City Council Meeting   5/17/2021

I think everybody's here.

I'll call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Thomas, would you do roll call, please?

Present.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Councillor Hill?

Here.

I move to approve the agenda as is.

All right, Ms.

Mayor Walker.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

I actually have an announcement from Mr. Alex Zahn to announce the 2021 Help List Award winners.

Charlottesville, Virginia, the seventh annual Alex Zanz My Help List contest winners have been chosen.

The contest is a thinking, writing, reading activity for students K through 12 in Charlottesville and the surrounding counties.

Students shared their thoughts on the importance of helping others and five things they have or can do to help someone.

This year's winners are Andrew Scott, first grader in Charlottesville Elementary School, Selah Powell, fourth grader at an Albemarle Elementary School, Kelsey Bryan, seventh grader at a local Charlottesville private school, and Bernice Edwards, a tenth grader at the Charlottesville High School.

The winners all received a $100 cash prize and were awarded

on Thursday, the 13th of May.

Yes, congratulations.

Congratulations.

Are there any other announcements?

We have one proclamation today.

It's a provider appreciation day, which was on May 7th.

It's, whereas Child Care Aware of America and other organizations nationwide are recognizing child care providers on this day, and whereas an estimated 12.8 million children under the age of six nationwide

spend some time in a non-parental care arrangement on a weekly basis, which provides critical enrichment opportunities and nurtures development for children of all backgrounds and is a vital building block of our state economy.

And whereas childcare providers, mostly women and many women of color have long been essential to families in our community and our local economy with little recognition of their labor and skills.

and whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has created tremendous hardships for child care providers during a global pandemic and an economic crisis in addition to a national reckoning on race and whereas child care providers in the greater Charlottesville area have continued to meet the needs of families in their centers and homes while risking their health and financial stability to remain open

and whereas childcare providers in centers and family day homes stepped in to support children in remote learning situations doing all they could to provide space and support for school age children.

And whereas our future depends on quality of early childhood experiences provided to young children today, high quality early childcare services represent a worthy commitment to our children's future.

Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Nikuyah Walker, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim May 7th, 2021 as Provider Appreciation Day in Charlottesville, Virginia, and urge all citizens to recognize childcare providers for their important work.

And, okay.

Hi, Melissa.

Thank you, Mayor Walker, and good evening, City Council.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

My name is Melissa Cohen.

I'm here on behalf of the Growing Minds team at Ready Kids, which serves and partners with a broad network of child care and preschool providers in the greater Charlottesville area.

Thank you so much for recognizing and celebrating the hard work of child care providers in our community.

The COVID crisis has highlighted even more the importance of child care for children, working parents and employers.

Providers have shown up every day for families as essential workers and as a nurturing presence for our kids and families.

Child care providers are unsung heroes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselors, are there any comments?

Okay.

All right.

Next up, we have the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent agenda, one, minutes.

March 15, closed and regular meetings.

March 25, budget work session.

April 13, special meeting.

April 27, joint work session with police civilian review board.

April 29, special meeting.

Number two, Appropriation, Supplemental Appropriation of State Operational Funding for Charlottesville Area Transit, $265,025.

Second reading.

Three, Appropriation, Virginia Department of Education Special Nutrition Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, $25,000.

Second reading.

Four, Appropriation, Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, CARES Act Round Two, Funding for Utility Customer Bill Arrearage Assistance, $15,766.58.

Second reading.

Five, Resolution CARES Funds for City Hall Ambassador Program, $46,000.

One reading.

Six, Resolution, Fourth, Amended Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program, CSRAP, Grant Agreement.

One reading.

Seven, Ordinance, Establishing a Grant Program to Promote and Preserve Home Ownership by Low and Moderate Income Persons within the City of Charlottesville.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you're in the audience in the Zoom webinar and you'd like to address counsel, please click the raise hand icon.

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

This is just for the items on the consent agenda.

Okay, thank you.

So before the motion, I would like to see if we can pull number six and discuss that as item nine.

Second.

Okay.

And I have some questions just on number five.

So this is for the City Hall Ambassadors Program, and so that would be four

Staff members, and that is, when is that scheduled to end?

Yes.

Hi, Mayor Walker.

So these are staffing from an outside agency.

It's a new contract that Human Resources and Procurement just finalized.

It's not in addition to any of the staff that were previously there.

Okay.

That's the current plan.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Ms.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Yes.

Councilor Hill?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

That carries five zero.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

A number of things just to update everyone on.

I am pleased to announce and a formal announcement will be coming out later this week that after a very large search process,

We have offered and had a candidate accept the deputy city manager of operations.

He'll be bringing some extensive knowledge in the areas of affordable housing, community development, as well as small business development.

He's currently the executive director of a community development corporation in a disadvantaged neighborhood of about 35,000 people

in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

So more information will be coming out this week.

I'm also very happy to announce that after a national search, we have promoted Ms.

Sue Moffitt to the Director of Social Services within the city.

Sue's been with the city for a number of years and most recently serving many years as the Assistant Director of DSS.

Director of the Police Civilian Review Board applications are now under review for an interview list a panel consisting of city staff and PCRB members as well as community members will begin interviews in about a week or so we had I think 64 applicants for that position

The Director of Human Rights, the application period closed last Friday with over 25 applications received for that position.

We're currently reviewing now to get to an interview list and the actual interviews there will be at least two to three weeks out going through that process.

Hopefully some of you were able to attend the city market on Saturday.

We opened to in-person sales with offering drive-through as well as the in-person.

The number of vendors were half of what is normal, but was still a fairly good turnout and just glad to have that back.

And with the new state regulations, we'll continue to expand those offerings in June.

We received a number of calls and emails on Friday and over the weekend regarding Midway Manor apartments here in downtown that have seen their elevators not working.

They have two elevators and both are inoperable.

Our staff

got right on that Friday afternoon contacted the state reviewed for any types of regulations that we may have that would cover that of which we don't but we did contact the property owners who said that they were waiting on parts for the repairs and we also contacted the state who oversees the licensing of elevators

So hopefully that will get repaired soon.

And we did make recommendations to the property owners to accommodate the families that this caused a hardship on the best that they could.

All that we could really do was encourage that, but we did try to do that.

We've also very recently, based on some articles in the press, have received a number of inquiries regarding Jaunt and some of the recent financial transactions.

So we'll be setting up a meeting there and very likely we'll ask Jaunt to come and do a presentation to the Mayor and Council

on where they are in their transition process and as well as answer any questions that you may have regarding those articles.

We're finally getting more guidance on the American

Rescue Plan, we have gotten what I feel is final confirmation that we will be receiving the 19 plus million dollars for both metropolitan city as well as the county services that we provide.

We're also Treasury is putting out regularly the regulations as part of the final rule and one of the things that we have relayed to you but wanted to relay to the public too is originally we thought that there would be a lot more flexibility with these funds

but they really are getting closer to what the original care requirements were so that almost all of the funds do have to be used for a direct COVID type expenditure.

The two flexible areas that is different with these funds is we can use these funds to offset past revenue losses during the COVID period

and we can also use for capital expenses in the areas of water, sewer or broadband.

But other than that, these funds have to be tied to some type of COVID expenses.

Our staff is putting together an inquiry form right now so that we can begin to take letters of interest from both departments and community stakeholders

so that they could identify what they would use the funds for, how that would be tied to alleviate and mitigate COVID expenses, and a time frame, which we have known from the beginning all funds of the ARP have to be spent by the end of December in 2024.

So we're continuing to push that forward.

We should receive our first payment, which is proposed to be half of the funding this coming week.

And then we would receive the other half a year from now.

Just two reminders for dates.

May 25th we'll have a workshop on the 7th Street parking garage or parking spaces in relation to the courts project with Albemarle County.

And then May 26th right now we have a proposed joint school board meeting regarding the reconfiguration project.

And that's what I have right now.

Thank you.

Next up, we have community matters.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you'd like to address council on any topic, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

If you're watching via Facebook or BoxCast, you can join us on the webinar

by visiting charlottesville.gov slash Zoom.

You can register there and get into this portion of the meeting.

We have about 16 people in the audience.

We have one hand up right now, and that's Tanisha Hudson.

Can you all hear me?

Okay.

A few things I wanted to bring up.

One, I know Parks and Rec is reopening.

The pools and the registration required, actually pool, let me not say that with an S because it's not pool.

Think about registration process, please, Chip.

When you think about kids who are going to walk up just to try to get in with any of the parks and rec services,

when you think about a reservation process, you need to think about kids being kids.

Kids are going to want to go to the gym to shoot hoops.

Kids are going to want to show up at the swimming pool to go swimming.

Not all kids are going to register online and do the reservation process.

So make sure you want to think about that.

Number two,

I wanted to bring up, Heather was on the Rob Schilling Show talking about the uptick in gun violence.

Listen, I don't know what type of community we run here at the end of the day.

How dare you all question or talk about uptick in gun violence when we yet as a community to address the drug use and the drug issues that we face in Charlottesville, whether it's an opioid issue affecting the middle class white communities or whether it's an issue of drugs affecting low income communities.

You don't have the police, the sheriff's department,

any of the health officials or anybody addressing the uptick and whether it's prescription pills or illegal drugs, you've yet to put any of that on 360.

So that's something that you need to talk about too when you want to be progressive and proactive with community is you have to discuss these type of things.

and have the people who specialize in this type of stuff.

I've been begging Joe Platania, the police department, to at least have a conversation live for the city to address drug use.

We've seen overdoses happen in the city that police have responded to.

And last but not least, the last thing that I want to address is people are still leaving from city hall, but I see that there's been no articles put in the newspaper about it.

See, it's the picking and choosing for me and I'm tired of bringing that to your attention that you all want to report and drop certain, you know, little clues to the media around here when it's black leadership.

on the state.

We're not going to keep playing that game.

Chip, this new dude, is he black or white?

You didn't share that with the public.

You said it's the man.

Is the man black, white, Indian, what?

What is he?

We want to know.

That's being transparent.

So again, we talk about being open, transparent, inclusive, and being fair.

That's not what y'all doing.

So get it together, please.

Anyone else, if you'd like to address Council, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

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

There will be one other opportunity at the end of the meeting for matters by the public.

We have one new hand up now.

Tom Gathers, you're on with Council.

Good evening, everyone.

I hope everyone's doing well.

I'm glad to hear that you all have addressed the issue of the elevators over at Midway Manor.

I don't know if we would need to contact the Human Rights Division or Human Services, but those people over there desperately need some help and some assistance.

It's not fair for them to be in the situation that they're in.

And it's my understanding that they have been waiting on one of the elevators to be repaired since July of last year.

And the constant refrain is that they're waiting on part to come in.

Well, there's no manufacturer in the world that it takes practically a year to get a part from.

That's just not acceptable at all.

I don't know.

just for the sake of argument, you could melt down a statue or something here in town and create a part out of it if necessary in a year's time.

So that's just not feasible.

There's just something that has to be done to help our elderly community in this time of need.

God forbid there's a real health crisis or health emergency in that building and we're not able to reasonably get

people up or down from the floor.

So I would appreciate that you all continue to stay on top of that.

Don't buy the excuses that the people who run the place are giving because that's all that they are at this point.

Next up is Nancy Carpenter.

Thank you and good evening.

I appreciate Mr. Gatter's comments about Midway Manor.

I've also been one of those folks trying to call Bush Construction Corporation, who is the general partner, the only general partner of the limited liability Midway Manor Associates who are listed in your tax records as the owners.

And of course, they didn't do me the courtesy of calling back.

And you're right.

These folks have been without an elevator that fits a gurney because the one elevator that was operational was not big enough to fit a gurney.

So thank God there has not been any type of medical emergency that would warrant the use of that with first responders.

And I will say a shout out to Lowe's and Fishes because they were out there over the weekend doing their deliveries and they actually went up to the individual apartments and delivered

the food bags where they normally probably would have left them down in the lobby.

So thank you to those folks for doing that.

And you're right, this is the only private apartment building for seniors and disabled in our community.

And I know that it's limited for what you all can do.

But I think leaning into VHDA, who has the mortgage, I heard from somebody earlier,

from there today that they were going to look into it.

I think the fire department was out there over the weekend and even I think our local delegate to the General Assembly was out there this weekend.

I mean you know this is reminiscent of the Crescent Hall's fiasco several summers ago when you know the heating or excuse me the cooling system failed but at least those folks could go up and down the elevator to get out of the building.

and get some relief from the heat.

Right now there are folks who are literally not able to do their average daily

You know, life experiences of sometimes getting fresh air, taking a little walk.

Jaunt has been, people have been impacted from getting to jaunt to go to appointments.

So I think that we need to rally around these folks as well and try and lean in on this owner and the mortgage company to, you know, I mean, my God, do we have to do a GoFundMe to get a truck to go out to wherever the, you know, manufacturer is to pick up

let the park get it.

I mean, like Mr. Gather said, melt a statue and make a park.

If there's anyone else who'd like to address council, now's the time to click the raise hand icon.

Next up is Walt Heineke.

Walt, you're on with council.

Everyone's well.

and inoculated.

I was just listening to the to the PCRB meeting this last week.

And I think I heard a comment that said that there wasn't much appetite on council for a very strong ordinance that reflected what this the state legislature has enabled for

for investigatory powers as well as disciplinary powers.

And I just really want to encourage you to get that appetite.

We've been waiting around for this since 2017.

And in the first go around with this, the ordinance got watered down.

And so we now have another bite at the apple to make this the strongest possible ordinance to serve our community and protect our community into the future across a lot of different officials that are going to be in your place and in the chief of police spot for a long time going forward.

So I really would like to see some leadership on council

urging the PCRB to enable the strongest possible model allowed by the state.

And I know that you all have to do due diligence and I've heard you do your due diligence.

There's a difference between doing due diligence and looking for excuses to torpedo a policy.

and sometimes I said I can't sense where we are on that line.

But I want to encourage you to think about where we were after 2017 and to think about the possibilities of creating a truly sort of model, you know, a model for the rest of the state and the rest of the country to follow when thinking about creating

a police civilian review board that has very strong civilian oversight, disciplinary powers, and investigatory powers.

I think the state legislature did their due diligence.

They thought about these things.

There may be a few little glitches to work out, but overall, I would love to see a commitment by counsel

Mayor Walker, if I could, can I just, on the Midway Manor issue, I just want to, we brought this up at previous council meetings and it's separate from the elevator, but it calls it to mind and I think it's important to bring up, it's just,

When John Sayles was housing coordinator, he identified a list of LIHTC properties.

And Midway Manor was at the top in terms of risk of displacement, in terms of the affordability period.

Once that's over, the developer will have the opportunity to sell it and do whatever they want with it.

They could evict everyone, make it into luxury housing and make enormous profits.

I think that bigger context is worth keeping in mind as these issues come up.

And from both council in the community's perspective, that affordability period will end in a couple years.

And I do think now is the time to really be watching it and to be thinking about

What, if anything, can we do proactively with a land bank or a land strike fund to prevent any chance that the individuals in that property are evicted once the low income housing tax credit period ends?

And I won't say, I'm not saying that this is necessarily what's happening here, but when you look at New York City and other states, there are low income housing tax credit properties that when affordability periods are coming up towards their end,

Maintenance is intentionally avoided in order to create as poor living conditions as possible to encourage people to leave in anticipation of selling it and rehabbing it to turn it into luxury housing.

All right, thank you.

All right, councilors, any comments?

And just to think, I know it's little, you know, that staff could do, but every time that I've reached out to NDS, too, about an issue at Midway Manor, and it's been these two elevators over the last few months,

there's been an immediate response.

I wish there was more that we could do, but it's really limited.

But according to Ms.

Carey, the telephone calls and the contact has been, you know, she feels like there's more movement than there was in the past.

So that's a good thing.

Okay.

We have the public hearing appropriation, so the Belmont Bridge replacement project.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Jeanette Janicek.

I'm the UCI Program Manager for the City of Charlottesville for the Department of Public Works.

As Mayor Walker said, I'm looking for a state appropriation of state funds for $4,280,739.

That would raise the project budget to $35,380,782.

We advertised the invitation for bid back in January 15th, 2021.

We had a non-mandatory pre-bid meeting on February.

Also many questions resulting in five addendums issued on this invitation for bid.

As a result, we had a bid opening on March 17th and we received six bids.

The lowest responsible bid can be awarded with existing project funds.

However, there is a need for additional funding of this $4.2 million to cover the contingency, construction inspection services, VDOT oversight, as well as utility relocation.

Our first step was looking at the bid, comparing it against our engineer's estimate as well as the other bids and we identified six primary areas where there was a difference in our cost and that was the retaining wall treatment, lighting, precast girders for the bridge, bridge demolition, temporary shoring as well as the steel girders.

Looking at that, we were noticing not only were the material costs just much more expensive, and we do believe that this is related to the pandemic, whether it's supply chain production or just simply inflation, that we're seeing an increase in material costs.

We're also seeing an increase in labor costs as well, that there is more work than there is skilled labor, resulting in higher costs.

So, we did a detailed bid analysis and we have submitted that to VDOT and they have concurred with our findings that this is indeed a good bid.

To ensure that we are being responsible with the public dollar, we looked at ways that we could possibly lower the cost.

And lowering the cost

would result in large changes in the project, whether that is removing the new pedestrian underpass, removing the knuckle or the enhanced pedestrian access structure, which is the additional bridge connecting the mainline bridge to the pavilion downtown area, removing one staircase or multiple staircases, removing the retaining wall treatment,

or indeed foreclosure of 9th or Avon.

Any of these options would result in us having to rebid the project.

This adds at least the years in time, but most importantly, it doesn't fulfill the commitments that we've made to the public as well as the Board of Architectural Review.

So, we were not recommending that.

In, meanwhile, contingent, we're also working with the Virginia Department of Transportation.

and after about a month and a half, they were able to identify additional state funding from the State of Good Repair Local Bridge Fund that would allow us another 4.2 million, essentially.

And if you are okay with this appropriation, which would require a second reading at your next meeting, we have multiple steps that we still need to complete.

So we have the notice to award we need to do.

We need to start the contract execution.

We need to conduct a pre-construction meeting.

We need to secure permits.

So, basically, we would be, if the appropriation was to go forward, we'd be looking at construction as early as the end of June of this year.

And then, in addition, we're also proposing to hold another public meeting, and that is when we have the contractor schedule that would, while we have an MOT, maintenance of traffic plan, while we have a sequence of construction plan,

included in the invitation for bid.

We're not sure if the contractor is going to agree to that or if they have some alternative methods that they would like us to consider.

So, once they submit their baseline schedule, we'll release that to the public and let people know what to expect during construction, how to contact us, how we're going to have at least monthly updates.

We're probably going to have weekly traffic alerts and just who to contact in case they have any questions.

Are there any assurances or things to help ensure there aren't additional cost overruns?

So, once we execute the contract, we lock in the pricing for, oh, gosh, at least six pages of different items.

So, it is normal during construction to underrun some items and overrun other items.

That price is secure.

And then we have now a contingency fund, which that 4.2 is funding, that if there were indeed any change orders, that too would be covered.

But there is, it's,

It's very regulated.

We would have to do an independent cost analysis, review that against any contractor, change in price, if there was a change in the method of work, if there's something under in the ground that we're not aware of that would be a change condition.

So, we should be covered with the 4.2 contingents for $4.2 million state appropriation that allows for a 10 percent contingency fund.

And the idea is to not spend all that money, just so you know.

And Council, I'd like to add, if I can, a concern that I have is that if this project is delayed, we're already seeing very substantial inflationary projections into the near future.

If President Biden's infrastructure package that's in Congress is approved, you will see

just multiple fold of capital projects underway.

This had to be rebid.

I would say that we would end up with less product and at least the same amount, if not more, of the cost.

OK, thank you.

And I think it's important to just this is an example of just the delays that projects can go through and how that increase the costs.

And ultimately, we end up in the same place of having a need that needs to be fulfilled.

So hopefully in on future projects, council, staff, the community can come to decision point.

a little bit quicker and hopefully save.

I know a lot of people are struggling with the material, increase in material costs for construction projects at this time.

And we're having very similar conversations about schools and parking garages and housing.

So that's the only point I have at this point, but we'll open it up if the other counselors don't have comments for the public hearing.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you'd like to speak in the public hearing on the Belmont Bridge replacement project, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

We have one hand up.

It's Don Gathers.

I apologize.

I didn't realize that my hand up icon was listed.

I didn't want to speak.

No problem.

Last call for any participants in the public hearing.

Thank you.

No, thank you, Jeanette.

Okay, and there's a no vote tonight, so this item will move for the June 7th consent agenda.

Thank you.

Fourth Amendment, Charlottesville Supplemental Rental System.

And this was moved to item number nine from the Consent Agenda based on a conversation that we had during our report section of the meeting tonight that we had at four.

Thank you, Mayor.

Let me say thank you mostly to Lisa and Brenda who took this and ran with it between the four o'clock meeting and now to take a look at the I believe it was three items that you asked us to look at was moving the the rental the fair rental market

amounts from currently at 110% of the average median income for city properties to 125 and for county properties to 100%.

I believe that was item number one.

The second was to look at the reserve that's used to protect the tenants throughout the program.

And the final was a payment of security deposit to the landlords.

I believe those were the three items.

Thank you.

I can help out.

I know Brenda is on the meeting, but has been out of town, so I'll try to tackle it.

My first question during the break was whether or not the need to identify 125% of market rent, the need for council to prove that,

related to some exception that needs to be clarified from the normal voucher program regulations.

And if that's the case, if you all note in your packet, there is one other location within the grant agreement where we've identified a circumstance that you want the cease route money to

to go towards that had to be identified as an exception to the normal HUD rules and regulations in the voucher program administration.

So if the need to have 125% voted on by council is because it's a departure from the normal

voucher program rules, then that's certainly something that you can approve.

And what we would do after you vote is add that into section three of the agreement, which is on page five of the document or page 48 of your council agenda packet.

And we'll just add that in before we sign off on it altogether.

The second issue relating to the reserve is that a number of years ago the reserve was established and referenced within the CSRAP grant agreement for the purpose of protecting tenants and

The thought was that in the event that the program money ran out for a given fiscal year, if this reserve had been established, even if you couldn't accept new applications, people currently in the units would be able to stay currently in supported units would be able to stay for an additional period of time.

I wanted to so

The requirement for reserve is in the agreement that's in front of you tonight.

and has been for a number of years.

If you would like to delete the requirement for a reserve, you can.

But I don't think we need to.

Brenda indicated to me that she believes that the reserve is currently funded.

So it should not be the case that the dollar amounts you're approving tonight will go to make up a reserve.

It's my understanding that while the reserve was not funded as required by the grant agreement at some points in the past, it is back up to being funded at this point in time.

And then the third issue, which is the payment of security deposit to landlords.

It is fun to do that and include that as part of this agreement if you would like to, but most like the 125% rule, if that's something you specifically want to authorize this pot of money to do, we will need to add that into the grant agreement because currently the grant agreement that's in front of you says specifically that it's for tenant-based housing assistance

and if the security deposits are to be paid directly to the landlord, that's more in the nature of a subsidy to the landlord.

And while that's fine for you to do it, we just want to, as is, the C-SRAP money to be used for that purpose.

And so, I think those were the three categories.

All right.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think in terms of I think we were at the number with Mr. Sale said they could help three more families

They would not be able to assist three families, but would be able to help 25 families with either the security deposit or bonus to landlords.

And for me, when we talk about the evaluation of these programs, I think I would like to think about this a little bit more because

if this is back I think to the conversation of whether we give some families more you know and then 122 families on the waiting list so I would want to add three more families to that but would like to figure out how to

how to add more money so that it doesn't become a either help families more holistically or there are three families in the future who may not get help at all attempting to be more holistic.

So that's just my thought about the third one.

I hope we can add the 120, the 125%.

I may have some questions around whether we should lower it to 100% if something else comes up in the county that meets that 110%, but that's my only other question there.

And I guess the reserve question has been answered for me.

I apologize.

So if I recall, CRHA

proposed a program that we paid some money into for assistance with security deposits and a landlord.

That's what it was called.

I don't know if Brenda is available to speak or not.

I know that originally it was spoken of as a separate program, but I don't know if that was it must have been separately funded or it must have been contemplated to be separately funded because since the CSRAP program was established,

This is Brenda Kelly.

So the landlord risk reduction program was previously approved by city council a couple of years ago.

And the city council allocated $75,000 to go towards that program.

We're still trying to kind of determine if that money is still sitting in the CAF to be able to be used.

But what the holdup was moving forward with that was we needed to issue a competitive procurement process to get someone on board to administer that program.

So, you know, we've had little issues with staff and moving forward with that.

So that has not moved forward at this time.

I believe also, Councilor McGill, that CRHA received some other funding.

I don't know if it was CARES funding or some other funding they got, I believe over the summer that they were able to assist with security deposits.

I think John Sales was talking about that at the four o'clock meeting.

So that was separate funding that they got from some other source

not the city.

What I was thinking was if we already have a program in place for

Security Deposits and Landlord Risk Reduction.

We could do that.

However, I want to point out to you that if you do that, the Landlord Risk Reduction Program was intended to incentivize landlords to take vouchers that previously haven't been doing that or rent out units at an affordable rate, where what Mr. Sales was talking about is

in order to kind of help the CSREP program along if they could have a fund available specifically for landlords to accept the CSREP program.

And I think towards Brenda, so the first program is to be for vouchers.

So just keep in mind, though, that

This landlord risk reduction program was set up some time ago.

And since then, you now have a new state law that doesn't allow people to discriminate in terms of the source of funds for which rent will be paid.

And so long story short, you

So first thing we you should figure out and Brenda says everybody's trying to review this is whether or not there is money that you previously allocated for landlord risk reduction that's sitting out there somewhere because if it is

It would be easy enough to simply do a separate grant agreement for that money and have it come back to you and have CRHA manage that in conjunction with CSRAP.

So if there's already money that's out there that was previously allocated, but we're trying to figure out sort of where it's sitting, then that means that money, you know, you won't have to use the CSRAP money

in a different way than you originally intended.

If that money's not there, then you may or may not want to use a portion of the CSRAP money identified in this particular grant agreement, you know, to fund that type of program.

You may or may not.

So it's up to you, but it seems like, you know,

The issue, there's two issues.

And one is whether there actually already is money allocated and it just needs to be tracked down.

And second, who's going to administer the security deposit program?

Okay.

So I think for tonight, unless there are different thoughts about that, if we can add the up to 125% for the fair market rents for the city,

then that should be very helpful to attempt to keep families in this program able to rent within the city limits.

Lisa, Ms.

Robertson said in section three on page five of the current agreement.

Yeah, so the way this agreement was set up was that it's tenant-based assistance and it's supposed to sort of be in addition to, it's supposed to be administered generally in accordance with the same requirements of the Housing Choice Voucher Program, but to whatever extent the city wants this money to be available for things that

that the HUD rules and regulations might or might not allow.

It's my understanding, at least on one previous occasion, we wanted to make it clear that you could allow for single room housing that might not otherwise meet HUD rules and regulations.

You could allow for the money to be used in connection with one of those units.

So if the purpose of having the vote on the 125% is to allow this money to be applied to certain units that the HUD regulations wouldn't normally allow it to be used for, such as those that go for rents that are a certain percentage above market rate, then if you want to add the 125% reference as an exception to what would normally be the Housing Choice Voucher Program rules,

we would just put that reference in section three after you vote on this tonight.

Yeah, and I'm not sure why that is.

Maybe we've been doing some unspoken things, but if we put it in here, then it will be clear for any audit or any other thing that we've allowed it to be used for that.

That was 100%, is that right?

Yeah, HUD guidelines are 100%, not 110%.

So I don't know where 110% ever came from.

We should probably put that in as well for the outlying counties if we're accepting 110%.

Hey, counselors, good afternoon now, evening.

So the HUD guidelines give housing authorities the authorization to use 110% FMR when you're in a high-rent district.

So housing

Thursday does that now.

So we have been using 110% for CISRAP as well, because that is part of the HCV guidelines through HUD.

So what I was requesting earlier was to move city residents to 125% to catch a little more residents that live in the city.

So more money is being spent in the city that the city is providing.

and removing the 110 for the county will not negatively impact anyone that's currently leased with a city assistance through the CISRAP program.

So not at the moment, it won't affect anyone.

Okay.

We can write that in.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then the, I'm not clear on where the $75,000 is, but I guess staff will be giving us an update on whether that's even available and then we can have a future discussion about what to do with that.

Yeah, I do think it's really important that we are looking for security deposit help.

I know

All right.

All right.

I move we approve the fourth amended grant agreement for the Charlottesville supplemental rental assistance program with the changes

outline a council this evening with adjustments to FMR levels.

All right, Ms.

Thomas.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McGill.

Yes.

Councillor Hill.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

That carries 5-0.

The only other things we talked about was just making sure that council has information they need as we prepare for the joint session with the school board.

And it sounds like we're going to try to use our

And that's the .

Yeah, sorry, yeah.

Okay.

Any questions from councilors about that?

No?

Okay.

Any other business?

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

We still have 17 people in the audience.

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

You can also press star nine if you're on via telephone.

as we're waiting for a few hands to go up.

I never thought like whatever last month we'd be breaking that record.

Don't.

I'm sorry, not trying to drink anything.

We're done.

All right.

Counselors, any nothing?

All right.

Good night.

Thank you, everyone.