City Council Meeting   11/5/2007

Yep, thank you.

Next item on the agenda is announcements and a lot of times the next item on the agenda is sort of awards and proclamations and I attended an event this weekend where I sort of gave a proclamation on behalf of the city

and I wanted to kind of read a little bit of it today because I thought it was really a significant event.

I attended the annual banquet of the Ebony Social Club and the Ebony Social Club is both a social group but more than that a group that works to help the community and especially focuses on helping the low-income community and public housing residents.

It often has appreciation dinners and other types of events

for kids and for the residents that live in low-income Charlottesville.

And this banquet recognized a member of the Charlottesville Police Department, Corporal Bobby Green, who's retiring this year, who's been a community service officer in West Haven since 1977.

Corporal Green has been a tremendous force in making this club such a valuable addition to the city.

a great job individually of working with people and helping them have kind of lending out a hand to help people be successful in their life.

So I issued a proclamation the other day honoring both the Ebony Social Club and Corporal Bobby Green.

I know that Corporal Green's not here tonight, but I wanted to read this anyway so everyone would know what a great job he and the club have done.

Other announcements.

Mr. Connell, did you have a couple?

Did you want to remind people that tomorrow is election day?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

I am the chair of the sister city ad hoc committee for the city of Charlottesville.

First off, I'd like to say I'm sorry for a lot of excitement that you all have been dealing with these last few days, but I have to say that in some ways we've received three days of press information to communicate what's going on.

I'm very happy that the city is going forth and celebrating the relationship with HOJO to look at economic exchanges, to look at exchanges with students.

I'm also from standpoint that just to be, to communicate, we have been, the city has been looking at how to improve the relationships we have with the cities that we have in Italy, France, Bulgaria.

We've been also looking at how or should we include other cities.

And also what are the relationships that we need, be it in economics, student exchanges, tourism, the arts.

So let me answer some questions that I've been looked at for the last couple of days.

Why Italy first?

Because we have this marvelous exchange with them.

They have provided us opportunities for exchanges, and we as the city need to look at those exchanges, both from a city standpoint, but also from an educational standpoint.

Why not Spanish?

I agree.

Why not Spanish?

Why not other countries from the standpoint of looking at exchanges from this city to those cities?

Why these five?

I have to say, why not these five?

The mayor must go as the representative of the city to represent to the other city why we're here.

Ms. Atkins needs to go to ensure that the educational situation in Italy matches the educational situation we have and moving it forward.

At the end of the day, who gets to implement the system but Ms. Ivory?

So why not the person who has to implement be there?

Mr. Edwards, why not Mr. Edwards?

Who better to provide from the standpoint what the city needs, what the education needs, what the community needs?

And finally, Ms. Hamilton, okay?

Yes, you must go.

Who better who's facilitated the relationships both with the Italians and has been in discussion with other cities in the direction we should go?

So my statement is very simple.

We need to look at how to do exchanges for the city, be it for the arts, for the community.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Brown, Mr. O'Connell, members of City Council.

I'm Dan Rosenzweig.

I live at 740 Lexington Avenue in the city.

And I'm also speaking about the impending trip to Poggio Cagano.

I'm probably going to be a little bit less diplomatic than...

and Mr. Potter.

I'm actually here to express my disappointment at the recent criticisms leveled against Mayor Brown, Chairman Edwards, Superintendent Atkins and others about the impending fact-finding mission.

As part of my duties with SACA, the SACA organization, I've taken 10 teams approximately to Italy over the course of the last six years and each time.

Without question, the highlight has been our trip to Poggio a Caiano.

That wouldn't have been possible had not the people from Poggio been so incredibly warm and welcoming.

We're treated routinely like royalties.

We sit side-by-side with the mayor and other dignitaries.

They feed us until we can't eat anymore.

They teach us about the special relationship, historical relationship, between our founding father, Thomas Jefferson, and theirs, Filippo Mazzie.

In three minutes I can't begin to describe how special this relationship is and how special it's become.

All I can do is share with you an anecdote.

It happened the first year that we took teams there, I recall.

A 16-year-old and a 14-year-old boy after the party we had, after we played a match in Poggio, after the community Poggio had

had given us a police escort into the stadium and shared food with us after the games.

These are two guys who normally all you get from them is a, oh, oh, yeah.

But they were sitting at midfield of the soccer stadium when the bus was going to leave and they just said, Coach, we can't leave.

We can't leave.

This has been the best night of our lives and we want to take it all in.

I just have wished every year that more children could share in this and in fact the one thing that's been a little confusing to the folks in Pojo when we're there is every year they ask me the same thing, why can't we do more of this?

Why can't we bring more Charlottesville children over?

Why can't we bring children from all income levels and all communities inside in Charlottesville?

Why can't we figure out a way to get Pojo school children to work with your schools and have some Pojo

school children come visit you.

It's always been a vexing question and I've wondered that myself and I'm so excited and so enthused about the energy that's gotten gone over here largely as a result of Mayor Jelly and his delegation coming here this past summer to investigate how they can make things, how they can improve things.

In short, I really want to

To thank Mayor Brown and the rest of the delegation for taking their time to go overseas.

Good evening, I'm Raymond Klein.

I'm the executive director of Love, Inc., Love in the Name of Christ in the city.

I've given you a position paper on payday loans.

I'd just like to hit some highlights.

One of them, I think, is how do we even begin to address affordable housing when we've got folks that are paying 391% APR interest each year.

400% interest is just outstanding ludicrous to me.

How do you pass a law?

How does a state pass a law allowing one industry to come in and gouge people, especially people who can least afford it, and then keeping a usury level of 36% on the banking and the credit card industry?

That baffles me.

The average number of loans per borrower is eight.

Most of those people will not pay them off in their lifetime.

My ministry acts through the churches to help people in need, but this is a mounting bill that the churches can't get hold of.

In 2002, first year of payday loans in the state of Virginia loan, the revenue was 1.6 million dollars.

ending 06 last year, it was 1.3 billion dollars.

And they do that by having 17 lobbyists in Richmond spending over a million dollars lobbying last year.

I had a church member who came to the church board in desperation because he had borrowed $300 from payday loan.

His bill was now $1200 and he was in a panic because he didn't know how he was going to pay it off.

One of the arguments I think that has been made for a payday loan is where do these folks go that don't have good credit?

So aren't they supplying a need?

And I guess my basic answer to that is how in the world is making someone four times more level in debt improve their life?

I encourage this resolution because I think that this is insanity at its best.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Clay.

My name is Janet Pappas and I live at 1618 Bruce Avenue.

and I'm here to ask about or to make a statement about the removal of the loading dock and the 800, the loading zone and the 800 block of West Main.

Ginny Alexander of your traffic department has been working with the business owners there and she tells me that she has informed you of a compromise that we're trying to work on and I would ask that you would consider that compromise rather than just paping over that space.

I understand that part of this was triggered from a petition that one of the neighbors brought in which stated, among other things, that it was a safety issue.

But the intersection of 8th and West Main has never had an accident except one back end at the stop sign.

So it's not really any different than the intersection at 5th and West Main.

The city is replete

with intersections that take a little time to get through.

That's part of living in a big city or even a medium-sized city.

So I ask that you at least give some consideration to the compromise that Ms. Alexander's been working on.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Lizette Short.

I live at 405 E. Garrett Street.

And I'd just like to thank you for considering passing the resolution on capping the petty loans at 36%.

VOP is working very hard throughout the state to get to other localities to do the same thing.

And I just want to say thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Sherry Murphy, Piedmont Housing Alliance, 127 Turtle Creek Road, Charlottesville.

Good evening.

My name is Aisha Quarles.

I live at 1106 High Street in the city.

I am the Lending Protection Specialist at Piedmont Housing Alliance.

And part of what my duties are there is education and outreach.

And providing education this past fiscal year for the city, we have presented 60 classes of financial literacy education to this community, 488 participants, and 342 of those were city residents.

We're asking that you pass this resolution because we are seeing the impact that payday lending is causing this community.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Leah Puryear, 2415 Cary Lane, and I'm here to say thank you to Mayor Brown and the members of council for proclaiming November 11, 2007 as TRiO Appreciation Day.

This year, once again, the fall conference for the Virginia and West Virginia Association of Educational Opportunity Program personnel will meet here in Charlottesville.

This is the Professional Association for Virginia and West Virginia for paraprofessionals and professionals of TRIO programs.

One of the TRIO programs is located right here in Charlottesville, which is Upward Bound.

The others are Talent Search, Veterans Upward Bound, the Math Science Upward Bound, the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program, Student Support Services, and the Educational Opportunities Centers.

As former president of the Virginia Association, I am very proud and excited to have my colleagues from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the state of West Virginia to be here.

They will be here in Charlottesville from November 11th through 14th, and we have given them several opportunities to tour the downtown mall, shop at the wonderful shops, and enjoy the lovely cuisine that we have here in Charlottesville.

and thank you again and I look forward to seeing Councilman Tolliver on Sunday evening to present the proclamation.

Thank you.

I'm Virginia Amos.

At this particular time we have unanticipated major expenses anticipated regarding our infrastructure and certainly an undetermined amount of cost.

We need to preserve funds for future expenses

and I would like to ask why would the city pay the expenses and send a member of the council to Italy when her term is expiring and she's not running for re-election?

I would like to know how can the city benefit and is this trip to Italy an unnecessary expense?

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Rich Collins.

I live at 108 Wilson Court.

I have some good news and what I consider bad news.

The good news is that the Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine, reviewing all the major parks and trails in the southeast of the United States, ranked the Rivanna Trail as the best urban greenway in the southeast of America.

That's a real privilege and a real honor.

The bad news is that many citizens would not have known this if they had attended the public hearing the other day on the 250 interchange.

The form of that hearing and the way it was conducted was very professional, well done in every technical sense, but it was not possible for the public to address other members of the public about the costs and benefits of this road, and in fact we were treated to simulated film versions

of cars entering a new design as if there were only three or four cars and everything looked beautiful.

But there were no pictures of what was lost.

And the Rivanna trailer system, one of the best portions of it, will be cut right in half by the supposed McIntyre Parkway and the related interchange.

I would like to tell all of those who are going to vote tomorrow, and I urge everyone to vote, that those of us who protested that hearing and who are still concerned about the parkway and the connected interchange should know that this issue is not over.

And I urge every one of you to read the letter that was sent to the city of Charlottesville by the Department of Historic Resources and read it and put it into the record so that you will know that this parkway is not a done deal and neither is the interchange.

and if tomorrow you vote, I advise you to keep that fact in mind.

This is not a done deal and there is still a chance that we'll be able to keep that park as it should be kept as a wonderful central park and not only a greenway but a gateway to our city.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Downing Smith, 810 Lucas Avenue.

And I'd like to preface my remarks by saying that I think that Chief Longo is a wonderful chief of police.

We're very lucky to have him.

I think we have a wonderful police force.

I know a lot of the police officers personally.

I even went to high school with a few of them.

And it's really a hard job to be a police officer.

It's a very difficult job.

But, and I'm sorry I don't have copies of this for everybody,

But I just handed the mayor an article from On the Hook on October 11th and it describes some inappropriate behavior by one of our police officers.

I have no idea whether or not this article is accurate.

but I haven't been able to find out what the outcome has been and apparently this happened on September 28th and this bothers me because I don't want the reputation of our Police Department to be solid so we either need to clear this police officer and make that public or if this police officer was indeed

involved in inappropriate behavior, then he needs to be disciplined and the fact that he was disciplined needs to be made public also.

There was an instance in the county where a police officer shot his neighbor's dog.

I never heard anything more about it.

and there have been other incidents like that in Albemarle County.

In my opinion, the Albemarle County police force, even though they have many excellent officers, is nowhere near as high as the regard I hold for the Charlottesville police force.

And I've tried to find out what happened, and I haven't been able to find anything, but I did come across a letter to the editor in another book where this gentleman talks about having a citizen review board of matters involving potential police misconduct.

Carl Romero, 324 Seven and a Half Street, Southwest in Fifeville.

For many Americans fear of public speaking ranks above fear of death.

In fact, in most studies ranking phobias, fear of public speaking is number one.

Even a Dilbert cartoon echoes this, Dilbert says, so if you kill someone before they have to speak in public, you're doing them a favor.

I bring this up because I do not want to stand before you tonight live on TV and in perpetuity on your video streaming website, but my experience in the last few years on three issues, traffic safety in my neighborhood, city-based efforts towards design control issues, using Fifeville as an example without neighborhood support,

and efforts at having the tax abatement program line up with updates and zoning changes have all required coming to council even though there are issues that could have been handled more responsibly and efficiently by staff.

This is why I never write these things.

Basically right now I just went down to talk with Jeannie in traffic because we've still been promised a comprehensive traffic plan of Fifeville.

The process of changing my street to one way was very divisive.

People were wanting a comprehensive plan, they were unwilling to do it.

She tells me, I told her I was going to speak tonight, she's been great, she's doing the best she can, but she says she didn't know we were supposed to be doing that.

We've been asking for it since before the 9th, 10th street connector went in.

Look, without going into detail and distracting us from the point I want to make, I will sum up the experiences I've had as overly arduous, frustrating, and divisive for the community.

Had I had less fortitude and willingness to research the errors, miscommunication, and oversights that nearly halted the ultimate follow through on these issues, someone else would have come along with the same questions one month, six months, or years later.

requiring inefficient backtracking and potential legal problems for the city.

I know that I'm not alone in these frustrations.

Ultimately I think the solution to city non-responsiveness to individual neighborhood concerns as well as to incorporating and harnessing positive solutions from citizens will only come from radical change of our current system.

Counselors need to depend on staff to follow through with citizens and yet there is no appropriate formalized process for this or direct oversight aside from publicly addressing you.

Without a word system or other direct responsibility to individual districts, neighborhood associations are left with learned helplessness in terms of organizing for follow through.

City staff and council can use vague sense of neighborhood support or neighborhood lack of support interchangeably with little data to go ahead with or not follow through on initiatives.

There's a reason City Hall is virtually devoid of citizens coming through to research programs or get involved.

Even Walmart has greeters.

People are turned away given misinformation.

Public meetings are often under advertised or reported days before occurring.

And those of us who do get involved, not out of political aspirations, but to participate towards positive change are either suddenly or overtly discouraged from doing so.

Look, I know why this stuff happens and so do you, but it is time to change.

We can do better.

If the city does not reorganize to address this lack of proactive responsiveness and transparency soon, citizens will find a way to create a check and balance

Citizen Watch, all around.

So all of you out there should vote tomorrow.

If you don't find candidates suitable to make these changes, please write in people who will.

and remember, fear of public speaking is ahead of fear of death, so whoever is up here, please note what it takes for those of us to come before you and consider harnessing that strength rather than dissipating it.

Okay, thank you.

Hi, I'm Vicki Greski and my husband and I, Mark Greski, have our business at 817 West Main Street at La Toile and we're here tonight regarding the Jeannie Alexander's compromise suggestion and I hope you would consider it because it would be very difficult for us to continue to run our business without a loading zone.

Okay.

Okay.

And then Naomi was next.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm for the same thing, but I have less stable shop, I call it just stable shop.

Okay, thank you.

Naomi?

I don't know whether I'm out of turn or not.

I'm speaking what I have to prepare tonight.

My name is Naomi Roberts.

I live at 1140 Sinclair Avenue.

The report came out on October 3rd regarding the rescue squad, and it was agreed that there was the need to hire more emergency personnel.

Of course, this means charging those that have insurance or can pay for ambulance service, but those who can afford or have no insurance will get free service.

Thanks for no thanks.

I don't think that's fair.

As an example, why should my daughter and my son, who work two jobs to make ends meet and have insurance to pay and myself, who is now on fixed income,

have to pay when someone across the street from where I live, which I've been told is on assistance, gets free service when their boyfriend beats her up and she's on public assistance.

Also, hiring additional staff will require more tax dollars.

Why doesn't the city give to the squad as does the county?

I'm sure they could use the million dollars set aside in the 2007 budget and I'm sure that people are not going to donate to the squad if the city takes it over, which means gain more personnel.

Also, some citizens would be just over the poverty line to qualify for free ambulance service.

I am totally against the city taking it over, as are many others in both Albemarle and the city.

Okay.

May I say this?

Good evening.

I'm Dee Dee Smith.

I live at 2652 Jefferson Park Circle.

And my comments actually are not about the YMCA, even though you might think they are.

I came tonight just to, because there's something that has just been, I've been thinking about all day, and it's actually related to a different project, but I wondered at what point

In recent time, did it become acceptable to give away parkland?

I've lived in the city for almost 30 years and for half that time I've been very involved with the parks and actually helped create parks.

It's only in recent years that actually parkland started to go away rather than to come.

and I'm just very concerned that any of these projects, whatever merit they may have, and of course any project does have merits, when you add them up, we're going to lose a lot of parkland.

And it's not just one council here or one council there, it's you all, who once the parkland starts going,

I think it almost becomes easier each time and so my concern is that I hope that that would be kept in mind.

One more?

Anyone else?

Okay.

We have a time at the end of our agenda tonight for more public comment if someone thinks of something along the way.

Now we have responses to matters by the public.

A couple of issues.

One is I wanted to thank Ms. Manno for overcoming the fear of public speaking and sharing her thoughts with us tonight.

I wholeheartedly agree that the city consistently falls short when it comes to community engagement and I know I and other counselors have talked with our city manager about this and I know he's working actively to address this from a very high level, on a very high level, and you'll be hearing more about that I'm sure in the coming couple of months.

Secondly, I wanted to thank those who came and spoke about the 8th and Main intersection.

I know that I do think it is a safety issue, but I think that the compromise that Ms. Alexander has come up with hopefully is something that not only makes it a safer intersection, but doesn't negatively impact the livelihood of the business owners there.

So although we haven't gotten into that compromise as a council in any detail yet, I think it's heading in the right direction.

Thank you all for coming tonight.

Okay.

Let's address that.

I mean, we can do that if we think it's not going to be a very long agenda item.

I don't think it would be fair otherwise.

And I know last time it seemed like we all put this item in our legislative packet.

I think it's something we all were glad to see here so we could do it publicly.

So I'll just ask counsel whether, are you in agreement that we move that up?

Everyone okay with that?

Okay.

Okay.

Other comments?

I have something.

I have something I'd like to say.

As you know, in Charlottesville, we never let the facts get in the way of a good fight.

So for the last few days, we've had quite a blog and email war going on back and forth over the Poggio-Acayano trip.

I do want to point out that in response to some of the things that were said, I did ask staff to compile some numbers as to the amount of money that had actually been spent on trips.

And we only had numbers available as far back as 2004.

But between 2004 and 2000, I say September of this year,

It turned out that only one counselor has traveled fewer times than I and that would be Kevin Lynch and only one counselor has spent money, less money on travel than I have and that would be David Brown who's managed to go on several trips and only spend $600

It's interesting that the counselors who have come in for the heaviest criticism are those who have traveled the least and spent the least.

But I did want to say that when I came back from Peugeot three and a half years ago, I

I got a vision for what this could be and it's for those reasons that Dan Rosenzweig talked about, the welcoming nature of the people and the fact that they are so eager for us to come and for us to bring our children.

And it has always seemed to me that the chief value of a sister city relationship would be to make it meaningful by making it broader, making more people

making it possible for more people to participate than those who just, you know, can afford the price of a plane ticket.

And so, for me, I always had a dream that we would be able to have a series of regular exchanges in which kids from Belmont, kids from, you know, Rose Hill Drive would be able to, you know, especially kids who are teetering on the edge of making a decision about whether or not they would go to college or not.

could go to another culture and, you know, see that school has a reason and a purpose and get excited about education and that that would come back and that would enrich our community.

It does seem to me that over the last few days, questions about my participation this close to the end of my term have begun to overshadow what I consider to be a really serious and an important purpose and I have no desire to

I wish the mayor well.

I'm sure that he's going to have some great meetings and have a great time with the Italians and that he will be able to come back with the initiatives that are going to enrich the lives of our children I want to thank all the people who have called me or come up to me on the street

and you know offered me words of support and encouragement and I'm sorry to disappoint you by not going on the trip but I don't want to be a distraction.

Well, I'm going to offer just a couple of brief comments.

I'm also going to comment on Ms. Mano, who I don't believe has a fear of speaking.

But I think she brings up a good point, and I wanted to make sure people realize that the only recourse to communicate with counselors is not here.

We make our emails available.

We actually all, I think, make our home phone numbers available.

You can call and ask the city clerk.

You can look on the website.

And I think there's lots of ways of contacting us individually when there are issues.

But I agree with Mr. Norris.

I appreciate, Carla, you coming.

I also want to, I do feel like there wasn't enough public discussion, in fact there wasn't any public discussion at a council meeting or significant discussion of our Sister City, planned Sister City trip and that was my responsibility as mayor to have that discussion and I did not do that and I regret not doing it, that's for sure and I apologize for not having done it, I should have.

But we did have, as council, budget work sessions, we had discussion, we established a sister city committee, we've had planning meetings where every councilor was invited to the planning meetings, so it's not like we've been doing this without everyone here being aware of it, but we should have had this be a public discussion.

I think the big issue for sister cities

will be, and I think we'll have a report from our sister city committee that can help generate this conversation on do we value having sister cities?

Is it worth the investment to have them?

If it's worth the investment, and I kind of agree for the reasons that Kendra stated, I think it's a really cool thing to have done.

It doesn't take a lot of money every couple years to either spend something to welcome a group or to occasionally send somebody.

Well, I want to respond a little bit to that because I do have a difference of opinion there.

We have talked about the Sister City program in our budget work sessions

and one of the things that made me somewhat skeptical about the Sister City program, while I'm generally in support of the idea of Sister Cities, I like the idea of exchange, particularly with the Sister City of Poggio, we have a connection there going back to the time of Jefferson, a historical

I'd frankly like to see more sister cities of the type, like Plevin, I think, with the connection that Charlottesville has to the seat of American democracy.

There's a lot that other, maybe not

vacation destinations, but third world countries, developing countries could take advantage of having Charlottesville as a sister city.

But my concern about sister city program has been that it has the potential to devolve into essentially junkets for the city council.

And I think if it's important for us to have a sister city relationship with any city, whether it's

I forget the one on the west coast in Washington, or Poggio, or Basençon, or another place, but I think it's worth private individuals paying freight.

If it's not worth paying for the ticket, then we ought to be

reconsidering the Sister City program.

Okay.

Any other comments?

Kevin and I talked last night and I said, well, you know, I mean, at this point it's sort of planned that I would go.

I'm already missing four days out of my practice, which is basically I'm self-employed, I'm a sole practitioner, if it's up to me to

to pay for this trip, I'm not going to do it.

I have two kids in college.

I mean, the city values us.

The city has to value occasionally making a little investment in travel.

I think that maybe one of the tasks the sister city committee can have will be to figure out ways to generate public support through fundraising so this doesn't become an issue and detract from the mission of the program.

Okay, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

The consent agenda tonight consists of item A, the approval of minutes of October 1st, 2nd, 15th, 19th and 23rd.

Item B, appropriation of $54,326, the Justice Assistance Grant is the first of two readings.

Item C, a resolution authorizing the industrial development bonds from Foster Jefferson House is the first of one reading.

Item D, an ordinance amending the erosion and sediment control ordinance is the first of two readings.

And then item E,

and Ordinance amending the proper ordinance at the first of two readings.

Are there any amendments to the minutes or any items to be removed from the consent agenda to be considered at the end of the regular meeting?

I move the consent agenda.

Second.

I do.

Item C, I'm not opposed to item C at all.

However, we learned a valuable lesson some time ago when we approved a bond issue for another renovation project and I'd like to ask staff in the future when we're approving bond issues that we make sure that there's some review of

And I'll note that in this case it might be simply noting that this property is in a historic district but I think that's a good point.

Any other discussion?

Hearing none I'll call for the vote.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, the resolution before you tonight is entitled Resolution of the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia.

to request that the General Assembly and Governor of Virginia take action to prevent exploitative payday lending practices in the Commonwealth.

And this is the resolution which was brought to your attention at the last meeting by Counselor Norris.

I believe it may have originated in Stanton and has been endorsed in a number of other localities through the state.

As you know, and as I think many in the audience know, payday loans are generally short-term, very high interest cash advances.

They are generally governed by what's called the Payday Loan Act in Virginia, which precludes

cities and counties from unilaterally taking action to regulate this type of loan.

Therefore, the resolution before you asked that the General Assembly and the Governor

take action at the next session of the General Assembly to enact laws that will prevent further exploitative payday lending practices.

And the first of those that is listed in your resolution is enactment of an annual interest rate cap of 36 percent for any consumer loans made in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Are there questions?

Is there discussion?

Comments?

Well done.

I move the ordinance.

Second.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

Call for the vote.

Great.

Next is a public hearing on an ordinance for the lease of land at McIntyre Park to the YMCA for a recreational facility.

I think as everyone knows, for a number of months we've been talking about a proposal from the YMCA to look at

the possibility of using property in McIntire Park.

Simply put, what's in front of council tonight is consideration of a lease to construct a recreational facility and pool through a lease of approximately three to five acres of land at McIntire Park.

The proposal is that it would be on the active side of the park with one of the south ball fields being the preferred location.

We've had a whole series of public meetings, discussions this spring and summer

We recently received a formal bid from the Y that was presented to the city council at the last meeting.

The proposed terms for that lease and the user agreement that accompanied it have been presented to city council.

It's been on our website for the community to look at as well.

Kurt Krueger, who's the president of the Y, is here tonight to bring the council and the community up to date on their proposal.

I think he has some particular points to make about issues that have come up in the discussions.

Thank you, Mr. O'Connell.

Following the submission of our response to the request for proposals, we had a number of emails and questions of raising some concerns about the ground lease and the use agreement that we submitted as a draft with our response to the request.

And I wanted to address those issues.

In fact, we've had some phone calls with counselors and some meetings with counselors

and I wanted to raise those five issues and let you all know how we address those very briefly.

We had put in our response to the request for proposals that we could put a lien on the facility to basically borrow money to cover the period of time

to help and bridge the gap between the cash needs that we will have when we build the facility and the payment of pledges that we've taken which are spread out over five years.

To preserve as much flexibility as possible there we asked that we could put a lien on the ground lease interest that we would have in the facility and counselors raised some concerns about that and we have, after talking to the bankers, have determined that in fact they would not view that as very

lucrative collateral anyway and so we have agreed that we will go back to the language that Mr. Brown had put in the ground lease originally that prohibited liens on the facility or our interest in the ground lease.

The board, members of council also expressed some concern about our board composition.

As we had put in our original proposal, what we have proposed is that the city

have the right to appoint two members to our board and the county would have the right to appoint two members to our board.

But we have also agreed and we would work toward balancing out the composition of the other members of our board

so that we would have a more equal balance between city and county residents.

Right now we're heavily balanced toward county residents.

We recognize in a three-way partnership like this that in fact we should balance that board as best we can.

And we would frankly hope that city council would help us find those kinds of candidates.

I also think once we have a facility that those candidates will become more apparent to us.

We were also asked to address the issue of the competition pool and access by the CHS swimming team to that competition pool, recognizing that if the city is willing to put in some dollars to support the construction of the pool that the Charlottesville High School swimming team ought to have some reasonable access and priority access to it.

And we are recognizing that in fact the county

is giving us some money for that swimming pool as well.

And we're going to have to figure out a way to give access on a priority basis to both the Charlottesville high school swim team and the three county high school swim teams with the

Proximity of CHS as close as it is to the facility, assuming that all the schools end their classes at the same time, it would frankly make the most sense for CHS to come there immediately after school and perhaps swim with one of the other county teams and then have the two other county teams swim in the morning.

but I'm sure we're going to be able to work that out and do it in a way that makes it the easiest for the kids and least disruptive for their homework studies and their school times to practice there.

We also were made aware that the city has a punch pass program to allow recreational lane swimmers to swim at Crow and I think Buford as well.

I'm not sure whether it works for both pools.

but we have agreed to institute the punch pass program too for recreational swimmers and do it over a limited period of time with the idea of trying to transition those people who are used to using punch passes to obtain their swimming privileges at the city pools to have that same sort of alternative for the YMCA.

We would ultimately like to phase that program out over time because frankly what we want is those people to join as members to the Y.

but we would certainly run that program for a reasonable period of time to let those people transition into the Y.

The final question raised was about financial assistance criteria and we had put in our use agreement that was originally submitted as our response to the RFP that any individual or family living at or below the established national poverty level will be eligible for 100% financial assistance.

and that we would also, in determining that eligibility, increase that level, whatever that happens to be, and that floats over time, that's set every year, by 4500 per each additional family member.

Our clarification letter states that in fact that is our policy.

If you are an individual, then you would be measured for 100% financial assistance at the national poverty level.

If you're an individual and you come in and you want to join with your family and you have four family members, you would multiply 4,500 times four plus yourself and add that to the national poverty level standards.

Questions?

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

At the public hearing three weeks ago, a citizen complained about the YMCA's Christian ideals as being a problem.

I have lived in 15 cities that have never experienced that with a Y. I think that claim is bogus.

However, another point was brought up about pledges and capital and I think this is a concerning issue.

Pledges are just that, pledges, and as such are not a reliable source of income.

Note I say reliable, not impossible.

I recommend the Y be built on the PVCC campus.

The site is ideal.

Free land, beautiful space, parking available, and a great opportunity for the Piedmont students even though it will be a community facility.

A bus route runs there.

More county residents can use the Y and more city residents can use the proposed Smith Pool Boys and Girls Club facility.

If the city is donating land in our largest city park, why would we be expected to pay for the facility?

We are being asked to do just that.

Please leave the McIntyre Park a green space.

The McIntyre extended part of Meadow Creek Parkway and the 250 interchange will take parkland as it is.

If the Eastern Connector is built, Penn Park may be violated.

I wonder, do the baseball teams that use the fields at McIntire Park know that there may be a loss of playing fields if the Y is built there?

Is swimming laps more important than baseball?

A rhetorical question indeed, but certainly a subject of contention depending on what you favor.

Hello, I'm Lisa Gough, I live at 1631 Bruce Avenue and I'm here tonight to speak to the interests of the Charlottesville high school swim and dive team and ask that you factor their needs into your deliberations over the YMCA lease proposal.

These 36 high school athletes currently practice five afternoons a week at Crow Pool, as they have for many years.

At Crow, which would likely close under the current proposal, they practice in six lanes with six swimmers in each lane.

I want you to imagine that scene with me just for a moment.

Six swimmers in six lanes hurling themselves through the water like sharks are chasing them.

It is bumper to bumper.

It is always rush hour at CHS, High School Swim Team Practice.

The YMCA has offered CHS five practice lanes in the pool it wants to build on city land in McIntire Park.

Thirty-six swimmers cannot practice in five lanes.

That's not bumper to bumper.

That is a pileup on Route 29.

Cutting back to five lanes will force cuts in the high school swim team, which would be bigger, I want to emphasize, if Crow could offer it more lanes to practice in.

When the YMCA representative offered the CHS team five lanes, he explained that the cutback was necessary in order to be fair to the three county teams that will also be using the new Y pool.

He points to the larger financial contribution the county is making to the pool's construction.

But this pool will not be built on county land.

This pool will be built on city land.

Considering the value of the city's contribution of centrally located land in a park-like setting, it does not seem too much to ask that the Y permanently guarantee the CHS swim and dive team continued access to six lanes for swim practice for two hours immediately following the end of school, which is the standard practice time for high school sports teams.

Smith Pool, of course, might be another option for the CHS team once Crow is closed.

You could bus the team across town to practice.

But the recent Parks and Rec team that can reconfigure Smith for greater access to the surrounding community, which I think is a fabulous idea, would make it difficult, if not impossible, for use by the CHS swim team for practice in conclusion.

I wish you wouldn't crow, I wish you would rehab Smith to emphasize rec swimming and crow to accommodate lap swimming including the CHS swim and dive team.

I understand this is a complicated decision that requires you to balance many needs

of many community members.

I'm asking you tonight to add the 36 members of the CHS swim and dive team and their 70 odd parents to that balance.

Please keep these dedicated high school athletes in mind as you weigh the pros and cons of the Y's proposal.

Thank you.

Mayor, Council.

My name is Scott Brown.

I live at 1407 Lester Drive.

I chair the Park and Rec Advisory Committee.

I'm a teacher at Charlottesville High School.

And I support the Y as you all know, I believe.

And I want to thank you all for all the time that you all have given to this.

subject, this proposal.

It has been, I know it's been hard to make up your minds, but I do wholeheartedly agree with building the Y at McIntire.

I think it goes deeper than just the pools.

I think you need to look at all the programs that the Y offers, and I think that their mission parallels the mission of the Charlottesville school system and the City of Charlottesville.

I think there's a lot more

than meets the eye than just the pools.

But the pools are important, I agree.

And I hope you could do, and I know you will give that due consideration.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Paul White with Goldstone International.

First I'd like to say thanks for letting me waste stuff from the last time so I could actually hear what the public had.

A couple of considerations I'd like to see the council

considered before making a decision.

Having seen a variety of different YMCA organizations and health clubs nationally and internationally, I understand where the YMCA is.

I appreciate what they do.

I don't agree that we should be spending the money that, as a council and a city, we can be running, operating, and facilitating what the community is looking for without having to have somebody else do it as we lose

property in the community, park and recreation property, and we're paying them to do it.

If you're going to do it, let the city do it.

Park and Recreation Department has facilities, they have the equipment, they have the manpower, and they have the ability to do it.

If we're going to pay somebody to do it, do it under our control, do it under our guidelines, and if you're going to pay $2.5 million between the city and the county,

We're not going to pay, we shouldn't pay somebody else to get donations on membership dues, membership attrition, and a drive force that's going to be taking money on a continual basis.

It's not just a charitable type thing anymore.

If we're doing, as the gentleman said from the YMCA, if we're doing something that's going to allow for the low income, if you're putting in one of the best demographic areas in the city, why are we sitting there putting in the most demographic area versus the low income area and accommodating the people that would use the club the most?

Thank you, sir.

Good evening, my name is Lisa Greve, Greve actually.

According to a facilities assessment executive summary dated September 2003, costs for repairs to Smith and Co pools were $350,000.

A month ago, on October 3rd, we were told that the cost was now estimated at $5 to $6 million.

We were assured that these were warning numbers and that it was so high because the cost of renovation far exceeded the cost of just repairing the pools.

Yesterday, it was reported in the Daily Progress that estimates for current Smith renovations are now $28 million.

How can these numbers be real if the numbers from a month ago were also real?

And a major graph is to show how the numbers have changed.

and note how the land gets steeper which means that the price is increasing faster.

These escalating numbers are reported as fact and they seem to just be accepted.

I really hope that the council has seen some real quotes to substantiate these estimates.

I'm a high school math teacher.

In statistics, we caution students that numbers are often used to make a case, to strengthen a case, and for propaganda's sake.

We have to be aware of the agenda of people who give us the data.

Everyone has an agenda.

It appears that these estimates are increasing to make the decision to give away three to five acres of parkland seem a little more palatable.

and to make it seem fiscally responsible to give one and a quarter million dollars to help the YMCA build in McIntyre Park.

I'm Virginia Amos.

I live at 628 Watson Avenue.

And if I thought that we were not going to be able to have the YMCA anywhere in this area, then my thinking would be different.

But we have the opportunity to still have it and have it where it's more convenient and less costly to the city.

I think that the location at Piedmont Community College is an excellent place for it.

And if we think about the number of increased county residents on the south side of the city, think how many more people would be crossing the city and adding to the bypass traffic.

I just feel like it's the wrong location.

and I feel like that the city is giving entirely too much when they give up land park property and then give money on top of that it's just too much and so I just plead with you decline this offer particularly since it's a membership based organization and I ask you to

allow them to proceed with their location at Piedmont.

I think we all benefit.

I'm going to try something different tonight.

I know I can't make it through in three minutes.

Just hand them all to him.

There are two points I'd like to emphasize in what I'm passing out to you.

The first one is, whatever you build and wherever you build it, I really think the city needs to be in control of it.

You guys may not believe this, because I disagree with you, maybe more than a little, but I sincerely believe that everyone sitting up there is looking out for the best interest of the city of Charlottesville.

and that's why I want you guys to be in control of the thing.

The YMCA is not looking out for the best interest of the city of Charlottesville.

And they really shouldn't be looking out for the best interest of the city of Charlottesville.

They should be looking out for the best interest of the YMCA.

They have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to look out for the best interest of the YMCA.

And the best interest of the YMCA are not always going to be the best interest of the city of Charlottesville.

and I know you guys are going to be looking out for the best interest.

The second point is I really don't know what this project is all about.

We had that excellent presentation about the Smith Pool, with the grass, with the architecture and everything.

I've never seen anything like that about the YMCA.

As a matter of fact, I looked at the lease and they haven't really decided exactly where the footprint of the building is going to be.

and how do they know what the cost is going to be unless they've done architectural drawings and that sort of thing.

Ann Hemingway Good evening, Mayor and Members of Council.

My name is Ann Hemingway.

I live at 800 Park Street in Charlottesville.

and I'm actually speaking tonight in favor of the YMC project in McIntire Park.

I know the City Parks and Rec is in favor of this and I respect the study that they've done and I'm in favor primarily because of the Charlottesville High School students and the students that will benefit from this and the location and proximity to Charlottesville High School.

I do recommend that

If you accept this project that you guarantee that the Charlottesville High School get the amount of space and time they need to practice there because it is on city property and you are going to be funding it, that means

having at least six or seven lanes, not five, and whatever they need as the team grows.

I don't think there's a reason to not have this project because county residents from all counties are going to use it.

I think the city should be attracting proposals that bring people into the city.

We are one big community.

and I'd hate to see you look at it as this city county issue.

I think when you bring people from the surrounding communities, they go to the downtown mall, they shop here and that's a good thing.

What I would like to see in general is that this county, the council look at these proposals for students, youth and families in Charlottesville as your priority

I'd like to see the funding go towards that and not go towards this proposal like the interchange proposal which is going to buckle the city's budget by at least as of today $10 million and it's going to grow.

Good evening, I'm Sandra Stamp and I live at 104 Bolingwood Road and to dovetail with what Lisa Groves said I was really aghast looking in the daily progress that there's now a new figure that to consolidate the two pools and for the city to build a competitive swim complex would cost between 91 and 96 million dollars which

Where did that number come from?

I mean, that has not even been part of the discussion.

I've spoken before and clearly I would like the Y to be built at Piedmont and I'd like to consolidate the two city pools.

Again, the numbers have changed drastically since the last meeting, but one issue that's not been talked about.

We're in the middle of a drought and I cannot water my lawn.

and yet we're going to build another large private

There's a pool water complex in the middle of the city.

I'm about to start paying more, which I'm all for, for stormwater management and there's going to be a lot of asphalt with fallout, but Crow Pool closed because of the drought and you could do that because of the city pool.

What will happen if and when we continue in a drought?

with a private facility.

Maybe we'll consolidate the pools and there'll be the new huge pool at Smith.

That's also a lot of city water.

I don't know if any of you have considered the city water issue, but it's one of concern to me.

Thank you.

I'm Elizabeth Kuchar.

I live at 126 Bowlingwood Road.

I've lived in the city for 34 years.

At the recent public hearing about the YMCA proposal and the future of our indoor pools, I learned what I'd long suspected.

Three quarters, one and three quarters of the users of the city's recreational facilities are non-residents, the vast majority of whom live in Albemarle County.

City property owners are taxed at a higher rate than Albemarle County property owners.

Why?

Well in part to provide recreational and other services to county residents.

This may have made sense a century ago when the city was surrounded by farms.

It doesn't make sense now.

Albemarle County has urbanized and its citizens are wealthier by every statistical measure than are the citizens of Charlottesville.

At the public hearing, someone asked, why doesn't the county build an indoor pool for its residents?

The answer given by Neil Brown was, well, the county feels it can meet the need by subsidizing the YMCA to the tune of two or three million, which is trivial compared to actually building a pool.

The real truth is, they don't have to build a pool.

The city is meeting the county's need.

The county supervisors must be laughing up their sleeves.

They don't need to provide recreational services to their constituents.

Those fools in the city are willing to foot the bill.

Whatever decision you make about giving our parkland to the YMCA and either mothballing or renovating our indoor pools, I urge you to consider the subsidy that we've been giving to Albemarle County for lo these many years.

Please stop shouldering the county's responsibilities and paying for them with my tax dollars.

I'm Irene Newman and I live at 1538 Oxford Road.

I'm a swimmer at Charlottesville High School and I'm also an employee of the Charlottesville Aquatics Department and I'm speaking against the proposed YMCA plan.

Earlier this year when Crow Pool had to close because of the drought, the city had to combine the programs at both Smith and Crow so that they were all functioning at Smith, and it was hard to fit all activities together at one pool.

So I think that not only should the city have organizing the swim team practice in mind, but they should also consider thinking about activities such as the swim lessons.

There's many swim lessons taught by the city.

They may not all be able to be scheduled at Smith Pool at one time.

If Crow is proposed to be closed, will the city have to pay to rent YMCA in order to continue these programs?

And I also understand that it's important to have YMCA membership free to the impoverished, as proposed.

Thank you.

Naomi Roberts, 747 Clay Avenue, excuse me, I'm based in the YMCA building in McIntyre Park.

McIntyre Park used to be a place where citizens could take their families for evening picnics.

That's long been gone because of the baseball, of the ball pit.

of ballparks.

Part of it is already designated to the parkway and now another part is going to the YMCA.

I don't agree with that.

We need our parks.

We need our green space.

You talk about the green space, people are always talking about, you know, we want to do something about our environment.

Well, building on the park is not

helping our environment.

Also, this is my own site, but had the city looked at our infrastructure over the years, our crews and our products for not being in the condition they're in, and also

then the YMCA would cause a lot more traffic on the bypass and our children need local pools to go to rather than traveling the bypass to get to the YMCA.

We've outsourced jobs in America and now we're outsourcing neighborhood pools to the YMCA.

That's not helping the citizens of Charlottesville.

Hi, I'm Mark Saunders.

I live at 419 4th Street Northeast in the city.

I'm speaking tonight as the former president of the city swim team parent board and as the parent of three competitive swimmers, all of whom have learned to swim in city programs and two of whom have participated in the Y swim team.

Also, I'm speaking not incidentally as a city taxpayer.

In my view, the Y proposal offers a rare opportunity to have your cake and eat it too, and I do mean that quite seriously.

First and foremost, the city has an obligation to make sure that every child, no matter what his or her socioeconomic condition, learns to swim as a life skill.

Further, I would like to see a wider range of city children enjoy the benefits of competitive swimming.

The city also has a responsibility to be fiscally responsible.

We have before us a choice between having both fiscal responsibility and great aquatics, or having neither.

Fixing up old pools is neither smart programmatically nor responsible fiscally.

Working with the Y gives us the state of the art facility that the area needs while freeing up money to enhance the Parks and Rec Department's aquatic programming for all ages and incomes.

I am sympathetic to those who defy the outsourcing of vital programs to non-governmental organizations, to those who see a mirror here of a disturbing trend in our national politics.

Nevertheless, I see this proposal as an innovative partnership that in the end does the opposite of outsourcing.

It insources, it includes more people by freeing up money, taxpayers' money, to build a facility at the current site of Smith Pool that serves a larger, more diverse group

that are served by a pool geared primarily to competitive swimming and it gives the Charlottesville area a competitive pool of which we can all be proud.

Other comments?

Anyone else like to speak this evening?

Hearing none, I'll close the public hearing.

and I'll open it to questions or comments and I'd actually like to start off with a question if that's, maybe I think maybe questions go first.

So Mr. Krueger, if you could come forward.

This is sort of, in some ways there's a comment disguised as a question but I'm going to do it as a question for him.

So basically, in this lease, the idea is that the county is going to be donating

a couple million dollars to the base construction of the building and the city be donating the land and then because both of us value competitive pools we would each be donating 1.25 million in order to have additional lanes and a diving well that's correct so my question is

Why, if we're giving the same amount of money, why would you try to shoehorn in three county teams and one city team?

Just using math, the question would be if they're contributing, each is contributing half, but they have three teams, would you just give one of their teams priority?

And I certainly understand that math.

I think ultimately though that the county will say that's fine if we don't get the priority we want we will pull out our 1.25 million and encourage you to go someplace and build this pool where only the county teams have access and frankly we don't want the city teams to have access at all and that way we get all the prime times.

I think ultimately your first reading here is not the passage in final of what this lease will look like because we have recognized all along with the county as a third party to the use agreement that we're going to have to negotiate through some of these terms.

The point you've just raised about just how much access and when the CHS swim team gets their access as well as what the county high school teams, when they get their access, is going to have to be negotiated.

But I understand your point.

Yeah, because I did have a question about that exact paragraph in your letter.

And I'm looking at paragraph three on page two of the letter.

So I guess the thing that puzzled me was that you mentioned

that the county was giving $2.03 million for the base facility and, in all caps, an additional $1.25 million from its 2012 CIP budget, etc., etc., etc.

But nowhere in that paragraph do you mention that the city is giving valuable land, that if you had to go anywhere else and buy it,

You might not be able to build this facility.

That doesn't seem to be an equivalent calculation in your mind.

As I indicated in, we had an email exchange and I indicated to you that in fact the Y very much values and appreciates the opportunity to have some land in the middle of the city to do this and we certainly don't put a zero value on that or try to discount the value of that.

At the same time we recognize that the county is giving us 2.03 million toward the base facility and you all are giving us a grand lease interest for 40 years in a piece of land of three to five acres in McIntire Park.

That has some value too.

What that value is, I'm not sure any of us really know for sure, but it is certainly not an insignificant sum at all.

On the competitive pool side, they had originally said they would give $1.25 million toward the competitive pool well before we ever approached council about what we would do if we could not raise enough money to build the warm water pool and the cool water pool.

And so we asked council for $1.25 million on top of that.

So I really think for the competitive pool purposes you have to look at the

at the 1.25 numbers as Mayor Brown has done.

But that's not to say we don't value the land in the ground lease.

I mean, we recognize that that has significant value.

I don't know what that value is, and it depends whether we get three acres or five acres, but it is a significant value.

Do you know where all the high school swim teams currently practice?

No I don't, but Shelly Romali would know that, I bet.

My understanding that the three county teams use the

I'm sorry, one of the teams I believe Albemarle uses ACAC's facility on Route 29 that Western uses the Bevold Pool in Fairview and Monticello and the past has used Smith Pool.

Okay.

I was just kind of curious as to what the current situation was.

Thank you.

Let me follow up on this thread of discussion.

I think in my mind

The locating the Y at the park has some potential to work if the Y can work as essentially an auxiliary to the services that the city provides in aquatic services and if it's comparable in expense or saves the city money.

and while I don't think that the alternative is to spend 90 million dollars, I agree with people that think that that's inflated numbers, I do think that there's potential at least for economy of scale there, but I do think that it has to work for the CHS swim team in order for this to be viable and therefore I think in order for this to even get past

Round one, I think, we need to have at least six lanes there, and the time also needs to be set.

It can't just be two hours of priority time, but I think we have to have in the use agreement four to six in the afternoon because that's right after Charlottesville classes get out.

They get out at 3.30.

That gives them a half hour to get ready so that they're there.

They don't have to leave the facility to practice.

and if the county says, well, what about us?

We'd like to have that slot too.

My answer then would be fine.

Put it at Albemarle High School and we'll figure out something else because we're not putting it in McIntire Park so that it could be a regional facility.

We can have it be at PVCC and it works great as a regional facility.

I don't myself have a problem with it being at PVCC.

I think the advantage of it being at McIntire Park

is potentially the advantage that it brings to city residents and particularly to the high school.

And if there's not a clear advantage,

to be gained from that, then I don't see the point of going through with this.

So I think that's something that really needs to be in the use agreement.

At least six lanes, four to six.

Or you could say it should be set at four to six pm or subject to any two hours at the discretion of

the Charlottesville Aquatics Director, but my understanding is four to six has been the traditional time and that's what they're looking for at this time and would probably work for the foreseeable future.

That's the main issue that I have with

And with what's in this letter, I do think there's a lot of work to go from the letter, which I think is largely responsive to our questions, and then getting that into an actual use agreement that will require some work.

The other thing that I think needs to be looked at a little more closely is this issue of the punch basket.

And I think it's, before we talk about that, we should acknowledge as a city that our punch passes are way underpriced.

If you're a senior citizen, you can get 25 swims for 35 bucks.

That's just, it's way more, or it's way less than what it costs us to provide that.

So I think we have to say as a city, all right, we have to increase the cost of our punch passes.

and then ask the why to do something that's comparable.

In the wise position, I do not blame you for wanting to stay far away from that punch pass system because it's a money loser.

We need to reconcile that, but I also think we ought to come up with something so that the two systems are interchangeable somewhat so you can have a punch pass, you can either use it in the city

or you could use it at the Y.

Again, if the Y is going to be a real auxiliary to city services, then I think there should be at least some transition point.

The way it's written in the letter seems to say we'll do it for

minimal time possible.

As you and I discussed, the Y is picking up all of the operating expenses for the facility going forward and we have no way to tax the citizens to subsidize those operating expenses.

So we have to be very careful about implementing things like punch passes that cause us to lose money because frankly that means we have to take money away from scholarships or take money away by increased fees to users that can pay and that's frankly not fair.

So ultimately we need to find a system that's fair that allows people to have access on a reasonable basis but covers the operating costs or otherwise we need taxpayer dollars to subsidize those operating costs.

and all we're trying to do is find that happy medium to make sure we cover those operating costs and don't come back to you all for future operating subsidies.

Okay.

And then there's one other issue that's really more for council, I think, than it is for you and other people spoke to this from the public is that if we're going to do this, we really do have to get that transit piece in place.

because otherwise it's just not that useful.

I think we've been talking about having better transit out there.

We are going to have to do that and that will be an additional cost, at least to us.

I think it's a doable cost.

There are some technical issues about the lease and what happens if the thing's not built in time.

I think this probably isn't the best time to go through this thing paragraph by paragraph.

Those are the main issues, the swim team access, the plunge pass.

I guess I would like to

I have a competitive swim team at the Y and I know how important a competitive swim team is to both my organization and to the high schools in

I would just urge us all to look at all those needs and when deciding whether to have this facility

in McIntire Park and adjacent to CHS where we can reach out to all of those teenagers who go to high school at CHS and meet these needs, these warm water recreational needs, warm water swim lesson needs,

gymnasium space, locker room space, meeting room space, track and fitness space that in fact we don't get too focused on one of the trees and miss the forest which is an entire recreational picture for the city of Charlottesville.

And so what we're asking is that, in fact, if the council passes this as a first reading, that at that point we're going to have to negotiate the fine points that you have raised.

And we're fully prepared to do that.

And we'll have to bring the county in.

But by getting a first reading of this, we're in a position where we can then go to the county and say, now, you're at the table.

I think Mr. Brown, I would love to have him separated out.

It makes sense to me.

Well, I think you could have a first, it sounds like that there's a significant amount of negotiation yet to take place, certainly with the use agreement and perhaps with some of the terms of the lease.

So if you do choose to have a first reading tonight,

I believe that what you move and second tonight will have to be amended or substituted before the second reading.

You have a proposed use agreement that was submitted by the Y.

So it seems to me that the two things to do tonight is to see if there's a consensus on council to put it forward for the first reading.

But secondly, are there specific issues that we can give direction to you on that I have no clue.

You've got me at a loss.

If we could build a 12-lane pool, one, we had no idea how many lanes Charlottesville High School used to swim.

After I talked to the coach at the urging of Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Stratz, I found out that they swim in six lanes.

With a 10-lane pool and four teams, the sort of natural division is five, five, five, and five.

Okay.

Another thing that concerns me to some extent, I know you've addressed that in the letter, is I really don't believe the city is adequately represented on the board, and I understand the issue with that, and I know you said you'll work towards that.

You also said that the city and county would be able to appoint two representatives each, I think.

and I guess that still is not going to really adequately represent the city for a long time to come, I don't think and that concerns me because it's going to take a while if you work towards a goal.

I don't know how long that will take.

Another question that I asked the other day, another thing I asked the other day was that you consider that the city and county recreation directors may ex officio members of the board

and evidently, for whatever reason, y'all don't want to do that.

And I know you said they'll be encouraged to meet with you and all that, but I don't understand that really.

And I'm still concerned because we don't know what the cost of this will be.

We don't know how much land will be used.

We don't know where it's going to be sited.

And I know you're talking there about the verification for people that have financial hardships

and you talk in there that they're going to have to present their income tax return, their last two pay stubs I think is what that said and I honestly don't think a lot of people are going to do that I guess and I think that is going to discourage people from wanting to use it frankly and then when I look at the attendance figures and you might be able to elaborate on this but for the last year for the two indoor pools

72% of the usage is by non-city residents, which more or less leads me to believe that most of the people that are going to use the Y facility, the vast majority are going to be people from the county.

And I may be wrong about that.

And then I question, you know, why are we creating a private club and giving land valued at two to three million dollars?

And in the long run, I don't know whether this is going to be a big savings for the taxpayers or not, as this is portrayed.

and I guess another thing that bothers me is, you know, we talk a lot in the city about wanting to strengthen our neighborhoods and we start doing some of these things.

I don't know whether that's going to strengthen our neighborhoods or not.

I really question that.

And I don't know, I just think we have to look at some other things and I have a real problem with this thing as way as it's presented right now.

And you might want to answer a few more questions if you can.

With respect to getting board representation of city and county residents, I would think that we could accomplish that within a year before the facility is even built.

It's just finding the right folks in the city that are interested in helping us govern the Y for the city and the county.

And I guess another thing is, once we give up control by leasing that, I mean, what recourse will we have if you decide to change the hours, you decide to change fees or whatever?

You will have representation on the board, two appointed members, probably half the board, and the use agreement does put some restrictions on what we can do.

At the same time, Mr. Taliaferro, you have to recognize that we're going to be operating this and covering all the operating expenses, so if in fact the city would, for instance, say, boy, we really want this open at four in the morning because there's two people that want to come to the pool,

We might say, you know, we can't do that.

We would love to be able to accommodate every human being, but we can't open up at 4 in the morning for two people.

We're going to open up at 5.30 when we really will have 15 people.

So there's going to be decisions made by our board that, you're right, you won't control, but we are going to have to operate it in a way that covers those operating expenses.

Frankly, if you all wanted the complete control and are willing to cover any operating deficits, that'd be fine with us too.

But I think as long as you insist that we cover the operating expenses, and we want to do so.

We think that's appropriate for us to do.

We have to have some flexibility in operating it in a business-like and responsible way.

In terms of the ex officio members of the board, I believe we actually talked about this at the meeting that you and I had with Mr. Norris.

and our concern is that in fact Mr. Spatz and Mr. Mulaney who are the two Parks and Rec representatives from the city and the county will be needing to deal with our executive director on an equal level and therefore since our executive director is not a member of our board because in fact we hire him and can fire him we did not want to elevate the people that will be interacting with him as peers

and put them in a position where they're on a board that will be hiring and firing the same executive director that they're going to be working with on a daily basis to make the day-to-day operation work.

It has nothing to do with not wanting Mike on our board or not wanting Pat on our board.

I'm ex officio.

Well, we're inviting them to attend every meeting.

They're expected to attend every meeting.

They would not have a vote.

I think in substance you end up with the same thing.

In terms of, you mentioned that we don't know the cost, we don't know where the land is or where it's going to be sited.

You're right, we don't have detailed drawings yet, but in fact

The reason we don't is because we, in fact, have cooperated with the city and the Parks and Rec folks' request that they be allowed to do master planning for the active side of the park and then designate a site after that process is complete.

So, in fact, the reason we don't have a site and we don't have drawings is because, in fact, we want to cooperate with the city and let them do that master planning process for the active side of the park, which they anticipate will be done

April 1st or May 1st.

At that point we'll have an idea where the land's going to be, but in fact it's at the request of your Parks and Recs director that we haven't picked a site yet.

In terms of the pay stub, I recognize that it's difficult to ask somebody for a pay stub or a tax return.

But the flip side of it is we want to be fair.

We want to make sure that, in fact, the people that really need assistance are the people that are actually getting assistance.

So you have to weigh a balance between saying all you have to do is say you need it and we'll give it to you, between that and having people fill out 15-page financial statements.

in most wise, in most communities, they have found that asking people for the last two pay stubs and their tax return is about the most innocuous way to do it and at the same time keep people honest so that the right people get financial aid and people that don't deserve it aren't getting it.

Well, I understand it.

I just think it's the meaning to do it, somebody.

I don't know that it's fair to extrapolate the current use percentages of city and county folks for the pools in Charlottesville as being predictive of those same percentages of use of a facility that we're going to build.

We're going to have gymnasium space, an indoor track, we're going to have a fitness facility, and it's all going to be located right next to CHS, which has a very large student population.

I think frankly most of us at the Y feel that there probably will be disproportionately more city users of the facility than there are population wise, just because it is located in the city right next to CHS.

Is it a private club?

The YMCA is a not-for-profit entity, and it's a public charity under 501c3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

We don't discriminate against anyone on any basis, and we provide financial aid to anyone who wants to come.

I think that's about as far away from a private club as you can get.

Well, it's a membership-based organization.

But it is a membership-based organization.

In terms of strengthening neighborhoods, I think in an ideal world, we would love to be able to build an indoor recreation center with an indoor pool in all 12 city neighborhoods.

But although I didn't come up with these figures, these are Mr. Spetz's figures, I guarantee you it would be more than $90 million to do that.

with a limited number of resources, does it make more sense to do it in a single facility than to do it in every neighborhood?

Do we let non-profit groups use parkland for recreational purposes?

Well all the little leagues currently operate non-profitly using ball diamond space in a number of little league fields and parks throughout the city.

Secondly, a comment which is that for the relatively small amount of money that Albemarle County is going to be putting into the Y, I think we need to make it clear as we negotiate this user agreement that Albemarle County cannot expect the Y to meet all of their aquatic, indoor aquatic needs and

because that's what's putting us at a disadvantage right now in terms of making sure that our high school team has access to those lanes.

And I think we need to make it clear to the county that they've got to continue to look at other options in addition to the why.

And one option that I would personally like to make available to Albemarle County is to give them the option of repairing and using Crow Pool for that purpose since the vast majority of the current users of Crow Pool are county residents anyway.

I want to walk through a series of options.

This is going back to Mr. Krueger's point about looking at the big picture, looking at the forest.

And Mr. Svets, if you could refer to this matrix that you put together.

There are two options in particular that I want to walk through.

One is what if the city were simply to renovate the current Crow and Smith facilities and not go with the YMCA.

And then the second option would be option number four, which is to consolidate

Crow and Smith into a new Smith pool and do the YMCA in McIntyre Park with the Tame Lane pool.

So do you understand where I'm going with this?

Absolutely.

Okay.

So I'm going to ask you for the benefit of the public and people watching your home just to answer a series of questions.

And how about an option two, which is going with the water and consolidating into Smith pool?

That would be 16.

Thank you.

How many warm water pools for therapy with recreational amenities would there be under the current scenario?

None.

How many would there be with option B?

Two.

What is the total aquatic facility user capacity per hour under the current scenario?

160.

And under option B?

7 to 800.

7 to 800.

Is there modern adult fitness space available in the current scenario?

No.

Would there be under option B?

Yes.

Is there modern youth fitness space available in the current scenario?

No.

Would there be under option B?

Yes.

Is there indoor walking and running track available in the current scenario?

No.

Is there an option B?

Yes.

Is there a two-court gymnasium available under the current scenario?

No.

Would there be an option B?

Yes.

What about a childcare facility under the current scenario?

No.

Option B?

Yes.

Or maybe?

Maybe.

Two-hour babysitting service for facility users under option A.

Thought I had a moment, sorry.

Yes, no under the current scenario.

And under option B?

Yes.

Enhanced recreational program opportunities for all ages, interests and abilities under option A?

No.

Under option B?

Capital expense to the city at the time of construction under option A?

Let me qualify this.

The number on this chart says 5 to 10 million and to speak to a couple of

Folks that brought this up in part of a public hearing comment, we had originally given them numbers of five to six million, but if they would recall, we also included that that did not include any potential plumbing, pool shell, or gutter repair.

And so knowing what potentially that could cost, we've added that to that figure.

And so this is construction costs, capital costs, five to 10 million to renovate Crow and Smith.

That would be $10 to $12 million.

What are the city's estimated share of operating expenses in, let's say, year one for option A?

Year one would be $541,000.

And under option B?

$341,000.

Okay.

And the city's estimated share of operating expenses over a 20-year period, assuming 5% annual increase under option A?

Correct.

Approximately $17.9 million.

and under option B, $11.3 million.

So the total estimated cost, including both the capital costs up front and over a 20 year period of operating costs, under option A, which provides

Okay, and with option B, which provides this wide range of additional services, what would the total estimated cost to the city, upfront capital, and 20-year operating be?

Approximately $21.3 million to $23.25 million.

Okay, so it's conceivable that under, that we could actually save the taxpayers' money, a substantial amount of money, conceivably, by going with option B than we would by option A?

Yes.

Now if we were to do option B and say instead of letting the Y build a facility, that we would build our own facility and control it, what would the total estimated cost to the city be, including upfront capital and 20 years of operating costs?

90 to 95 million dollars.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Can I follow up on that?

Because I think Councillor Norris makes some good points, although it is also worth saying that option B, while more attractive, in my mind is pretty much the same whether it were at McIntire Park or

at PVCC, and I don't have a whole lot of heartburn with having it go to PVCC.

I think the advantage of it being at McIntyre Park, there are some potential advantages there, and most of those potential advantages have to do with how well does it work with CHS, which I think we're getting there, but we're not quite there yet, and how much does it work with city, how much is it accessible to city residents.

and so I certainly would support the Y in going forward with the new facility whether or not

McIntyre Park is the best location for that, I think is still to be decided.

Hopefully we can come up with a solution that works at McIntyre Park, but I do think we have a ways to go.

Some of the people that were asking, well, what about the loss of green space at McIntyre Park?

I think we ought to make clear that the piece of land that we're talking about there

is an existing softball field right now so we're not talking about going and cutting down a stand of oak trees or anything like that.

In fact, the softball fields are being used even more disproportionately by the county than are the city pool systems.

It's in my mind and people have pointed out rightly that city recreation facilities are by and large used more by the county than by the city and in my mind that is all the more reason why we should be partnering with the Y to do another community facility.

that the city is not paying for.

I think there are actually a lot of people, I believe, in the Albemarle County and surrounding areas who would donate money to the Y.

It's a good cause.

Building this facility will be good for the community and I think there are people out there that have the means and the interest

in doing so.

But there's not even a mechanism for them to do that now if they wanted to, unless they wanted to just give money to the city, which they're welcome to do that as well.

But typically that's not something that people generally do.

I'm thinking that Kurt might have better luck with some of our friends in the county of means than we might.

So I do think that there is a potential for another facility and I think it could actually take some of the burden that we have in our existing city facilities and free them up for more city usage.

Again, I think the key is does it really work for the city having it in McIntire Park?

What is the real advantage of having it in McIntire Park over PVCC?

And if you can't say because the swim team can use it and CHS can use it and our city residents can use it, then maybe that's not the best place for it.

I'd like to offer a couple of comments.

I know you're standing on your mic and I don't think I have any questions for you if you want to relax.

To me, I agree with what Kevin said at the end here is that what's in it for the city really has to do with being located near the high school.

It's not just swimming.

I ran a soccer program for public housing kids for several years, and there's a desperate need for good, high-quality indoor gym space.

And to me, the attractiveness, especially, and I applaud you for making

as clear as you can at this stage the type of financial aid you would offer because I think it'd be incredible if at the end of the day kids could leave the high school and go play basketball you know till dinner time I mean that would that would help a lot of kids a lot of time

and I do know that there's Y's that succeed in those type of things.

I know the one in Hampton Roads does a good job of not only offering that type of financial aid but then having sliding scales for so that sort of the lower middle class families also feel like they can afford to participate in the Y.

But swimming wise, you know, it's really important to me that we support our swim team.

In fact, I'm kind of

You know, I didn't know that our swim team numbers are limited by lanes, and I think that's unfortunate.

The other parents of high school

My kids are now in college, but both of my kids got better grades when they were in season practicing than they did when they weren't in season.

It's kind of amazing.

They have no extra time.

That really helps them focus.

And I think sort of more opportunity we give our kids, and especially if we can, you know, we now support a summer swim program trying to get swimming to be part of all of Charlottesville and not just the affluent kids.

So it's very important to me, it's a deal breaker, that this high school team have six lanes.

And in fact, and I think we're trying to, you know, the point was made, we're not, you know, the county hasn't provided, they need to provide more.

I mean, they probably do need to look at some pool space of their own.

But for us to try to say, okay, we can do 10 lanes, that means the team split it, everyone gets five lanes, no one wins with that.

The county teams don't win and we don't win.

I think it's even better to say you'll get into at least six lanes with the idea, great, maybe the high school can have 49 kids, maybe 48 kids or 42 kids and eight lanes worth.

And I think we'd all be proud of that.

So that's very important to me that that happened.

They also just make sense.

It makes sense for everybody.

I don't think anyone would really argue that if you have one group of kids who are already there physically, we're talking about green stuff and green, you know, being a sustainable community, if the kids are already there, they would, you know, they can walk there in two minutes.

Why on earth would they not, would you not just say, yeah, of course.

You know, you can have priority only.

for that media slot.

If you're interested in that slot, then you have to compete with anyone else for the time.

You'll be guaranteed time, but you have to compete with the time.

But you do get that first choice at that after school spot.

I don't think that Charlottesville High School should have priority for meets.

I think that should be shared and to kind of figure out where the meet schedule goes.

But I think in terms of being there after school, we should get it.

And I think it just makes sense in terms of resources.

We're contributing equally.

They have three schools, we only have one.

We should get something for that.

I also think that, I think giving, you know, and you heard today from people for whom giving up parkland is a big deal.

I think it means much more than an equivalent amount of money, and I think that that's also a reason why this deal has to include a few specific things to make sure, and you are addressing this, but the financial aid picture has to be one of them, and I think you've done a good job, and the second one has to be accessed for the swim team.

I'll say a few things.

No questions.

And everybody has said such amazing things all night that I'm not really going to talk.

I'm going to just name the people that I agree with.

She's going to faint when I say this, but I agree with everything that Colette said.

The points that Liz Kachai made earlier tonight I have been sharing over the last few weeks with counselors and with Mr. Krueger.

It was really great to hear from Ms. Goff to get that picture of what is going on with the swim team and to really focus on what it is, what our needs are, and what's really important for us to be focusing on.

And I do have to congratulate my colleague to the left for his masterly disposition of a few minutes ago.

It's a good thing you got that on tape.

You should replay it.

Pat yourself on the back.

But I do have to say that the person who really captured it most of all for me was Dee Dee Smith.

That's really basically where I come down on this issue.

I really am having serious heartburn about turning over parkland.

and not really feeling that that's valued and also not really feeling that the city's contribution over the last 30 years to providing regional facilities is valued either.

Mr. Frank, could you maybe address procedurally

Well, there are two separate documents.

Although the use agreement is incorporated by reference and made a part of the ground lease,

You can go ahead and move and second.

There is an ordinance in your notebook that was provided at the last meeting.

You can go ahead and move and second the ground lease.

It's somewhat akin to moving and seconding part of a lease because it is a key component, the use agreement.

I think we should move them both together because they are really related.

It's probably also worth saying that in addition to this use and lease agreement, I think the city's plans for Smith Pool are also very much related to this.

And I wouldn't be supporting this if I didn't believe that we could do an economic solution and consolidation of Smith and Crow at Smith Pool.

I understand that the Parks and Recreation will be back

and be ready by the next meeting to lay out a little bit more clearly what that looks like and it's got some spending targets that are a little bit more in line with what the city has available and I think if we can get those two pieces together, the consolidation of Smith and Crow and the why that they could work as a package.

It seems to me, and I kind of agree with Kevin, I mean that, you know, when we're done with this we have to do it all at the same time so we might as well just proceed that way.

It seems to me there's three of us that, assuming that these details can be worked out to our satisfaction, are supportive of moving forward.

I want to make sure we do that before we move and second it because that only takes two.

Well, I've got a lot of, I still have, I think this is doable, but it's not done by a launch date.

If you are ready to move forward with a motion and second, what you have before you is the proposal from the Y, and that included the use agreement, and that was what was submitted in response to the city's invitation to bid.

Mr. Krueger's October 29th letter modifies that in one aspect and that's the first paragraph that has to do with the liens.

It seems like there's a lot of

It gets worked out in detail.

Otherwise we're going to be back here whenever we come back and debating specific lease terms.

I think there's some details on the end of lease, that type of stuff that needs to be worked out.

With that understanding, is there a motion?

So moved.

I'll wait for you to second.

I'll second it.

Okay.

So it will come back to us, but probably not for a while.

Okay, thank you.

Next on the agenda is a public hearing on an appropriation regarding transit grants.

Mr. O'Connell?

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

This is a straightforward item.

This is part of what we need to do annually with our transit grants.

These expenditures have been planned and they are included in the fiscal year 2008 budget.

However, it's always a guessing game on exactly what the amounts of our grants will be.

I do have good news in that we either got what we projected or we got somewhat more than what we projected.

So what we're doing is simply asking you to appropriate grant monies that will be received.

I think your report was straightforward.

I appreciate getting it all together.

Just for a second, this is a public hearing, so if you have questions, it's going to help the public hearing, but otherwise we can bring that back in a second.

Any other questions?

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

Actually, this is more in front of some questions.

I remember that Judy Mueller, the director of public works, came before this body, I think about a year and a half ago, and talked about, and I'm going to specifically direct my questions to the CTS replacement facility, and she talked about how the city had bought a

a building in the county actually and it needed some renovation, it needed some work and eventually the transit piece, the buses themselves would be moving out to that facility.

That's the impression I got so I hope that was the correct impression.

So my question is when will that facility be ready to actually be used?

Two, what will happen then to the 4th Street Yard?

I've heard a lot of ideas thrown around.

I just wondered if anything's been consolidated.

And third, which is very important to us who are worried about the health of Skanks Branch Creek, which runs under the 4th Street Yard.

are there groundwater contamination issues at the 4th Street Yard and I don't know if Mr. Watterson can address any of these.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Okay, come stamp your ticket.

Thanks for waiting.

Any other public comments?

Okay, I'll close the public hearing and I'll open it again to council questions.

Well, I was curious as to what the disposition of the federal flexing of our urban allocation dollars, has that been resolved yet?

I think you're referring to the $240,000?

No, I do not know with any certainty.

Why don't we also ask him if he had any, if he wanted to offer answers.

I don't think I can answer all of the questions that were posed, but yes, the living parcel which has a building on it is incorporated in the plans for the replacement facility for CTS.

So the administrative and the operations component of CTS will be in that library facility.

There will be an additional maintenance building.

We look to break ground next spring.

Well, with regard to the CTS space, other public works purposes in the short run we'll use it.

I think you know this, there's not funding to move the rest of public works, but the plan on Avon Street is to put ourselves in a position in the future to be able to move.

CTS is the most obvious major one.

The school bus operation is out there now.

We hope through phases over time to be able to do that and then turn over a piece of land, I think downtown, that could be used for other purposes.

And to my knowledge, you know the environmental issues.

We've had it tested quite a bit, continue to have it tested.

The issues that are there are on site about if you would construct something for the future.

Right, and I believe it was just a couple years ago that we pulled a bunch of old oil tanks out of there so the city has been working to clean that area up so that it's less of a

Burdon on Shanks Branch.

As far as what happens next, I think that's really open what happens with that property.

A lot of things have been proposed back in the 90s.

It was proposed that it would be a hotel convention center site, that it was going to be a minor league ball field, exactly what could happen to it next.

I was hoping at one point that might be a better place to put a consolidated why.

or perhaps when our fire station, it looks like we're going to end up renovating the downtown fire station, but that could be a site to completely rebuild that.

Okay.

Any other questions about the grants?

If not, is there a motion?

So moved.

Next is a report on our Convention of Visitors Bureau.

Mark Shore, who is the director of our regional program is here.

This comes out of a discussion that we had.

Mr. Taliaferro was on a recent trip to Asheville, sort of looking at best practices of other tourism programs.

and it seemed to be an opportunity to do two things.

One, to talk about the Asheville trip and some lessons learned and secondly, talk about some of the new investments, some of the new programs that the visitor's bureau is conducting.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, thank you for the invitation to be here with you tonight.

The presentation for this evening is to share with you both the performance measures which are required out of our joint operations agreement between the city of Charlottesville and the county of Albemarle.

There are several performance measures which are outlined, and this is a brief overview.

The packets that I've handed out to you will also give you what we call our ROI report card, but this is a general overview.

Our basic target goal is a 7 to 1 return on investment in direct bookings that we know the Convention and Visitors Bureau has brought to town.

And we know as a general expenditures, tourism expenditures, the Virginia Tourism Corporation tells us that roughly $400 million in expenditures happen in the city and the county.

But we track as a benchmark those direct expenditures which we know we had an impact on, those expenditures which we know we brought to the table and brought into the community.

So this is the first

number to take a look at, the investment by the City of Charlottesville in fiscal year 07, and the investment by the County of Albemarle, and then the direct expenditures generated by our efforts at the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So for fiscal year 07, we're showing a result of 7.38 to 1 return on investment.

We calculate that in a number of ways.

One is through our monitoring of the room nights that have been booked directly through the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Our group meeting room nights that have been booked, just over 5,000 this past year.

And we calculate the room revenues and the additional delegate spending based on the research that was done two years ago, as well as the current average daily rates that's reported to us through Smith Travel Research, which monitors the hotel occupancy rates

the average daily expenditures and the revenue per available room.

So our direct spending from the group meeting room nights booked is just over 1.3 million.

We also monitor our group tour bookings.

We monitor the overnight group tour expenditures that have come in.

We worked with 10 companies this past year.

We also work with our day trip group tour expenditures and keep track of that.

These numbers come from research that is done by the American Bus Association, which calculates an expenditure per bus for overnight groups and day trips.

We also track those companies that we work with separately.

but additionally that booked through our President's Pass voucher program, so eight companies there resulting in 869 visitors with an economic impact of 18,000.

The other measure that we look at are leisure inquiries.

We track both the electronic requests for information, the advertisement-driven inquiries, and unique visitors to the website.

We look at our walk-in traffic at the visitor centers and the number of leisure hotel room nights that are booked directly through those visitor centers.

We look at the advertisement driven inquiries and the electronic requests for information.

We do a conversion ratio on that which is generated by the research we got.

Roughly 23% of the advertisement driven inquiries convert.

Roughly 34% of the electronic requests for information convert to an actual visit.

And from that we are able to pull out the leisure expenditures from those conversions at $5.1 million.

Another thing that we track is the destination awareness.

Last year, media articles that we tracked, 714, this does not reflect articles that were directly generated by the convention bureau, but it is, they are the number of articles that were tracked through a tracking service we used called BACANS, which is now CISION, but it tracks that, it gives us a benchmark each year to know how we're doing as a community and the destination awareness that's out there.

In December of 2006 we started to apply the new brand image to our advertising.

You can see a little bit of that here on this page.

And probably most significantly in terms of destination awareness, in April 2007 we worked with the Virginia Tourism Corporation

and hosted 26 different food, wine, historic, architectural, garden and travel writers.

Probably one of our largest staff resource investments but we expect to be seeing articles generated from that probably over the next year and we feel like that was a significant coup for us to be chosen by the Virginia Tourism Corporation as the site for these 26 writers that came in.

Probably the most exciting part to me, if you'll recall and look over to the right hand column, the 419% increase in private sector dollars since FY04.

FY05 was the first year under the new agreement, the new joint operations agreement between the city and the county.

One of the things that that did in setting a funding mechanism which is the equivalent of 30% of the first 5% of the lodging taxes collected

What it did was it set a baseline for the investment that was being made by the city and the county and it allowed us to create programs where the private sector could invest in the efforts of the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So we're excited to say that from FY04 until the FY07 budget we've seen a 419% increase totaling $92,000.

We do track in-kind partnerships.

Much of that comes about when we bring travel writers to town.

Our partners in the community donate for the travel writers that are coming, whether it be overnight stays or meals while they're here.

But we also do a number of other things.

Cooperative advertising programs.

We have a hotel partnership program that helps us to send business to hotels but also gives us a share of bookings.

The President's Pass program, which is a multi-attraction ticket to Mickey Tavern, Ashland Highland, and Monticello, and then various cooperative marketing efforts, and those may be anything from trade shows to special programs that we do where partners in the community have brought private dollars to the table.

Our goal in this is a 25% match and in fiscal year 07 we had a 48% match of marketing and advertising dollars matched to our marketing and advertising budget.

Media coverage, again, this is not a figure that we directly impact, but it is a benchmark that we monitor.

The circulation reached was basically 83 million impressions over the fiscal year of FY07.

We do get this information from decision, formerly Bacon's, and we monitor that.

It was slightly down this past year, as we reported, but it is still tracking very strongly for us.

Marketing investment versus total budget.

One of the criteria of the operations agreement is that we continue to increase our marketing investment by 5% annually.

And so we can do that with new funds that come in or by reducing overhead costs as best as possible.

Those marketing dollars that we calculate

come from line items of research, sales, advertising, marketing, and public relations.

So from fiscal year 2006 to 2007, we saw a jump.

Now we do that compared to the full budget.

So $263,000 to a $902,000 investment shows that we moved up to 29% of our total budget was geared towards marketing investment.

I'll move on now to an overview of the product research trip that we participated in at the end of August and we were fortunate enough to have

Counselor Taliaferro joined us.

As you can see here, members of the community were able to join us as well.

This is the first product research trip that we have undertaken.

Some of our inspiration came from the Burlington, Vermont trip, which happened several years ago.

But it was an opportunity for us to go into a city where we felt, one, had a convention of visitors who had a good reputation.

but also a city that had some similar demographics in terms of the community as well as the visitor market which they reach.

We stayed at the Hayward Park Hotel in downtown Asheville which was significant in that it was an old Ivy's department store that had been renovated and turned into a

into a hotel property.

You can see the general manager holding the sign there for all the different departments.

Everybody wanted to know whether they were in the shoe section or in furrows or what part of the hotel they were actually staying in.

Four basic things that we learned while we were there, just as an overview.

Marketing messages that we saw.

We were really impressed with the fact that the entire community seemed to be on message.

They all knew the same story about the history of Asheville.

They could all talk about the reason that they had such a strong art deco architecture left in place.

and it was really quite interesting to see that no matter who we talked to in the community, they all seemed to have the same message.

One of the lessons learned was that everybody seemed to be on message.

We also saw what they called the culturalization of the brand and still being implemented as they had new branding that came out a little over a year and a half ago.

They're still implementing that in the community and getting the community partners to utilize that brand.

They refer to it as the culturalization of the brand.

One program that we saw that was kind of unique, they called it the Five Day Weekend and actually created a website, a blogging site called Five Day Weekend.

They took a tour bus into metropolitan cities like Charlotte and Atlanta and basically proposed that people sign a petition.

asking Congress for a five day weekend and they put about $600,000 into that campaign really to try to reach kind of the electronic markets to get bloggers engaged and if you went to five day weekend you would find that it actually tied you into the back end of the Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau's website.

FAM trips for non-traditional media.

We found out that they were doing familiarization trips, that's what FAM is short for.

Familiarization trips, we do it for the travel writers that write for print publications, but they're doing it for some of the media bloggers that are doing blogs for cuisine or wine, which we thought was kind of interesting.

They seem to have a really strong ability to coordinate their advertising schedules.

The Convention Investors Bureau coordinating with Biltmore Estate and coordinating with other large investors in the community that are spending money on tourism advertising, they seem to do a really good job with that and something that we would like to mirror.

They do spend about $50,000 to $75,000 a year annually on research.

We spent a little over $50,000 two years ago and look at our investment as probably every three years.

We found out about a regional attractions admissions card that has been created up to about 25 different attractions, so it kind of gave us some hope to build off of the three attractions we have in the President's past to perhaps create some type of multi-attraction admission card in the region, not just Charlottesville and Albemarle.

One of the impressive parts of their marketing efforts was that 51% of their total budget, which is a $6 million budget,

51% of their budget is spent on direct advertising buys.

If you recall back to our return on investment, we spend 29% of our total advertising and marketing budget on being able to do advertising and marketing, but they're actually spending 51% of their total budget on direct ad buys.

We'll talk a little bit more in an investment slide about how that's possible.

and then lastly we had a wonderful tour of the Biltmore Estate and learned a lot about their efforts to brand and what they choose to do on the site to bring in continued revenues.

Really everything they do has to be an extension of the current brand of Biltmore Estate to generate revenues.

The second area is partnerships and community relations.

We spoke to some folks with the Blue Ridge Heritage Area, which is a 25-county partnership.

It is a national heritage area, and if you may recall, Charlottesville is part of an 11-county proposed national heritage area called the Journey Through Hallard Ground.

So this was beneficial for us to talk to the folks from the Blue Ridge Heritage Area and learn about some of the partnerships that they were doing.

They were actually the leaders in this regional attractions admissions card that we learned about.

Our first evening there we took a private bus tour which was quite different than our typical tour bus.

The La Zoom bus tour basically included an open-air school bus that had been painted and decorated with actors and actresses that came on and off the bus as we traveled through town and told all the stories, anything from the history of the Art Deco but also took us through neighborhoods and shared with us things about

Green building initiatives in certain neighborhoods and took us to artisans' warehouse districts, places that you probably wouldn't have seen on a typical tour of a town.

They were not afraid to show us perhaps some of the things that you wouldn't see in the brochure, although we were all sworn not to say anything to their Chamber of Commerce.

We did learn quite a bit about the other side of Asheville, but it also made us connect with Asheville quite a bit more.

and a lot of people came back hoping that perhaps we could tap into our arts community here for a similar type of bus tour.

We found out that they were doing a lot of ticketing at the kiosks that they had established in the national parks.

This was part of the Blue Ridge Heritage Area initiatives.

We saw a strong relationship between the Convention Bureau and the destination in the Biltmore Estate.

We felt there were some similarities between Charlottesville and Monticello compared to Asheville and the Biltmore Estate.

and then lastly the pooling of research dollars and marketing efforts between the Biltmore Estate and the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

We thought those were significant endeavors where they work together.

At times they work separately and go after different markets, but they coordinate their efforts well.

A couple of things we learned from the Biltmore Estate was their ability to shift the balances of attendance into off-seasons.

They showed us a slide where

15 years ago, 20 years ago, their attendance in December was 4% of the total attendance.

They've shifted that now so that December is now about 25% of their attendance and it's also the highest yielding.

month for them.

So we learned a lot about how Biltmore Estate had created tiered pricing based on the time of year and demand and really was practicing a lot of private sector pricing models that might be something for our attractions to look at.

If you look at the photograph in the bottom, that is the Asheville Visitor Center.

They have approximately 200,000 visitors a year coming through this new facility.

They are part of their Chamber of Commerce.

Although they are operated by or overseen by a tourism development authority that oversees the funds that pay for the Convention of Visitors Bureau Park.

We thought this was quite an impressive facility.

Biltmore Estate actually rents a ticket space at the counter to sell tickets for Biltmore from their visitor center.

In terms of investment, some lessons learned there.

The Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau operates with a $6 million budget, 23 full-time employees and 60 volunteers.

Ninety-five percent of all lodging taxes go to the Tourism Development Authority Board, which is the board that oversees the Convention of Visitors Bureau.

We found a strong sense that the community understands that the tourism return on investment pays for things like infrastructure and programs that the city and county want to undertake.

If we were to look at that same funding formula here, the Charlottesville Albemarle's Convention and Visitors Bureau's budget would be around $3.5 million.

We're roughly at a million this year.

Biltmore, as I mentioned before, Biltmore pays the Asheville CBB to operate a ticket desk in the visitor center, so there seems to be a good relationship there and a revenue source for the convention bureau.

We also saw that above the $6 million budget that they operate on to run the convention bureau, they have a tourism product development fund.

It generates about $1.5 million annually.

No more than a third of it can be dedicated to long-term commitments.

They are looking this year at funding their wayfinding program through this type of grant program that they solicit applications for.

They also indicated that the fact that they have six projects on the table valued at about 3.8 million brought the CVB to a seat at the economic development table.

So they're now seen as an economic development engine because of this tourism product development fund.

The fund had also assisted with things like the renovation of the Grove Arcade, which we were able to tour while we were there.

And the other interesting probably to close with here on investment, they actually took a look at what markets were not generating a strong return on investment for them and they've reduced their efforts towards the motorcoach and group tour market because of the low return on investment.

So even with a $6 million budget, they're looking at ways to streamline and put their money in those things that have the greatest return on investment.

So I think that concludes my presentation in terms of the PowerPoint.

Thank you, Mr.

Shore.

Before we ask questions, I'll share a little anecdote, just driving home.

After taking a son to Dulles Airport to go back to college it was right after Christmas and I had stopped at one of the

Press Center on 66 and I went in and of course I was looking at the Charlottesville brochures to see what there was and the woman told me to look at the Charlottesville brochures and we started talking and then she told me about getting a Christmas present or flowers or something from the Charlottesville Convention Bureau and the way she said it made me think this isn't what she gets from most places.

and I think it really was an effective way of having her when she saw me looking at these brochures by Charlottesville to bring up the subject to chat with me.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Each year when our visitor's guide rolls out, we visit 35 welcome centers across the state and take them a little gift basket basically donated by the partners in the community.

Our partners go with us.

We go in teams of four.

and we go in and just thank them for sending visitors our way.

We ask them what questions they get.

By chance, when we visited some of the ones in the western part of the state, we found out their number one question was how to get to UVA hospital.

So, not a typical visitor question, but it's one that we then integrated into our points of interest map.

So, it's been a great project to go into the visitor centers and just thank them for sending people our way.

I'd just like to thank you for making the presentation.

I guess that one of the things that I'm interested in trying to figure out if there's a way that we can increase the number of hotel nights in the community and keep people here longer and I guess with that in mind, I would ask you, what do we need to do there?

I think your investment has been strong and is one that we are building upon.

We have been challenged over the last couple of years with some of the operating costs that we've had.

We were funded, you may recall the downtown visitor center was funded for five years.

from fiscal year 2000 through 2005.

But after that, that funding went away, so we technically took a $120,000 a year cutback from our city funding, but it really allowed us to tighten our belts and look for operational

areas of operation that we could cut those costs, and I'm pleased to say that our marketing efforts did not suffer, but any effort or any additional funding that we get at this point does pretty much go to marketing.

Our operational costs are now covered, so the beauty of building on what we have is that those monies can go to marketing efforts, so I just encourage you to consider that.

If there are special projects, special grants that we can help facilitate,

We do a grants program where we offer about $20,000 a year to our community partners.

We match a percentage if they're presenting something new, a brochure or an advertisement.

Okay, well as you well know,

We're at 30% of the 5% at this point.

That is about half of the national average.

I think the national average tends to be about 64%.

So we are challenged at times.

I think sometimes we're out-marketed.

by a town like Asheville.

We struggle sometimes to keep up with the business that's calling in and we want to be about business that hasn't thought to call in yet.

We are continuing to work on the branding initiatives and get the new brand out.

We are endeavoring to put out a new visitor's guide with a new publishing partner.

We're trying to finalize that right now.

Well, thank you.

We watch the council meetings and we see the challenges the community has and we take our job very seriously that what we do is not just about bringing tourists to town, it's about bringing their dollars here to help pay for the infrastructure and the programs that you all see before you every week.

And a quick question, how is the new facility working out in the Transit Center?

It's been very well received.

We get a lot of positive comments.

We have a lot of folks ask about the architectural features and the LEED certification and the green building status.

I would have to say we even have a lot of citizens who just wander through our offices, and it's been fine because

truly they have a sense of ownership and pride in the building so it's been a great location for us, good visibility which we hope will perhaps inspire one of our citizens to maybe bring one of their associations meetings to town so it's good that we're seen in that location and it's been very helpful.

Let me ask one more question since the center was brought up.

I had a citizen suggest to me that perhaps you all need the hours of operation on the door because they say people walk up there and they don't know what time it closes and opens.

I don't know what that causes an issue, but I'm just passing that along.

It must have been making its way through the emails because we acted on that this morning and have ordered the hours to go on.

So we will.

Two questions sort of related.

First of all, you are the Convention and Visitors Bureau and I'm wondering, you know, is there much talk about developing a real convention center in Charlottesville?

And then secondly, perhaps related to that, we do have this new fund, Economic Development Strategic Initiatives Fund.

You mentioned the Tourism Product Development Fund and thinking about tourism as an economic development engine.

Great, I'll see him in the morning.

Convention Center.

There was a feasibility study that was done prior to my arrival here, so probably around 2000 or 2001, which looked at the feasibility and said that the market could definitely accommodate it.

We do tend to cap out with meetings at about 400 people.

which we track lost business.

It is significant for groups over 400 the amount of lost business that we have.

We're particularly a favorite spot not only because we're a great town but because we're centrally located.

So if you're a state association and have members in Bristol and members in Alexandria, Charlottesville is a very popular spot.

but we do lose business that's turned away if there are over 450-500 people.

It's just logistically not possible to do.

Can I just mention one?

I'll surprise Mark in saying this.

One of our challenges is

The lease that we have with Monticello will be running out in 2009.

There's a debate about exactly what date.

The facility is actually owned by the city and county under sort of some interesting circumstances, but one of our challenges will be what reuse do we have for that facility and a negotiation with Monticello about hopefully moving some of the visitor's operation up on the mountaintop.

in the works and we had a meeting today actually about it but while we were talking about this I just wanted to mention it because we'll need to come back and have some more discussions about it.

Well the conditions on how you sell it and how it was, it was really built by the state and there's some deed restrictions on

How it's used so it gets a little bit complicated.

I think the community view has been from up on the Piedmont Hill of some sort of community college facility.

I'm not sure they financially have the wherewithal to do something, but we'll see.

There's going to be some discussions between the council and the board of supervisors about that as time goes on.

Thank you very much, Mark.

Next is Angela Tucker to tell us about the McIntire Road Interchange Good evening Members of the Route 250 Bypass Interchange at McIntire Road project team are here

tonight to report on the work now underway and to present a brief PowerPoint of the material presented at last week's public hearing.

52 persons attended the public hearing, three of which were elected officials, five were steering committee members, and five were media representatives.

We've received 18 comments to date, and the comment period runs through November 13th.

Our goal tonight is to provide you with this overview, including the future transcript of the public hearing and comment period so that you're able, at a future meeting, to select one of the two recommended preferred alternatives so that we may move forward with our project design.

Mr. Mayor and members of council, we'll try to be brief and provide just a quick overview.

Angelo went through a nice introduction.

We did have a public hearing last week on Thursday night regarding our project.

John, go ahead.

We were last here in July.

What we'd like to do first is just quickly let you know some of the

Ongoing activities that have been taking place since we last talked with you and gave you an update on the project.

We're going to review briefly the environmental assessment and Section 4F overview that was in your advanced packages that each of you received.

Once again refresh your memory on the preferred alternatives and reflect on what our next steps will be.

Our ongoing work has included, since the last meeting, a traffic operations analysis memo which we prepared for review by VDOT and the Federal Highway Administration.

We did complete the draft environmental assessment and the Section 4F document, as well as noise and air technical reports.

We had a meeting with concerned and stakeholder citizens of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and had an initial coordination meeting with them We reviewed with the steering committee some very initial bridge concepts and as you heard we had our public hearing last week Similar requests we heard from city council in July

and some of these we followed up on and some of them we're going to touch on tonight.

It included pedestrian safety comparison for roundabouts and signalized crossings which we provided to you after that last meeting.

a safety of pedestrians and underpasses and their interaction.

We're still working with members of the steering committee and officials with the city on what our underpasses are going to look like and the safety of those.

Specific limits of disturbance information, those were included in the draft environmental assessment and some of the figures that were provided in that document that we gave to you.

Pedestrian accessibility, we reviewed that with you at the last meeting and we will show you that again tonight.

and develop visual models of the alternatives.

What we told you at the last meeting was we provide you an overview of the types of models our firm has created on other projects and tonight we have some of those types of models and animations for you to view tonight.

As Angela said, the public hearing was last week.

I won't go into all the details.

We did receive 11 written comments and 7 oral comments at that time.

The comment period is still open until November 13th for public comment.

Those comments can be mailed or you can fill the form out right on our website at www.250interchange.org

It's interactive.

All the materials that were provided at the public hearing are on the website and you can take a look at that and fill out the questionnaire.

Some of the things we did to announce, just to let you know, the work we did in advance of the public hearing along with Angela and her team.

We did mail, provide public notice 30 days in advance.

in the various Daily Progress, the Shelby Albemarle Tribune as well as posting at City Hall and on our project website.

Announcements have been included in the City Notes newsletter and we emailed announcements and or mailed announcements to every citizen that's on our project mailing list.

Additional outreach activities that have taken place since we last met.

We've met with the Kiwanis, as I said, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Coordination meeting was held.

We've had two steering committee meetings.

We attended the North Downtown Residence Association meeting just to let them know some of the details about the upcoming hearing.

On October 16th, we had a presentation to the Board of Architecture Review, just an overall introductory presentation.

We will be coordinating with them further in the future.

Media advisories were sent out to most of the major media outlets in the area and on October 29th Angela Tucker was on WINA's morning program right in advance of our hearing for an interview and to further get the word out that our hearing was that Thursday night.

The preferred alternatives, just to refresh your memory, City Council on July 2nd expressed an interest in forwarding alternative C1 and G1 for additional study and our environmental assessment was completed, or draft environmental assessment was signed by the Federal Highway Administration.

We received it on September 25th, 2005.

I mean 2007 and alternative C1 and G1 were presented as the preferred alternatives in that document which we've previously provided for you.

Good evening everyone.

Just to give, as Owen mentioned, a brief overview of our environmental assessment document.

The EA was prepared to determine whether or not there are significant impacts to the environment as a result of the two preferred alternatives.

And based on comments to date from federal, state, and local agencies, including Federal Highway and VDOT,

they have expressed that there would not be significant impacts to the environment as a result of the interchange project and just to follow through a little bit on our next steps would be a revised EA to address a single preferred alternative and then complete section 106 coordination as well as to address public comments that we've heard so far at the hearing and on the EA and then if appropriate a finding of no significant impact would be issued by the Federal Highway Administration.

I won't go into detail on this slide.

This is the project purpose and need for the interchange project.

I believe you've seen these bullets before.

They are the primary basis for our alternatives evaluation as well as for our environmental effects assessment.

Okay, so some of the key findings from the environmental assessment.

First of all, there would be effects to community facilities as a result of the interchange project.

The MACA site, the Covenant School, would both have similar impacts under alternative C1 and G1.

The CARS facility would have slightly greater impacts under alternative C1.

As far as effects to cultural resources, we have had extensive coordination with VDHR as well as the public on cultural resources.

The study team recommended to VDHR three historic resources that are in the project area.

The Charlottesville Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District, McIntire Covenant School, and newly recognized in September of 2007, McIntire Park.

and alternative C1 and G1 would have similar impacts to those resources and we will be continuing coordination with VDHR and consulting parties for an effect determination for the resources.

Further environmental consequences from a noise perspective, we found that there would be three effective receivers.

These are sensitive areas that are in the study area that would be affected by the no-build condition as well as by alternative C1.

So alternative C1 and no-build have very similar impacts from noise perspective based on traffic increases.

Alternative G1 would have one additional impact to receivers.

Receivers are things such as residences or in this case an alternative G1, the wading pool area.

Mitigation was considered based on our analysis to not be feasible and or reasonable, meaning it's not cost effective or it wouldn't bring down the level of noise necessary to reduce the impact.

Lastly, on natural resources, there would be effects to Schenck's Branch as well as two intermittent tributaries and alternative C1 would have slightly greater impacts to Schenck's Branch on the order of about 100 linear feet.

The draft section 4F was also part of the document.

We evaluated these resources as part of the 4F evaluation.

They include the park resources as well as the historic resources in the area.

The Section 4F evaluation looked at avoidance alternatives both that completely avoided all resources in the project area, all Section 4F resources in the project area, as well as individual alternatives that we looked at to avoid specific resources such as shifting the interchange in one direction or another in order to eliminate impacts to

State Park or to McIntire Park.

And the bottom line was that these alternatives were found to either not meet purpose and need or that they would have extraordinary environmental impact and so therefore at this point we don't feel that they would be feasible and prudent.

Bottom line of a section 4F evaluation states that the two preferred alternatives, alternative C1 and G1, would require very similar amounts of land.

The differences are that G1 would require a little bit less land, but perhaps would not be as sensitive to the park setting and would not have space inside the interchange to allow for park features.

And now just to go through both of the alternatives and to show you a little bit more, I believe it was expressed by council in July that the plan views and those kind of views of our project sometimes aren't as helpful as maybe seeing some sort of depiction of what the area may look like when the project may be built.

So we're going to go through each of the interchange alternatives and sort of provide you a first look at what each alternative might look like.

I will caution you that we have inserted just basic bridge shapes and textures and those kind of things.

The landscape and the lay of the land is pretty much the way these plans are showing, the plans with the contour lines that you've seen before.

the rest of the picture we have not gotten into bridge details and those finite details as of yet but alternative C1 is the diamond interchange with the roundabout this is an aerial rendering looking towards Charlottesville from the north and looking in the same direction this is along the McIntyre Road extended looking towards the pedestrian bridge and the interchange bridge

This is a view from the path looking north, looking back the other direction And this is an animation that we've created using our engineering contouring and what our proposed contouring might look like through the interchange area and I'll just let this run First is through the path

Scanks Branch is off to the right and you can see the rescue squad.

The underpass we talked about earlier.

The main bridge.

And this is approaching the bridge back over Skanks Branch where we would either pass further to the north or the potential I-grade crossing near the roundabout.

Now we're going to look at as a vehicle would travel going southbound from the direction you saw those previous pictures or those renderings.

Vehicles entering the roundabout at the north end.

Rescue squad can be seen over there to the left.

And then we're exiting the interchange area on McIntyre Road headed towards

Good City.

Same thing for alternative G1.

First I'll show you the plan view.

As you recall this is a diamond interchange with your standard signalized intersections.

It's actually not very different from the interchange you just saw.

These two interchanges are very similar as Eric

Eric just said on their impact areas and that's due primarily to the shape of the interchanges they're both pretty basic diamond tile style interchanges and the two videos that we were able to create for alternative G1 first is the pedestrian again you'll find this is not too dissimilar from what you saw before there's a little more space between the roadway and the pedestrian path because we don't have the

the roundabout in the middle of the interchange so the runway is a little further away it's passing under the main bridge and towards the underpass to the north of the

Bypass and out towards McIntyre Park.

And a vehicular view on southbound direction as well.

You can see the signals this time, standard diamond style features, ramps entering and leaving to your left and right.

passing through the southern ramps and now onto McIntyre Road again.

Trails off to the left here, bicycle path and the roadway as we've shown you on the previous plans we've shown.

Our final wrap up slide is just where we're going from here.

We will end the comment period, public comments through November 13th.

We're continuing with our section 106 coordination with stakeholders and with VDHR Public comments summary we hope to have prepared by November 23rd and get that out to council potentially a late November steering committee meeting and right now we're sort of targeting December 3rd if we can get a lot of our work done between now and then

to possibly come back and discuss with you what we heard from the public outreach, from public comment and potentially have maybe one selected alternative out of the two that are currently being shown in our environmental assessment.

With that, that's the conclusion of our PowerPoint.

I'd like to tell you what we handed out to you as you were leaving your seats was the first handout is just the slide presentation you just saw.

The longer handout is, that's each of the presentation boards that were at the meeting on Thursday night along with the questionnaire, the public.

was issued on that night.

Questions?

Well this is generally, in the 20 years I've been doing similar projects, a standard way of conducting a hearing.

There is consideration given to making sure that we do have adequate exchange of not only giving information but receiving it as well and this seems to capture that.

We also know that the other public forums that we share information to offer the opportunity for public comment at a podium.

and we share that with the public that expresses that need as well.

And so we know some of that took place tonight.

Question.

It is.

We're working on the video.

The renderings, yes.

Sure.

Which is, I commend you for the work that you've done in putting this report together.

It's very thorough and addresses a lot of the issues that a lot of people care about, but for me,

Once again, brings to my mind the idea that if this kind of thorough analysis is done on the intersection, it should be done on the whole project.

You can't isolate noise impacts from the intersection and not talk about cumulative noise impacts from the entire project.

Same with water impacts, same with environmental impacts, same with

I think that's a good point though.

I agree that this should be one project and I think you guys have done a great job on your part of the project.

I wish you were doing a similar...

A couple of other things that are more specific to the interchange that I'd like to take a look at.

I did notice that you've heard this from me before, but the other counselors haven't.

I appreciate the extra space that is given to the pedestrian underpasses.

I still think they're just a little tight, and I realize the more you push the ramps to the east to get more space for the pedestrians, the more expensive the project gets.

You get longer spans.

but I think you can see that as you as the pedestrian walk through goes through there's a couple spots where it's just a little tight and you've got an embankment not that far I guess it'd be to your right from the from the directions that we were shown so I would like to see if we can't figure out a way to have a little more space for the pedestrian there the other comment that I had is that this

This project will take seven to nine acres of land in that area and although it's not anticipated right now that we would be mitigating that loss by replacing it with parkland, I think we should do that and I think we have an opportunity in the immediate area to do that, namely

the slope going from Shanks Branch to the east which is largely undeveloped right now.

Macca owns a large portion of that.

In fact, there's some old historic gardens that are behind Macca.

I think if Macca is amenable to it, one of the things that we ought to explore as a city is perhaps purchasing those gardens, maybe getting the local garden community

to work in restoring those so that they would look closer to their original condition.

And I realize that both of those things that I would like to do cost money and we're constrained here.

One of the issues that I think we ought to look at as counsel, or I guess there's a couple regarding cost here.

Originally, the earmark that we got from the feds was $32 million with the state matching 20%, which took us up to about $38 million is what we thought we were getting.

And I think if we had that amount of money,

we'd be in pretty good shape.

The Feds, however, even though they earmarked originally 32 or 25, maybe it was 31, 25 plus 6 I think, the allocation was only 85% of that, so we're 15% short and therefore I think the total money that's in this project is more like $30 million, which is right up

on what we're anticipating this thing costing and that's without adding more space for the pedestrians or replacing parkland.

So I think we might, as we talk about our legislative agenda and what we hope to accomplish this year, finding some additional funds

for this project ought to be one of our goals for this year as well.

I do think that Charlottesville has a good case to make from both the feds and the state in terms of getting additional funds for projects like these because currently we receive only about 60% of the transportation taxes that we spend in Charlottesville.

and that's if you include everything that we get back from the state.

If you include our transit support, our urban allocation support, our road maintenance funds, it still comes back to just about 60 cents on the dollar.

I think we've been getting short change for a long time and we ought to be able to make a case for getting more dollars.

And one thing that just occurred to me

a couple of days ago that I haven't even asked the project team about is I wonder if we might be able to get primary road funding for this thing because it is on state 250.

To my knowledge, unless we did that and I didn't track that, I don't think we've really made a push to do that.

I think that might be a route that we could go because I think this right now is looking like a good project.

I think we can make it a really great project.

I have a question.

I'm looking through this packet thinking I'm going to find comments from the public and...

Question I have that follows what Kevin initially talked about is in these materials or in the information on the web, is there anything that kind of gives

a sense of scale.

For example, if you were standing on the path, how far would it be to the wall of the beginning of the overpass, or how far would the overpass extend approximately as you were looking at it, and how far over your head would it be?

I think you can see that.

Well, I'm asking.

But there must be some sense of that it's going to be between 10 and 15 feet above your head will be the roadway, most likely the roadway will go by

Sure, well we have presented bits and pieces of that in various meetings and those are on our website.

There's no plan on our website right now where you could go and dimension vertically or horizontally.

I think one of the, your point from the last meeting, I think one of the best depictions is some of these renderings and things, all of these renderings are available and are visible on the website.

People can print them out and look at them.

If you can picture yourself on the trail.

And we don't have all those heights and everything defined yet either.

I mean there's minimum clearances, as Kevin was saying, we like to pull some of these parapets back.

We went to BAR, we heard from them that they'd like to see a thinner bridge and a different shape than an arch altogether.

All of those kind of things are still on the table.

I think from an overall perspective our bridge is, as it passes over the roadways is about 30 feet high at the driving, where you're driving on it up above of course we've got substructure and everything so by the time you get down to the roadway below it's about 20 feet

feet above you, give or take whether we're building an arch or a flatter type of a bridge.

Those pedestrian underpasses, we're still working on those to try and make them as open and as airy as we can.

One advantage for doing all of that is we also open up Scanks Branch, which is mentioned in the environmental assessment.

But also to answer your question, that perspective as you're traveling down the pedestrian path, that's an eye level perspective, so that's about, I don't know if you took an average person, but that's basically if you're an average person going through, and you can see you've got the width of the trail, that's a 10 foot trail,

The other part of it, the idea is there's going to be sort of a switchback trail that goes up the hill in order to access a bridge that goes across the parkway, right?

So it might, I mean, some sense of how steep that is, how high up it goes,

Which is why I asked you about the video on the web because I found that when I went to the citizen information meeting, what I found really useful was just to stare at that thing and I probably watched three cycles of it before I really had a sense of...

We were trying to make the web access to that video a real deal.

We were talking about that this afternoon.

Hopefully by like tomorrow, Wednesday, that should be up.

I have two questions.

I don't think I know the answer to them, but just for the purpose of clarification for people watching at home,

We're working with the group to leave it in its current location and try to improve access to it.

We are impacting the vicinity of it.

We're going to use some retaining walls and some things to stay away from the Veterans Memorial as much as we can and hopefully our new trails will actually