beginning and end of the meeting.

Okay.

All right.

So we will

now go into closed session.

Do we have to read into closed session?

Okay.

Second.

Ms.

I have Mr. Snook down for a second.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Hill?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.