City Council Meeting   4/2/2007

Music playing

Okay I'd like to call tonight's city council meeting to order and first thing is the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Ms. Cox

The first thing on our agenda is announcements and I'm not going to make a couple announcements that pertain to our agenda.

Mr. Lynch?

I hope everyone can be there.

Next is Matters by the Public.

And the first person is Christine Sullivan.

So hopefully council will put this on your agenda and we can have a hearing on it later.

Thank you.

Anne Carter.

Thank you.

Peter Kleeman.

whether we can show, demonstrate that this has benefits to the city and whether we can actually agree in the community that these benefits are worth the investment before we make any non-reversible decisions about moving forward on this project.

I thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you.

Okay.

Their name is Market Central and they are a non-profit, tax-deductible association.

Thank you.

Anyone else who would like to make a comment this evening?

So we ask you to do something about this, and I thank you.

Well, if you'd like to come now, you can do that too.

I emphasize, once car volunteers are gone, they are not coming back.

Counselor responses?

So thank you for coming forward and we will be looking into that.

those decisions have unintended consequences and we need to invest up to the fact sometimes we make mistakes and I think you know we can't we have to relook at the transit development plan that we adopted last fall and I know there was a situation in Johnson Village that we're now working to address and I would add this one to the list if anything we need to be expanding access to transit and not reducing it so I thank you for coming tonight and I hope we can add that one to our list of possible fixes.

Okay, other, Mr. Taliaferro?

Hopefully we'll be able to get that resolved.

I believe that the, was it the last meeting or the one before that, we did talk about having a community meeting to discuss the Fifeville Historic District, although I don't, if you call me I could tell you exactly what it was.

And I'll make sure we have time for everyone to get, all the counselors get back, make sure that's a time that'll work for most of us anyway.

I think for people who are tracking that project, and since it is something that will be happening potentially within the next two years, it would be good if there was a central place where people could go to find all the different information that we have on that project.

Is there anything to be removed from this consent agenda or are there any amendments to the minutes?

because we already have more than twice as many laptops as we have cruisers on the street at any given time.

Mr. Connell, would you like to kind of sum up where we are on this for people?

And so the first item of business unless there are questions at this point is the public hearing on the actual proposed budget that's in front of council tonight.

Are there any questions for clarification of the city manager?

If not, I'll go ahead and open the public hearing and I'll ask Diane Taylor to come speak first.

and I really want to encourage you to take a long hard look at our request and if you have any questions to please feel that you can get in touch with me.

We hope you'll support us and I thank you for your consideration.

Bonnie Carr.

We thank you for your leadership and look forward to continuing to work with you in the months and years ahead.

Thank you very much.

Osman plays for C41, and he has a couple things he'd like to say.

Hi, my name is Cosma Asah and I come from Somalia and I play soccer and I go to Giffords school and I'm good at soccer and I like to play soccer.

Thank you very much.

Donata Jamina

Thank you.

Dan, I want you to know that I let Ms. Tremina go on a little long knowing I could tell you to keep it short.

Have you ever known me to keep it short, Dave?

Paul Reynolds.

and as you deliberate, please keep in mind those of us who are starting to strangle on the tax burden, you are now considering increasing by another 11 to 14%.

Thank you.

Richard Berman.

Mark Cabot.

things that are taking place and the conversations that people are having.

Carrie Taylor.

I feel that First Night Virginia is a tradition worthy of our support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's pretty impressive.

Let me just put that over there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Charomina Rojas.

Gracias.

Katrina Sams,

Please fully fund that request.

Van Dyke.

Thank you.

Charles Weber.

You're over by a minute and a half.

But you were on a roll, so I didn't stop you.

I had some more to say than that.

Next is Joy Johnson.

And one of our interns, Tina Washington, is going to present it.

Mayor Brown, this is for you.

And I truly thank you.

Kevin Simowitz.

So thanks for your economic, your political, and your moral leadership as we move towards a living wage for the city.

Anyone else who would like to speak on the budget?

At this time next year, I hope Council will present us with a budget that the citizens and their representatives on Council helped to prepare from the ground up.

Anyone else like to make a comment?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anyone else like to make a comment?

Thank you very much for listening.

So those are my sort of general comments and I'd be glad to have someone else offer some if they like.

The Living Wage Campaign at UVA, one of the real highlights of my campaign for city council was standing on the steps of Madison Hall and cheering on the brave souls who were sitting in and taking a real stand and putting their own futures, academic futures and employment futures at risk because of what they believe and I want to thank you all for your leadership on that issue and please keep up the pressure so we can see this movement take hold elsewhere as well.

Any other comments?

I might ask actually that when we look at the tax levy and the budget appropriation that we might reverse those two because it's difficult to talk about what the tax rate is going to be without having any discussion about what's going to be in the budget.

I think we could sort of talk about it together and then

Mr. Mayor, I hope later on we can take a look at that.

So thank you for coming tonight and stay tuned.

Do you have any comment generally or would you like to maybe talk just a little bit about the tax levy, the budget appropriation and then we'll get to a more general discussion.

It gets a little more complicated, so I guess as we began discussing if you have particular items, some of those other kind of issues may come up because that's the complexities of a budget, like it or not.

Kevin, do you want to go first?

And I think if we get lucky with how things break with the state and with our working with the county we might be able to do another cent or two better.

We should strive to knock some more cents off the tax rate and whether there's any agreement with some of Kevin's ideas.

I think that I might disagree with some of the specifics of the places that you want to take it from, but I think that we should definitely strive to knock two, if not three cents off the tax rate.

Okay, other comments?

I would just reiterate my position from earlier tonight which is I would like to see us target some of the tax, the cost savings that we're looking to find here tonight and the next week towards continuing to expand the size of our tax rebate program which affects those middle class taxpayers who through a one penny reduction on the tax may get 30 bucks in their pocket and through a tax rebate we can get substantially more savings for them.

Or is that over 30 years?

But it obviously is your choice as to which ones and how much.

I really feel that we can address the principle tonight, but to actually do the hard work of going through this item by item and fighting it out is really the thing that we have to do in the work session.

you know tomorrow to the city manager by email any things we'd like to see prepared to discuss as ideas for places we could make cuts in order to further lower the tax rate.

Commercial assessments have only gone up on average 6% in the city of Charlottesville.

at least the next decade until the baby boomers retire and frankly die off and we don't have to pay their pensions.

You can.

You just cannot go above 99 cents without going back and re-advertising and having another public hearing.

So is there further discussion or does someone want to move these two?

So you've got both ends of that spectrum to look at.

The ordinance and the appropriation.

I move that we set the annual tax levy at 94 cents.

So would you say that you're moving the ordinance with the change that we're changing?

Yeah, that's basically, and to keep all other taxes.

The ordinance that you need to move and second tonight is part of your council agenda materials and it sets four rates.

Three, public service corporation properties.

And four, machinery and tools.

Okay.

I'll repeat my motion of 94 cents for the real estate rate keeping the other taxes the same.

I'll second.

Okay, to go down three cents.

We'll make a valiant effort.

Is that the process here?

Yes sir, and you can amend it.

So you might want to think about the approach of how you want to deal with that.

We can't go above the 99?

If there's any more, if there's any more deliberation that will be as public as possible.

I would anticipate we've come to a decision on exactly what things we want to take out of the budget and that'll dictate where we end up with the tax rate and so I think to some degree that the final vote you know maybe it may not be a unanimous but it should be somewhat decided by virtually the results of the work session.

Is that what people are on the calendar?

Mr. O'Connell or Mr. Brown?

Carried over to a second reading.

Then you can amend it on the second reading before the changes you come up with.

So for right now we could just move the budget that's currently before us with the idea that we're going to amend it at the work session.

and reducing the contribution or reducing the budget for enhanced emergency services by $500,000.

Okay.

Can I make a substitute motion?

There's no second.

There should be a second before there's either a substitute motion or a motion to amend.

Alright, looks like you're going to make your substantive motion.

I object to that motion just on the grounds that it preempts the conversation that we're talking about having on Wednesday, so.

Okay, so there's no second, so is there another motion?

Make that a motion.

Okay.

Short one, right?

The neighborhood

Thank you.

Probably see it better.

the city's desires in as much detail as we can.

Bonnie Riley.

We understand that the city has final approval over our roadways and we are hopeful that the excellent design laid out by the Fry Springs neighborhood design team will be chosen.

I'd like to, before Adrienne starts, I'd like to thank Adrienne and the next speaker, Michael Petrus, for their work in bringing this forward because I think they took it upon themselves to see if there wasn't a better idea and they came up with one.

And I have a letter from another resident who wasn't able to make it tonight for the record.

Michael Petras.

I'd like to thank the several members of the council for their support.

Please talk.

Thank you.

John Szentoski?

Thank you.

Close the public hearing and open it to council discussion.

And so if Mr. Salehi's take is that we would be better served by going that route, then I think that we should take that advice.

Other discussion?

But that was really, we should remind them that that was their idea.

So, thank you.

Jim said he'd be glad with that.

I mean, I think sometimes with VDOT you have to be a little prescriptive.

But I certainly intend that we be really clear on what it is we're asking for.

and I said during the construction, but the design itself should have bike lanes and you can make an argument for going wider than your standard five-foot sidewalk and, you know, should have as wide a sidewalk as possible or something to that effect just because there's so much pedestrian traffic down at that part of town.

Okay, so could someone make a motion just summing up the feeling of councils for this?

I think Mr. Lynch should make the motion in view of all the hard work that he's done on this.

They require assistance from us in maintaining pedestrian access and bicycle access that we would be willing to work with them to help expedite that part of the project.

Hearing none, I'll call for a vote on the motion.

Okay.

Amy Kilroy.

I'm happy to answer any questions, and Ms. McKeever, the chair of the task force, is here as well, if you have any questions for her.

What is that exactly?

I'll double check that for you.

We're just not calling it that anymore?

Got it.

Are we going to have to appropriate this and then in order to make the swap or?

The number keeps coming down.

Assuming you don't take that money out of the CIP Wednesday night.

So we're doing better.

And so if we don't spend it at the housing authority, I guess the question is where are we going to spend it and don't we have some time limits on one that has to be spent?

The water line on Charlton?

need to be spending a fair amount of that money by May.

Correct.

The PVCC bridge from GED to college, can you just comment on that, somebody, a little bit?

And it helps you enroll in college too.

Great.

There's also a computer education class that goes with that to get them familiar with computer software as well as the internet.

Any other questions?

I move the appropriation.

Second.

Are there two resolutions, or just, we need to do two?

Okay, is there a second?

Okay, so this will carry over till next time.

Thank you.

the technical people from the policy group could also include the Association of Volunteer Fire Departments and include any other stakeholders that the first group might identify as being important when you have technical discussions of response times and standards and how to put this all together.

I just want to make sure the medical directors get somewhere in the mix when they start looking.

an oversight group that has more non-technical people on it that represent the community and then the oversight group and then a technical group that would actually spend the time talking about identifying what are the response time standards, what's the data we need to evaluate how we're doing, what are the policy choices we could take, and then if there's issues that arise from the technical side, areas of disagreement, those issues can be brought up to the oversight group.

It's wrong.

and so I would love to have community representation on a group that was more technical, but I don't know that, you know, the delegate, for example, needs to be on an oversight board.

And it's a way to answer the questions of exactly what are the problems and kind of give some direction.

I mean, there's a resource problem, there's a leadership problem, and I think the way that's being proposed here tonight I think addresses this.

I guess I question why a chamber person would be on there, because I see the other, the need for the other folks, but generally they tend to represent the commercial building and real estate interests, which I just don't see the connection.

I think they came up today at the meeting.

And I kind of think somebody in the business community should be involved in it, in all honesty.

I just am curious.

And I think...