City Council Meeting   1/22/2008

for all of you that made holiday resolutions to get in shape.

Thank you, Miss Edwards.

Any other announcements?

I do have an item for other business regarding a resolution that I'd like to discuss at the end of the meeting today regarding support for House Bill 883 regarding a new authority regarding affordable housing.

So we're going to talk about that at the end of the agenda.

Now it's time for awards and recognitions and I'm very pleased to be offering a proclamation tonight regarding a subject that's

near and dear to me, and you're going to be hearing a lot from me in the next couple years about the subject of youth mentoring.

And this, as I'm sure all of you know, January is National Youth Mentoring Month, and we have a very special proclamation

I'd like to read, and a very special guest tonight who's going to receive this.

This is a proclamation on behalf of the city of Charlottesville.

Whereas the future of Charlottesville and Albemarle rests on the hopes and dreams of its children and youth, and whereas mentors offer valuable encouragement, motivation, and hope for our youth by providing a consistent role model,

and whereas too many youth will face struggles with alcohol and other drugs, gangs, teen pregnancy and educational failure and whereas research has shown mentored youth are 52% less likely to skip a day of school, 46% less likely to start using drugs and 27% less likely to start drinking.

and whereas relationships with caring mentors offer youth valuable encouragement, motivation and support to guide them toward making positive choices and whereas mentoring after school programs, mentor coalitions and public and private organizations throughout Virginia are committed to increasing the number of quality mentors statewide and whereas partnerships between businesses, education and mentor programs are an effective way for businesses to support youth within the community

and whereas mentoring before, during and after school has become an effective strategy used by schools to increase student attendance and academic performance and whereas collaborative mentor programs that are supported by the entire community are more viable and therefore more successful whereas hundreds of our Charlottesville and Albemarle youth are waiting for mentors and whereas Mentoring Month provides an opportunity to recognize and commend the efforts of these programs

and raise community awareness of the importance of mentoring.

Now, therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby declare January 2008 as Mentoring Month and encourage Charlottesville and Albemarle residents to honor the role models in their lives by becoming mentors to youth

and their community.

And here to receive this proclamation is Kayla Somerville from one of our community's outstanding youth mentoring programs, Computers for Kids.

And before I give this to Kayla, I want to publicly announce we're very pleased to report that one of Kayla's volunteers, Ms. Jenny Kim, has been recently named as Mentor of the Year by the Virginia Mentoring Partnership.

I'd like to thank the City Council for your continuous support of Computers for Kids and I'd especially like to thank the citizens of Charlottesville who have provided numerous, over 10,000 mentoring hours to our area youth.

and those of you who haven't spent any time mentoring, I'd encourage you to consider it and do so.

For more information, you can go to www.computers4kids.net or give us a call at 817-1121.

I hope to see more of you mentoring.

Thank you, Ms. Everglen.

Now we're going to move to matters by the public.

We'll be accepting public comment at a limit of three minutes per speaker.

As always, if somebody before you has said something that you were planning to say, feel free to say ditto.

We have a number of people who signed up to speak, and then we'll open it up to others.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors and City Manager Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane, President of the NDRA, the Neighborhood Association for North Downtown In early December 2007, the City advertised for a position of an Assistant City Manager

After one month, final interviews were held on January 9, 2008, and a person was hired soon after.

As a neighborhood president, I received by United States postal mail from the city manager's office an agenda for his quarterly meeting of neighborhood presidents for January 17.

One item agenda was listed as Assistant City Manager and included in the agenda was a two-page job description.

I assumed from this that Mr. O'Connell wanted to discuss this with the neighborhood presidents.

Apparently his office had sent out by email a job description and an invitation to the neighborhood association presidents asking for input and their presence at the final interviews.

I never received this email.

Why?

It was sent to an old email address.

I had emailed repeatedly and recently in the past with the city manager's assistant.

She was aware of my not so new email address.

2.

At the City Manager's Meeting for Neighborhood Association Presidents, I have signed the attendance sheet at least three times with my new email address.

What happened to those lists?

3.

My email is correct on the City's website, that neighborhood contact page.

4.

Why wasn't I sent a notice by United States Postal Service as I am for the City Manager's quarterly meetings?

Next, the email notice was sent on December 21, 2007 and the interviews were on January 9.

There was plenty of time for me to have received a notice by the United States Postal Service.

When my email address bounced back, was not deliverable, I should have been sent a notice using the United States Postal Service.

and last, yesterday I saw the email names to whom his assistant sent the notice.

Ten of those names are no longer neighborhood association presidents and two were never neighborhood association presidents.

The person has been hired so nothing can be done now to receive input from the North downtown neighborhood.

I am justifiably angry at this lapse.

What do I say to North Downtown residents as to why their voices were not heard in hiring this employee who is planned to be so vital to neighborhoods, city involvement, and community communication?

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Good evening.

I'm Downing Smith.

I live at 810 Lucas Avenue.

I don't know how many of y'all read The Hook, the most recent issue of The Hook.

There's an article on the ongoing story about Jerry Mitchell being hit in a crossway by an Albemarle County police officer and they're distributing a petition.

I'd like you to read one paragraph.

The petition briefly outlines the facts of the case then makes it demand.

We call upon the Charlottesville City Council and the Attorney General of the Commonwealth to hold investigations into police misconduct and suspected corruption in the city and county police departments.

The wording of that petition is just off the deep end.

I doubt that we have any

corruption in our police department.

I support our police department.

I've come before you before to commend the police department for the excellent job they did with Jane McGowan murder when they arrested the suspects in several days and when they treated me and my wife with respect and quite frankly with sensitivity.

However, there have been two recent incidents that I think have not helped the reputation of our police department.

It's difficult being a police officer and when a police officer makes a mistake, the consequences are worse and the consequences are public.

Albemarle County's police department has a very bad reputation because they've had a string of incidents that have been unexplained to the public satisfaction.

For example, the officer who shot his neighbor's dog and it's bad because he was a K-9 officer and that's never been explained to my satisfaction.

The first incident was down on Water Street, alleging police misconduct also in the hook.

I was told by a knowledgeable individual whom I trust that the facts and the hooks were incorrect.

And when the case came to court, it would prove that people were blocking traffic, they were drunk and disorderly, and they assaulted the police officer.

Turns out the judge didn't see it that way.

It turns out that this person who I talked to was misinformed.

And then we come to Mr. Mitchell.

I've been up to that intersection.

I've looked at it.

I don't see how anybody who's paying attention could have missed seeing a guy in a wheelchair crossing the street there.

But I have a lot of unanswered questions.

I can't understand why they didn't interview the witness.

I can't understand why Chief Longo, whom I respect and I think we're lucky to have him as a chief, didn't know that they were witnesses.

It showed very poor judgment on someone's part that they thought they had to send somebody to the UVA emergency room.

to serve Mr. Mitchell while he was being treated.

That's not showing the same kind of sensitivity that the police showed to me when I had the case in my backyard.

I don't want our police department to get a bad reputation.

And I think one way that we can do this is to have a citizens committee to review instances like this and give the public assurance that these unanswered questions that I have get answered.

and this committee cannot be made up of people just like me, upper middle class white guys.

It has to be white people, black people, men, women, rich and poor.

It has to be a cross section of our community so that this world will have credibility.

Thank you Mr. Smith.

Good evening.

My name is Jay Wheeler.

I'm the executive director of the Bill Ridge Home Builders Association.

Although I wasn't able to be here earlier this month when you all committed the city to addressing a property tax reduction for energy efficient homes, I wanted to come tonight to thank you for doing that.

Blue return builders is a very strong advocate of the earthcraft approach to residential building.

We think it's a very sound way to build houses that are both energy efficient and environmentally sensitive.

Your action will be very useful to your citizens.

There are some portions of green building that raise the cost of the house or some portions of green building that save on the cost of the house.

The average assumption is

A green built earth craft home will cost 3-5% more than the same house just built to coat.

So there is that slight possibility of an increase.

The 30-50% energy savings over the lifetime of living in that home is certainly a wonderful return for the homeowner, but there still is in the marketplace some reluctance about how do I make that first purchase of a home that might cost more.

Your tax incentive will help address that issue and encourage people at all price points to do that.

A year ago, we sponsored a tour of ten earth craft homes in the county.

Those prices ranged from over a million dollars to two homes being built by Habitat for Humanity as a good example of the fact that energy efficient homes can address residents at all levels.

We hope to do a similar tour late in April and we hope you'll all come.

I just want to come tonight again.

Thank you for your leadership and the assistance you're going to provide some very fortunate members of your community.

Thank you, Mr. Weller.

Good evening.

I am John E. Hall.

formerly of 3027 Colonial Drive in Albemarle County.

I'm in transition right now closer into town.

This is something I wanted to do to celebrate Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's life.

I've written a declaration of Earth unity and mercy and here's how it goes.

These new truths are now revealed that

Healthy, mature, and aware mankind is equal, charged by God to rescue the weak and needy.

Mankind is endowed by our Creator with rights.

Among these rights are life, being best conceived in a red woman or girl,

Liberty for those who observe the law and the pursuit of happiness so long as happiness is not lost to us by our own misbehavior or taken away from us by mean, corrupt and unjust men and women who are blind because they do not see and deaf because they do not care to or cannot hear.

I've got a little summary note.

I believe God is charging me to invent such new ideas as I work to reify them in the above declaration.

It is just as honest and reliable to place before mankind the evidence of disease, decay, desolation, and the solution to same in world society in order that we as Virginians, other honest and true Americans in other world states as well,

lead the way to peace, purity, grace, and blessing by first getting our own country and democracy in good order so that we might please God and lead by example.

These are sentiments and expressions of God's mind, not John Edward Hall's mind, so conceived by him and penned by me.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Chad Freckman, 104 Northwood Circle.

I noticed on tonight's agenda there's a report on the transit system update and I'd just like to say some words to you about transit.

I think you've heard me speak before.

I noticed that as part of the update of the system there's going to be a proposed bus line out by Charlottesville High School.

I believe years ago we did have bus service out to the Greenbrier neighborhood and it was ultimately stopped because of low ridership.

With all the other

Programs in the city regarding alternative transportation, city policy regarding alternative transportation.

I think we have a real opportunity here now and indeed an imperative to really make our transit system work for all of our citizens.

And I suggest that what we really need to do is get our school kids involved in riding CTS.

If there is a proposal to put a bus line out there, let's make it available to the kids.

If we don't have a program that incorporates CHS students into that bus line, we'll probably be back here in a year and we won't have a bus line because there's no ridership.

What I suggest CTS look at is extending the three month summer free bus pass that is currently and has been

In addition, there's a large population at CHS.

that doesn't have access to a private vehicle and rides yellow school buses.

If they miss those yellow school buses in the morning, they don't get to school.

Having interconnectivity with other parts of the city is important.

I notice that the bus route right now goes out and back.

I think it would be a good idea for somebody to look at the possibility of making it go in a loop and in both directions so that if students needed to take the bus, they wouldn't have to keep coming back down to the mall.

They could get to Barracks Road and then pick up other bus lines from there.

The other day there was a PTO meeting at the high school and the manager of the Performing Arts Center spoke about using the Martin Luther King Performing Arts Center as more of a community center.

Right now, of course, with no bus service out there, it's limited to people driving their own cars, so I think having a bus line out there and encouraging the use of that center as a community center will be helpful to our community.

I hope that some of those ideas might be looked at and I'd like to see Charlottesville become more of a transit-oriented community.

Thank you, Mr. Freckman.

Would anybody else from the public like to speak?

Okay, now we'll open up to council responses to matters by the public.

I would like to... No, go ahead.

I would like to make a comment on the last suggestion.

I think it would be very desirable to have a bullet transverse to CHS in that area in loop format instead of just one dead-end format.

I'd just like to comment on Mr. Smith's suggestion on the police department having some type of civilian review board.

I think that's a very good suggestion.

Conversely, I also want to say that I have ever conferenced in the police department.

I will say that there have been incidents that have happened historically for a long period of time that I'm aware of and they've been dealt with.

And they haven't been swept under the rug.

There have been people disciplined, dismissed, a whole lot of different issues that have been taken care of.

I think that the police department does a pretty good job of policing their self in most instances.

Can I add to that just quickly?

To the Chief's credit, he is working with the City Attorney's Office to look at the legal side of the Citizen Review Board, how it would practically work to come up with some recommendations that we're going to look at fairly soon.

Any other responses?

I'll make a couple comments.

I agree with the chief.

I think we have a fine police department.

I think one of the things our police department does is it offers a, I can't remember exactly what the title of it is, but a Citizen's Academy, which, you know, I've participated in a little bit and I think a couple other counselors have, which is a great opportunity for our citizens to attend, I think it's an eight-week

I think raising these issues such as the review board are important, but I also agree with them that fundamentally we have a very fine department and a very good chief.

I offer my sympathies with Collette Hall.

I changed my email address a couple years ago and I bet everyone's gone through this, but there's always stuff I still miss from other counselors on occasion, from members of neighborhood associations and it's always frustrating because there will be people who

I just want to say I just appreciated all the comments that were made and to the gentleman from the Blue Ridge Home Builders.

I'm looking forward to having more energy efficient homes and as we talk about it and explore it more, I like to make sure that we're very inclusive in the way that we're able to do that and include all parts of the neighborhood and all parts of the community.

Thank you.

I'd just like to second the comments made by Chief Taliaferro and

Mayor Brown about the Citizen Review Board and just I think the overall integrity of our police department but I think it is a good idea to look at integrating some level of citizen review and we'll be talking more about the transit issues later on but just wanted to second I think it's a wonderful idea to offer CHS students the opportunity to ride for free year-round with their IDs but we'll talk about all that later and I thank you all for your offering your comments tonight and

We'll now move on to the regular agenda.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move the following appointments to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Claude Stevens and Karen Waters.

Mr. Stevens to fill a term which will expire 6-30-2010.

Ms.

Waters to fill a term that will expire on 6-30-08.

Thank you.

That's been motioned.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

I think she'd be a tremendous asset, I agree.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to the consent agenda.

There are five items on our consent agenda tonight.

Item A is an appropriation of $105,705 of fire department grants, the second of two readings.

Item B is an appropriation of $2,379.43, donations to the police department, again the second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $750,000 for stormwater improvements from our FY07 surplus, the first of two readings.

Item D is an ordinance, a quick claim gas easement in Copperfield subdivision to VDOT, the second of two readings.

And item E is an ordinance rezoning property at the corner of Summit Street and Fontaine Avenue from R2 to B2, it's the second of two readings.

Item C. Okay, we'll put that under Other Business, which is the appropriation for stormwater improvements from the surplus.

Any other items to be removed?

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor, or any discussion?

All in favor, please say aye.

Press your button.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

We are now moving into the first report slash public hearing on our agenda tonight.

And this is an item I'm very pleased to see us taking up for consideration for the first time that I'm aware of.

We're going to spend some time this evening.

as a council and as a community talking in public about ways and specific ideas for creating a smarter and more efficient city government.

And we have, actually I'm not going to jump into it, I'm going to pass it off to our city manager and have him tee it up and we'll take it from there.

We prepared a PowerPoint presentation that I'd like to have Council move and we'll spend probably the next 15 minutes.

Just trying to go through examples of cost savings that we've implemented within city government.

Sort of highlight a few of those, there are lots of them, but we thought it was important to start the meeting with that in mind.

And secondly, to discuss some as sort of as we head into the budget season.

Choices that get made during the budget process that reflect what's important to the community, community priorities,

I would like to take the opportunity to try to show you some examples of those by using the PowerPoint presentation.

Give me a minute to get set up.

Is this working?

Good.

See if I can get it.

Is that picking up okay?

I'm going to try to run through a number of things fairly quickly, but first of all I want to connect to discussions that City Council has had over a period of time and while we're here tonight and connect particularly to the City Council vision and some of the actions that we've taken in response to that.

but to really a couple reasons that we're here.

It's to be able to report out, as I was saying a few minutes ago, to talk about some of the cost savings that we have within city government and give you some examples of those.

We want to follow up on what council has talked about as smart government, trying to be efficient but trying to provide good quality services.

We also want to give you some examples of service quality and the choice that gets made by this community, and I'll give you a couple examples of those.

Choices that tend to get made during the budget process, some involve a lot of money, others do not.

I'll give you a couple of examples that are fairly significant from a budget standpoint.

And secondly tonight was, once I finished this presentation, is to be a public opportunity for discussion.

Both here tonight

as well as you'll see at the end of our presentation we've been doing some advertising for this.

We've set up a new special website to solicit comments from the public who are already starting to get some of those comments already that we'll be sharing with council a little bit later.

This is the city council's vision and I thought I would start here because I really think this sort of talks about what city government's all about and what we're trying to achieve.

and I want to point out particularly the second part of that, city government being flexible and city government is progressive and city government looking to the future, to the needs of our community and looking at investments that need to be made today for that future.

This is one of the specific council strategies you might ask

Where did this word smart come from?

I've been asked that by a number of different people.

This is where it came from, out of a discussion the council was having about how we want the city government to operate and to be smart about it, to be citizen focused, and to be efficient.

And you can see here about the delivery of quality services and doing that in an effective and efficient way.

Also, another part of this strategy is constant improvement, what we call best practices.

And it's really about being our best and being efficient and continually working at that, not just for the budget process, but as we go through our day-to-day work every day within the city hall.

It's also about being smart and applying innovation and technology to what we do, and I'll give you a couple examples of things that we're doing along those lines.

and I think in a lot of ways we're at the forefront for probably any small city in the country.

Plus all this being done with active citizen involvement, that's a piece of what this is all about tonight and there will be other public opportunities as we get further into the budget process.

So I'm going to try to give you some specific examples as I go through this.

There are eight city council strategies as shown here and the summaries are

in this slide behind me, that really becomes a focus for the council as we go through the budget, particularly with new initiatives, but also things that are important in terms of trying to emphasize.

We presented a number of recent reports on some of these strategies.

Recently, the Green City Environmental Sustainability Report from a council committee, energy conservation, housing and affordable housing, a connected community that

talks about transportation and transit as you heard earlier and tonight we're going to focus on the smart government aspect.

We try to put in perspective as we head into the budget things that we're doing now as well as what we're considering in the upcoming budget proposal.

We use detailed staff budget reviews both for the budgets that go to council but also regularly during the year to continue to monitor those and make sure that we're making good use of taxpayer funds.

We began three years ago to prepare for a downturn in the economy which is now here.

We did that by investing for the future and a lot of ways following the business world example as to making investments to look at long term savings.

We vested in energy conservation and a number of other cost saving measures that I'll show you a few examples of.

We've invested in equipment and buildings and school buildings within the community while the economy was good to try to be sure that we can be prepared for the future.

We'll try to show you some demonstrated cost savings, some specific ones with specific dollar amounts.

And these all, in a way from that perspective, add value to the community

and reflect the values of the community.

And I think that's an important point.

That's one of the things that set Charlottesville apart, I think, from a lot of other cities.

This is a very different community from a lot of places and the values that are here we try to reflect and the budgets that we have and the priorities that the city council thinks are important.

The dollars that are saved, some of the examples that are going to follow are real sort of more notable ones.

But a ballpark estimate on the low side is these total at least $10 million that we've documented for this presentation.

We think it's all about being very efficient, and as I talked about a minute ago, really looking at best practices for other cities to be sure that we're doing

are things that we need to be doing to be efficient with the use of money with an emphasis on quality and quality yet at a good value.

I want to build on that services at good value and yet good quality.

I've mentioned a couple different times reflecting the community's values.

But here's some examples of things that I think set us apart from other communities that there's a value in Charlottesville to have in place.

The first one that I wanted to use was trees and urban forestry program, or the landscaping of the streets within the city, or our parks.

Those are things that are important to this community that we've done for a long time.

Their value is reflected, but they have a cost to them in the end.

Another one is the city's investment in affordable housing to address the changing economic hardships from the current market.

Another one is our curbside recycling program, and I'll come back to that one in a minute.

Another one that came up a few minutes ago was a quality transit system that's available in our community.

They're these and then there are many others that I think are part of the Charlottesville quality of life.

So when you talk about a budget, it's not just how much you spend or where you save money, but what are important services that this community gets.

Here's another example that we've talked about recently that reflects a community value, and I think more of an evolving and a newer community value, and that's sustainability.

Yeah, I think they're cost savings that we're seeing from that approach, sort of what I would call a win-win for the community.

I've kind of thought about it as two times green, green in terms of saving money and green in terms of the environment.

We've adopted some policies that save money, for example, the ottling policy or moving to alternative fuels as ways that are good for the environment, but on the other hand, save us money in our operating budgets.

We've looked at a number of infrastructure investments, major maintenance and energy saving systems, kind of the approach that we've talked about in a number of budgets about pay me now or pay me more later.

In good economics times, it's a good time to be making those kinds of investments.

As we head into the future, I think they're going to pay off in cost savings.

And that can be for things like buildings, streets, the downtown malls and other infrastructure that we have.

We're also applying that, thank you, to new buildings and using new technologies in energy conservation.

The geothermal wells that are at the new transit center is one of those.

It's very good for the environment, but very much of a cost saver for us.

We have another program that's in the city schools that's about energy conservation and gain sharing is an incentive for them to save with how they operate their schools and trying to conserve energy.

We have a touch on staffing decisions.

We try to be very careful.

We review them in depth.

There's a regular review of any opening that comes up to see is there a possibility for a reorganization for a different way to do the work.

But I thought I might give you two examples that are coming out of the proposed budget that we're putting together that will be in front of council just to give you an idea of the choices and some of the thinking.

In next year's budget, we're going to be proposing one new building inspector to keep up with the growing construction in the city.

And it isn't slowing down.

Yet it's going to be fully funded by increased building fees that come from the construction industry.

So we'll be more responsive, provide a better service,

I saw a note today from a citizen that was concerned about the store response.

This is a way for us to be able to do that.

On the other hand, we've been through reorganization in the city manager's office and the budget proposal will have the elimination of one high level management position within city government at a fairly significant savings.

Our prior expenditures have been under budget, I think for the last five years.

I want to credit the departments that carefully monitor those to make sure that we stay under the budget, that they look for cost effective ways to do that.

That's not always the pattern in government, but I think we've had some very positive results by our city's leadership team.

We try to be very accountable and transparent.

All the city's financials, our budgets are up on the website, and for both of those we get national awards.

We practice what I'll call future-oriented budgeting, but sort of anticipating the needs for the future.

The five-year capital budget is one of those.

The multi-year forecast that we do annually is another one of those of trying to look more than just the next budget cycle.

Now here's some examples, and then we'll move into a couple city services, just to share with you some things that we've been doing.

These particular ones are out of fire services.

We consolidated the emergency communications center, the fire dispatching operations at $100,000 net annual savings.

Over five years, that's a half a million dollars.

We've applied new fire technologies with a new GIS emergency mapping system for efficiency and approved responsiveness.

We've recently put into place the use of

and the Citizen Environment Tool through the Fire Corps that is helping us promote and assist the fire department.

We're using alternative fuels, and I think we're on the forefront with this with fire equipment, working at ways to bring that into the fire department and experimenting with it.

It's a large expense in our budget.

You can see a hybrid vehicle that we purchased to try to look to energy savings so that we can achieve.

On our emergency responsiveness, we've changed the protocols to match needed responses.

Farm activations have been reduced and that saves money.

We have a pretty active physical fitness program and awareness program.

All the equipment in the program itself are funded by grants.

Healthier firefighters are going to need better results, I think.

And finally, total fire grants have been more than $10 million in the past year or so.

That saves city taxpayers and that money would go to another community if we weren't aggressively pursuing it.

In policing, the use of grants along with contributions, private contributions to the Charlottesville Police Foundation has resulted in $1.3 million in the past year.

We went to a mobile forensic band for greater efficiency in solving crime.

We have a major investment in problem-rearing and policing, which means a better use of the resources and a problem-solving approach, and we continue to emphasize that.

We're using a new management tool called CommStaff.

which is a detailed analysis by the police leadership of crime statistics and trends.

It's an excellent example of efficiency and proactive use of technology to target problems and issues that we have in the community.

Computers and police cars for instant data.

It's more efficient, so a police officer can focus on policing in the community and not on their paperwork.

and a massive project to try to bring that about.

And finally, in-car video systems that ensure officer safety as well as promote greater accountability.

In Citizen Communications, it's been a council and I think very much a community priority that we get greater information to the public and be more interactive with what we do.

yet there's a cost to provide this in an ongoing way.

We're doing more to get city information out, yet as cost effectively as we can.

For example, 765 police incident reports were filled out online last year, a savings to our citizens as well as for the police.

New online services and a dramatic increase in information provided has resulted

and that's been ranked as one of the best small city websites in the country.

But we're continuing to add to that to try to make improvements to make it easier for citizens to do business with the city and we have some announcements we'll be making over the next couple months.

We're moving away from traditional advertising which calculated, saves us as much as $35,000 a year and gone to non-traditional things that use email and all kinds of other alerts.

where we're broadcasting meetings like this one on channel 10.

We started web video streaming those and recently we started podcasting to iPods.

I mention that one because we had 15,000 people that watched web video streaming of city meetings last year.

We keep track of it.

So there are a lot of people out there watching.

A couple of social services.

In foster care, our prevention efforts reduced costs by almost 40%, so $227,000 last year.

We've proposed a number of cost savings in the Comprehensive Service Act, and those are being implemented.

We've changed the way we've managed reimbursements to get a higher rate from state and federal agencies, which will save $200,000 in next year's budget.

We've received 100% grant funding for three priority services, a social worker in elementary school and mental health

clinician and adult guardian social worker.

And we promoted some community partnerships for some shared cross savings such as the Java Seniors Case Manager that's in our department and our department provided Medicaid specialist at Region 10.

And financial services are triple A rating saves.

It's the highest that a city can get.

There are only two cities in Virginia and we're one of the few small cities in the country that have a AAA.

It's a big deal, but it saves local taxpayers.

Yet there's lots of work that the staff has to do to get us in a position to continue to keep that.

But our calculation is that's resulted in almost three million dollars in cost savings as a result of having that AAA.

We went to automated meter reading a few years ago where we applied radio and computer technology to electronically read meters in the community.

We reduced the staff, which has an annual savings of almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Since the program was implemented, we've got cost savings of almost a million dollars.

We've gone to electronic purchasing to save the city money and vendor tone.

That's another one of those win-win for the public and businesses that we work with.

And this spring, we'll go to credit cards for citizen use and city payments.

Yet it has a cost, but we think it's got a great convenience factor for the public.

Our employees are our greatest resource, and particularly for good and efficient services.

We've had a major emphasis for a number of years on employee wellness and prevention.

Healthier employees equal more productive employees, I believe.

We're investing in our employees.

It's a choice for a good workplace that I think means good employees to get good, efficient results, and we're proud of our employees.

Let me give you a measure for the wellness efforts.

The city's health care costs this year were a zero percent increase.

Nationally that number is over seven percent.

That translates to millions of dollars of savings over a period of time.

We also do a lot of best practices training all over city government to be sure that we're being efficient and delivering good quality services.

We quickly run through some parts and recreation examples.

Partnerships, such as in recreation centers and aquatics, we think will result in improvements for the community, yet at a lower cost to city residents than if the city went ahead and did it by itself.

Let me give an example of that that's going to be proposed in the upcoming budget.

We're calculating from that decision, which would mean the closure of a city-only pool, that there's a savings of almost $200,000.

particularly from the utilities at one of those pools.

We'll be proposing that most of those funds go to support new youth programs within the community.

And we'll have some extensive detail of that when we present the budget.

An example of a service efficiency is we change the way we do all our mowing routes.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but we were able to increase the areas that we're doing, do it quicker with the same number of employees.

We have a new computer system that's coming, primarily to benefit the public.

Online, to be able to sign up, register for classes, those kinds of things.

We have a whole series of greenways and trails that have been developed, most of those with grants.

And we've had a huge investment over the last couple years in neighborhood parks.

It's one of the emphasis that we play, the good economy meant we were able to afford to do that.

And almost every neighborhood in the community has seen or will see those improvements.

I mentioned environmental investments in a lot of different ways, but I think it's what sets Charlottesville apart from most other cities.

Greening our park lands, we've gone to new approaches like rain gardens and park restoration, and many of these are being done with grants.

Our medical golf course is totally self-supporting from the golf fees.

We've made major improvements to the course and the clubhouse without taxpayer funds, yet the rounds are increasing every year and we're supporting a new

Youth program, a new golf program for young people called First Tee.

Over 500 young people participated in that, all using the golfing money and private fundraising.

Our city market has been highly successful.

The sales have doubled to over a million dollars.

It's a service to the public, but it's also part of that green city approach to promote local farming.

A couple of examples in neighborhoods.

We have what I think is probably one of the most proactive housing inspection programs for a city in Virginia.

There are very few cities that go beyond complaints.

We made 9,000 inspections last year for a safer and cleaner community.

One of the partnerships to try to get at the cost issue was with the University of Virginia.

They actually pay for one of the inspectors over $60,000 a year to serve the University neighborhoods and gives us the benefit of those inspections.

Our building inspections have tripled in less than 10 years.

They're valued at over $100 million a year.

We're moving for that to be greater and greater self-supporting, and that's one of the proposals I mentioned about the new budget.

And finally, using technology, we're going to a new building system where people can do their building permits online.

It saves them money, it's more convenient, and we'll be announcing that pretty soon.

And this is a great example of stream restoration where in partnership with the federal agency and the Nature Conservancy, it's over three and a half million dollar project.

It doesn't have city money in it, but it's going to be a great benefit to the community.

Public Works, a couple of examples.

The privatization of trash and the curbside recycling program by going private saved 1.9 million dollars in the last five years.

That's almost a half a million dollars annually year after year after year.

For the cost of recycling, this is something I mentioned earlier.

We don't have to do it.

Almore County doesn't provide it.

But that's a value that's important in this community.

But we spend almost $350,000 on a curbside recycling program.

Most people think that's free.

But it provides a curbside convenience.

We see a pretty high use within the community.

We're working on expanding that.

and we've added increased service during the year.

A lot more products that people can recycle.

Another example is the transit service that I mentioned a little bit earlier.

We added Sunday service and new routes.

We're trying to increase the opportunities for our citizens to get around the community without a car and you're going to hear more discussion of that tonight.

Safe citizens' money is good for the community and it's a good alternative that's out there and a pollution saver.

I think a win-win deal all the way around.

I mentioned a couple different times, energy conservation and savings that we're trying to put into place.

Here's a specific example, a city building where 34% energy savings, 85% natural gas use reduced resulting in $40,000 annual savings of five years, that's a quarter of a million dollars.

We're retrofitting almost every one of our buildings and school buildings to try to move in that direction.

Saves dollars, saves the environment, both I think are good for citizens.

And we have an item on the agenda tonight that's talking about performance energy contracting to try to expand that initiative.

So finally, we're here to hear from you.

Tonight really is about trying to give people some information but then getting some feedback.

We try to give examples of smart government, how we're trying to be responsive to community needs.

We've given you a series of what I think are more notable cost savings.

They total at least 10 million dollars.

Albemarle, Charlottesville demands quality services.

I think that's what sets us apart from a lot of other communities.

And we tried to show you some of the trade-offs by some of those decisions between services and cost.

So tonight we have a public hearing scheduled for those that aren't able and we've already had a number of people to take advantage of it.

If you go to this part of our website, there's a survey that's there.

This is the beginning part of it is what you'd see to get input from the public feedback about different ideas that you might have and all that information will be going to the city council with the budget.

And before I end, let me talk quickly about the budget process.

The city budget will go public February 15th.

The first public presentation will be at the first council meeting in March.

There's a whole series of budget discussions and work sessions that occur throughout the month of March, but we designated March 15th, which is a Saturday morning, for a budget forum to be a lot more interactive, to have a lot more discussion with the community and council about the budget proposals.

Thank you, Mr. O'Connell.

Very informative presentation.

And we're going to, as Mr. O'Connell said, now is the chance.

Now you've heard a little bit from the staff about some of the initiatives that we're already pursuing in the city.

One of our major goals for tonight and an ongoing basis is to solicit ideas from the public about further ideas that you might have as to how we can operate a smart and efficient government here in the city of Charlottesville.

Toward that end tonight, we are going to have a public hearing.

which I will momentarily open and then we would encourage citizens to continue to provide ideas as we move into the budget season and beyond.

Good evening Mayor Norris, Council, City Manager,

Running a lean and efficient government is a worthy goal of any government and the Fry's Spring Neighborhood Association lauds Charlottesville's efforts to make this process as inclusive and transparent as possible.

However, we would be remiss if we did not weigh in with some items that we hope will not be forgotten in this attempt to streamline.

We would like to urge City Council to make every effort to fulfill the recommendations of the Southern Urban Area B Study, which stresses the importance of the Sunset Fontaine Connector.

This Plan B Study was compiled by leaders from the City of Charlottesville, the County of Albemarle, and the University of Virginia.

Fry's Spring neighbors experience daily the need for adequate infrastructure to address the crush of current development south of Azalea Park.

Moving traffic around neighborhoods and not through them must be a regional priority.

The Fry's Spring Neighborhood Association would like to remind council of its role

in making sure that the safety, sidewalks and drainage project for Old Lynchburg Road is kept on schedule.

We have been promised that this project will start in 2008.

and will be completed in 2010.

Finally, we would like to emphasize the need for maintaining the city personnel necessary to protect our neighborhoods.

This includes hiring city staff necessary to enforce existing environmental

zoning and traffic safety standards and ensuring our police force is fully staffed in order that it address increasingly significant traffic and safety concerns throughout our city neighborhoods.

In conclusion, we appreciate the city's desire to craft a budget that honors past promises and reflects Charlottesville's ongoing commitment to protect its neighborhoods.

And we would like to particularly thank Mayor Norris and Chief Taliaferro.

for your timely responses to things that our neighborhood association has asked you to pursue for us.

Thank you, Ms. Chase.

Komahelelele, Robertson Lane, and speaking as myself and as not representing the neighborhood.

I sort of had a hard time wrapping my head around the word smart so what I'm going to say tonight I'm not sure is what you want to hear but what's appropriate I hope it is.

I want it to be.

I've said in the past that there is a difference between what we need and what we want.

What a perfect world if we could have our wants that are more illegal fulfilled.

But we are a city with limited geographic area, limited population, and therefore limited budget.

I would ask that you, number two point, I would ask that you require any group that comes before you for the city manager be able to give a financial explanation and budgetary impact

as to why their want is worthy of taxpayers' money.

And last, I would ask that city council meetings do not go past 11 p.m. and that there is no more than two public hearings per city council meeting.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

I'm John False, 1503 London Road.

It's a pleasure to come before a new board at City Council.

New faces and kind of a change.

But it shows the expenditures that this city council has in use to do it.

The gray, this is cost of living increases.

The gray, the city council, if you look at the last one, we've made some big jumps.

That's not smart.

That's not efficient.

With flat or decreasing valuations, this is no longer possible.

Increase in city spending must be restrained to less than 5%, more in line with the consumer price index.

To achieve this, city council should not micromanage.

The easiest and probably the best approach is to simply tell our city manager, Gary O'Connell, to bring back a budget within these bounds with no increase in city staff.

He's an expert at running our city.

You are not.

And having heard your presentation tonight, Gary, I think what I'm saying is absolutely true.

I was impressed.

Good presentation.

What City Council must do is restrain itself from using last year's surplus to undertake new projects.

For example, you must not undertake the renovation of Crow Pool.

Your own expert study said this was not cost efficient, and that argument advances a reason to donate precious park lines with YMCA.

City Council must not undertake to create its own rescue squad.

It's insane to consider replacing a nationally recognized and free rescue squad with a city version that might charge up to $400 per call.

If CAHRS has problems, consider just a small cash infusion to help them as the county does, or as we do for other outside agencies such as Region 10.

Initiating a new project invariably costs much more than anticipated,

Last year, just $1 million was proposed for two city-owned ambulances.

Now with visions of a $6.7 million surplus, we hear of possibly $10 million for a new station house, not to mention much more for another engine company to fill it and increase personnel costs.

You know, to be efficient, to be smart, I think you're just going to have to say no to any new projects.

Instead, I would like to see us carefully earmark the $6.7 million specifically for approaching infrastructure costs, such as the downtown mall and the stormwater repair, the consent agenda, item C. I hope, Mr. Huja, you want to increase that amount.

But I don't know what you'll be talking about at the end of the meeting.

It's going to be very hard, because this has got a completely different tact for city council here.

But I think you've just got to learn to say no.

Thank you Mr. False.

Chad Freckman, 104 Northwood Circle.

I'd like to suggest

information transparency as something that we maybe need to focus a little bit more on and I'd like to talk a little bit about the emergency services and the specific proposal that the council has out the city manager now to put a budget together for the city to start providing ambulance services.

I'm concerned with the lack of transparency in that whole issue regarding councils move to duplicate

the ambulance service in the city.

All the public has had to go by is the consultant's report, a council appointed committee's positive vote, council's direction of the city manager to budget for six new positions, EMT positions, and news stories suggesting that there was really no effort to consult with CARS on what might be some of the possible solutions.

Of course, council's decision has long-term budget implications for city residents.

The consultant's report stated that there does not appear to be an immediate deficiency with regard to the length of time for an ambulance to reach the scene of a medical emergency in the city.

While basic life support response times need improvement per the consultant's report, it tempered that with a caveat that future deployment of emergency services from Fontaine Avenue could improve response times, suggesting that when the new fire station is built in that area, this response time deficiency will disappear.

Perhaps emergency response times will be a future problem,

But the evidence presented, at least what I've seen, doesn't suggest that there currently is a problem.

Given the budgetary implications of employing six additional full-time positions that will never be eliminated once they are in the budget, the cost of this solution, looking for a problem, presents another financial burden for city residents.

and with the recent report on the sorry state of the city's water and sewer infrastructure and the many millions of dollars that will be needed to renovate those systems, I hope that council will take the opportunity to postpone fiscal expansion until empirical evidence suggests there is a need.

Consultant's report used reference metrics from the American Heart Association that established guidelines for survivability rates of heart attack victims.

Nowhere in the report are subsequent data released to the public have we been given any information that suggests a heart-related emergency was compromised by a slow response time, nor for that matter any other emergency that was compromised.

The tremendous tax burden that recent rise in property values has imposed on city residents, the myriad capital infrastructure expenditures that are coming down the road, and the distinct possibility that city revenues will fall due to slowdown in the economy, give me pause to reflect on where we as a community need to spend money.

We need to have a debate about where to invest our tax dollars and whether a potential problem exists with our local ambulance service.

We might want response times below nine minutes on all occasions, but does that really deliver a different outcome?

What happens the one time there is a heart attack emergency during a storm and the ambulance is blocked by a fallen tree and doesn't arrive for over 12 minutes.

Despite spending a million dollars per year multiplied out in future years, we still wouldn't deliver what we're spending our money on.

Once the six proposed positions are in the budget, they will be there forever.

I'm reminded of a business management course I took years ago.

When there's an emergency situation, the first reaction is, we have to do something.

However, absent data and information analysis upon which to base a course of action, it is sometimes a better management decision to do nothing while evaluating the situation.

A city-provided ambulance service seems to me something that bears more detailed evaluation, and it's something that I think, in terms of the transparency and getting information out there, would be a good idea.

That's all the people that have signed up to speak during the public hearing.

Elizabeth Kuchai, 126 Bowlingwood Road.

I'm glad to hear that it's not too late to stop this ambulance service.

It is not something we need.

I've lived in this city for 35 years.

I love the rescue squad.

Let's support them.

We do not need this expensive service.

Thank you, Ms. Kochis.

Anybody else like to speak?

Okay, we'll close the public hearing.

And as I mentioned earlier, tonight is just the beginning of this discussion.

And so if you're sitting at home and have ideas of your own as to how we can improve city efficiency, please feed them to us in the coming months, in the coming weeks.

Well first let me respond to Mr. Falls about the fire station in the Fry Springs area.

I think he stated in an additional engine company, an additional personnel, that is simply to relocate an engine company, an existing company into that location.

That location has been in the works for probably the last seven or eight years trying to get something into that area of the city.

The response times in that area of the city are not what they should be.

Essentially, other than that one engine company you relocated out in the west end, which is going to move into that area, we haven't relocated an engine company in this city for over 40 some years.

Things have changed.

Response times are increasing.

and we've reached a point where we have to do something about that.

And there's some consequences aside from the safety of property and lives.

In addition to that, there's a distinct possibility if we do not improve response times in the locations of engine companies, insurance rates will go up in the city which conversely commercial properties particularly would probably end up paying more insurance.

Thank you Mr. Taliaferro.

Well, I'll offer just a couple quick comments.

I thought the first speaker kind of helped sum up the stresses that come to council, which is Ms. Chase's comments weren't about areas she wanted to spend less money and be more efficient.

There were things that she thought were important to spend money on.

She didn't want them to be forgotten and the zeal to cut costs.

And I think there's a lot of demands out there, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's very important we be efficient.

I wanted to comment because people always talk about comparing what we do to the cost of living and I think Mr. Faltes knows that there's a lot of costs that come to the city as a government that really don't exactly relate to what the cost of living is, you know, unfunded mandates, the cost of

It's generally rising costs for the jail, for juvenile detention, for the comprehensive services act, things that the state originally said they would pay for but they really actually haven't completely lived up to their bargain, go into accounting for some part of the rise.

That said, I think

I think we've done kind of what we asked.

It's my impression that the preliminary guidelines to the city manager were to limit the increase to 5%, which I think is, or less, which I think is what Mr. Falls came up with, and I agree with him.

I think this is a very different climate.

And I think that it's obvious there's a lot of confusion about why are we moving forward with paid city staff to provide

to mainland service.

I think that my way of looking at it was that we're augmenting what CARS does.

I think one of the things that doesn't seem to me, the media was the fact that

there was a proposal which was supported by CARS at the committee meeting where the city would hire staff on a half-time basis.

I know you remember this committee, correct me if I'm wrong on that.

So I think there's some consensus involving everyone that the community would value if there were more ambulances available.

I know it was, it's my understanding, and on one part of the committee was that committee, which included representative from the Chamber of Commerce,

a business owner from West Main Street.

They took a site visit to visit cars, and the day they just randomly chose to go in the middle of the afternoon, there were no ambulances at cars.

They were all out.

They were all gone, which sort of pointed out the problem may not be response time so much as it is

Is there an ambulance always available to transport someone?

I think the day they went to the EMS center to see how that worked, the dispatch center, the same thing I think occurred, which was they're running ambulances at cars.

They're all out on calls, which means that there may be a fire truck will arrive with the basic life support people and stabilize the situation, but waiting for an ambulance can take a while.

I've been a very reluctant convert to the idea, I think the Fire Chief will agree to the idea of having the city

invest in our own people as opposed to simply augment, you know, either financially otherwise cars, but I am looking for a solution that makes sure that we don't find ourselves with someone who just needs to be transported and there's not a physical vehicle available to do it.

So I think it's a complicated issue and I guess I bring all this up to say I think there's a lot of information that hasn't really been conveyed and I don't know if you want to add since you remember this committee, but I do think some problems were identified, they were less response time problems than they were

ambulance availability problems.

The committee agreed on the city entering into this half-time.

I think the city side, the reason it went to a full-time was because the economics of full-time doesn't cost that much more to go to full-time from a half-time.

Well, I just want to, one minor correction, or maybe not so minor correction, the committee unanimously, including CARS, agreed that we need additional ambulance service, at least during the peak hours.

Any other thoughts?

In addition to the four speakers we had tonight, we've already received several dozen responses to our online survey and again we encourage citizens to continue to provide feedback and I know those responses are going to be shared with Council in the not too distant future.

I've also gotten a number of emails from citizens and I wanted to share an idea that came to me by email this week regarding the school budget actually.

There's some concern expressed by a number of parents and school watchdogs, if you will, about the growth of the central office in our schools.

And I think one of the parents came up with a pretty creative way of

measuring the growth of the central office in terms of comparing the size of the staff in the central office with the number of teachers in the system, which I thought was a very useful metric for determining how top heavy or not top heavy our school system might be.

So just another idea that's come our way.

I want to thank everybody for contributing your ideas and continuing to contribute your ideas as we move towards a smarter and more efficient government.

Thank you, and my sidekick, the chief here, who's helping us up.

Just to go quickly through and provide you an update and make sure we're going in the direction that you would have us go.

At the last couple of meetings you've had a lot of discussion about pedestrian safety and issues.

It started off particularly in the downtown area and then really grew to all of the community at the last meeting some issues raised.

We heard you and have put this together as a proposal that we would move forward with to try to address those.

We think that we need a committee that consists of city staff engaged in the process.

There's a list of those here to be headed by our traffic engineer, Jeannie Alexander, the police department, the trails planner from Parks and Rec, Public Works personnel,

and our communications office to help us getting the word out.

We looked at an area of primary focus that's a map attached to your presentation, but essentially the downtown area to include how the railroad tracks meet up West Main Street and loop around the university in the highest pedestrian areas there.

We would suggest that to our working group we bring ACT and the University Architects Office to the table.

We've suggested some people to you that we know are very active and walking in the downtown area, very engaged in this issue that we would like to invite.

We're completely open to any that you would suggest to us.

I've also had comments from a lady that lives in Belmont that has asked

to participate, we'd welcome her.

We've also had some folks engaged in providing services to the blind that have asked to participate as well as two blind residents who are frequent walkers to the downtown area.

We would propose that over the next six months that we put together a plan of action for you complete with costs to implement that would

do several things.

Within the areas shown we would analyze each intersection and with that we would look at the signalized intersections.

We would look at the signal timing, crosswalk conditions, handicapped ramp conditions, crosswalk signal types and the signal timing.

As you know and we found out, so you pointed out, but we've done a survey that you can go from one block to the next and you get the walk, don't walk signal or you get the

the universal signal, the hand signal and it's not consistent.

We've got a mixture of those.

We've been changing out over the past few years to the international signals but we haven't gotten them all.

We don't have consistency and some you press the button to get a walk signal, some you don't have to press a button, some there are no buttons to press.

We think that we need to have one consistent, we heard you say that, we agree, one consistent standard so no matter what intersection you go to

that it's the same.

We heard that you were interested in the countdown signals and we think those are a good idea and our traffic engineer says they may not be appropriate at every intersection for some complex reasons that she can articulate very well, but at most intersections they are appropriate.

I also believe, we believe that we need to study and provide, as we're changing these out, the audio signals for the blind

We've only got those in one direction on two signals in town and they're not very expensive now to add them to every signal at every signalized intersection.

We really need to look at the lighting, particularly in the downtown area, particularly as you try to walk across market and water.

It's very dark at night in certain places and that needs to be supplemented.

We've just completed our sidewalk hazard survey so we need to roll that in, look at fixing the gaps where there's heaves and breaks in the sidewalk.

Liquid safety impediments may be the most difficult issue to deal with where there are poles and signs but at least try to identify ways around those if at all possible.

The ADA ramps, a lot of our ramps were built to an old standard and they don't meet current standards.

They don't line up.

We need to get those in good order.

Signage, making sure that the signage is right.

Our wayfinding program I think will help a lot when we get that implemented in downtown so people know where to go.

Education needs to be a piece of this for educating both the motoring public and the pedestrians.

and then looking just for general safety citywide.

Also, based on some recent conversation, we want to focus on the areas around our parks and schools.

We're doing a lot with schools, with safe routes to schools that Chris Genzic has been helping with.

We've got a couple of grants funded and in process working with IAC, so we've looked at quite a few of them, the general area around the schools.

We haven't done that with all our parks and we think we need to roll that in.

I think we've had some good issues raised there.

Our intent with this is really to take a look and finally make the step where we look where the car is a second class citizen in these areas and a pedestrian is the primary.

Where if you're there as a pedestrian, you're safe, the car is secondary, the cars know they're coming into a pedestrian zone and we do everything we can to treat it that way.

There will be some costs associated with it.

When we develop a plan, what we hope to do is bring you a list of alternatives that we can implement over a period of time.

We don't know what those are going to be yet, but we may want to make physical changes to some of the intersections.

We may recommend that, again, the signal change-outs and all those things.

But we believe that we can, with a good, thorough approach using the community to work with us in six months, we can be back to you with a detailed plan, intersection by intersection, street by street of the steps we need to take.

Great.

Thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

I have a number of comments.

First of all, I am glad that the city is proceeding with this kind of study.

We need to do that.

As the membership of the citizenship committee, I would like to suggest a few other possibilities, not names, but the categories.

First, I think we already mentioned that some handicapped people should also be part of this group,

who is behind this wooden wheelchair.

I see all the lists who are listed are white males, we may have heard of them in variety, in terms of minorities, women, and mothers who have children who are straddlers, and I think that will help give you different perspectives.

Those are the sort of comments I have.

The second set of comments I had was on the map of the study area.

I think you have basically picked up most of the study area.

I would like to see both of you, including as far on Emmett Street also and to Dix Road, because this is a very heavy pedestrian movement from both sides.

I was late in college, that's not my mistake.

I'd like to offer a couple comments.

I'd like, either as part of this study or some other time, I think an area in the city which has a lot of pedestrian activity and is not particularly safe is Cherry Avenue, especially as it's adjacent to Tosser Park.

I think that's the place where we need to have signs, flashing lights, activated lights or something.

I see Chief nodding about that.

I don't think people have gotten the message yet that the pedestrians have some rights.

The second area that I think, and whether it's part of the study or some later point that needs attention, is between safety issues involving people living in the Meadows neighborhood.

Because I know that I've been contacted in the past by people living in Meadows wanting to walk to work at UVA, but not having been able to figure out how to negotiate safely the 250 bypass interchange.

And I don't know if there may not be a good solution to that, but I'd like for us to see if we can

I also believe that when Whole Foods opens in the Kmart shopping center plaza, that's also going to cause people who live across 29 to perhaps want to choose to walk to Whole Foods.

That sounds like kind of a compatible idea.

and so I think being able to cross 29 from sort of the Meadows neighborhood and hydraulic road safely would also be something that I'd want to make sure there was, that we'd given some thought to.

I noticed in you, you were talking about signal timing and the signage and all that sort of thing.

Okay, okay, okay.

Particularly when you have a really wide street, depending on how you approach it sometimes, people

And I found out today we can do those in audio also.

Yes.

Okay.

Just to echo the words of Mr. Huja, making sure that the Citizens Committee is a very diverse group of individuals and that it includes people that walk to work as a form of transportation.

Absolutely.

I want to take one more comment, Mr. Mayor.

I also support your comments as to audio signals, cyber hazards, safety, impairments, ADA, as well as boxing school, so I want to commend you on that, including those efforts and concerns.

I'll just add a couple things.

One is I appreciate the fact that you talk in here about public education because I think we have to make sure that both pedestrians and drivers understand that there is a shared responsibility.

It's not all on the drivers, it's not all on pedestrians for maintaining pedestrian safety.

Well, Mr. Mayor, the capacity issue is always on our radar screen.

I guess we'll have to see what the final recommendations are and then make some intelligent decisions about the best way to enforce that.

We certainly agree that the engineering, education and enforcement are all issues that we need to implement or be prepared to implement with whatever recommendations this committee puts forth.

Great.

So just to recap, what I heard was a more diverse task force.

Make sure we consider previous studies.

Look at Barracks Road or Emmett Street up to Barracks Road and Cherry Avenue area around Tonsler Park and Meadows, hydraulic 29.

Any other last minute?

Final suggestions or comments?

I really appreciate the city staff for stepping up, Chief Longville, Mr. Tolbert and others for stepping up and making this a priority.

I know it's going to take a little bit of time, but I think it's something that we all see value in pursuing, so thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next item on our agenda also relates to alternative transportation and this has to do with our public transit system here in Charlottesville.

There is a theme tonight of helping people get out of their cars and choose alternatives.

We have with us tonight to give an update on transit system and potential improvements to our transit system.

That's why I was doing that.

You should have the same maps that he's going to put up for the public in your book, so pay attention to the route numbers as Bill is talking.

It'll help your understanding immensely.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

What I'd like to do is to talk to you a little bit about the changes we've made most recently to the system, which is why I've given you all a copy of the Writer's Guide.

This is the current Writer's Guide, and therefore it reflects the changes that we made last August.

Then I'd like to talk a little bit about issues we still have with the system and then possibility in terms of next year's budget ways to try to address some of these issues that I'll be bringing up.

And certainly I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

In August of last year, one of the primary things we did to improve service was to add service on Sundays for our free trolley route between Downtown and the University grounds and on Route 7, which is our main line service running between Downtown, the University, Ferris Road Shopping Center and Fashion Square.

That's service every 30 minutes.

We've been doing it since late August and that is being well received by the community.

In addition, we made a change to Route 3B.

Route 3B is service between downtown and Greenleaf Park and that travels via West Main Street and 10th Street through the 10th and Page neighborhood as well as through the Rose Hill neighborhood.

When we made adjustments to service in March of last year, we got comment back from both the 10th and Page neighborhood and the Rose Hill neighborhood.

So one of the things that was reflected in the change that we made in August is some adjustments that responded to their concerns.

And since we made these changes in August, again, I believe this is well received by the neighborhood and is meeting the 10th and Page neighborhood needs well.

Finally, for Route 5 service, we had a partnership with the county on this one.

They were looking for ways to improve their service.

Route 5 used to be buses every 45 minutes.

They agreed to fund the local share cost of a third bus, which means that buses are now running every 30 minutes.

So those are the changes that we were able to put into place in August.

Changes that we wanted to put into place but were not able to related to routes 4A and 4B and you have in your packet a map, I believe it's your first map, and the green part of that map shows the current routes 4A and 4B.

So 4A is service between downtown and Prospect and Cherry Avenue.

The 4B is service between downtown

in the University area in Fry's Spring.

What we wanted to do was to combine these two routes together, but in order to do that, we needed to make some adjustments to service that was on the Route 4A.

It was tied into changes we wanted to make to the Route 6A, and you also have in your packet, your second map shows on the green portion of the map, the current Route 6A.

and what we wanted to do with the service is exactly what is reflected in the pink which is to take advantage of the fact with the development of the new Brookwood neighborhood and the extension of Brookwood Drive between Ridge Street and Fifth Street Extended was to run the bus route down that road and then bring it up on Fifth Street over to Bailey and up Prospect and that would pick up a portion of service that would otherwise be

eliminated from the Route 4A, so it would just be a different way of providing service to the same area.

Because that road has not become open and was not open in August, we were unable to make that change to service.

We also wanted to make

a very similar change and I believe this is your fifth map to Route 22.

Route 22 is night service that goes to approximately the same area as Route 6A.

And so you can see in green what we do at night is actually the model that we were following for the potential changes to Route 6A.

Route 22 actually does connect from Ridge Street over to Bailey and Prospect

So we were very much taking cues from what we do at night to figure out a way that we might be able to do things better during the daytime.

The problem you have is that during the nighttime you can make a left turn from Ridge Street where there's no signal there at 5th Street extended but during the daytime with traffic volumes it's just not a safe turning maneuver and certainly not one that you can consistently make within a certain time band which is important for time sensitive routes.

So, it wasn't any surprise to us that the issues that have come up are very directly related to the changes in service that we wanted to make last August but we were unable to make because Brookwood Drive was not available for routing.

We have been meeting with riders from routes 4A and 4B.

and their concerns are is that we're not able to meet schedule.

I would add that with changes that were made last March, initially things went well in terms of having particularly the 4B run on time.

but you may be able to guess that a major construction project at the University of Virginia then got entered into the mix.

The extension of the south lawn has led to significant increase in the traffic tie-ups there on JPA and that has led to delay on Route 4B.

So what initially seemed to be helping has not proven to be enough, although I would say that had we not made the changes we did to Route 4B, the problem would be even worse than it is.

So,

We also heard from folks in the Johnson Village area.

So our challenge has been to try to get these buses running on time, respond to concerns in the Johnson Village area.

And one of the things that we've learned in talking to our riders about this service is that there is a fair number of them that live in the Prospect Orange Dale area that want to work at the UVA hospital.

and one of the things that is apparent in the way that the service currently works, again I would refer to your first map, the green portions of that map,

is that the way this works and it may not be obvious looking at it but I'll try to walk you through.

The bus currently goes from downtown out Avon Street and then makes a left hand turn at 5th Street extended and makes a right hand turn onto Bailey and then goes up Prospect over Forest Hills Avenue, Rock Creek and then returns

downtown by traveling on Sherry over to Elliott and back up Avon Street.

This is 4A.

This is the 4A.

So folks that live in the Prospect Orangedale area, currently what we're doing is we're picking them up and taking them downtown and then we're taking them out to the University Hospital on Route 4B.

So what we want to try to do is to find a way to get more direct connection between where people live and where people work.

and this is something that has been very supported by the riders and I'll talk more about where we are in terms of that solution in a moment.

Now the problem with Route 6A, and again I would refer you to your second map in your packet, and your fifth map in your packet is Route 22,

So it's just the day and the night version of the service.

The problem there with our schedule is really related to Route 6B, which is service between downtown and Kmart, Seminole Square, via Preston Avenue and Barracks Road.

This area is extremely highly traveled and therefore traffic congestion is high particularly at peak periods and the schedule for Route 6B isn't working.

It's given a little more than 30 minutes to go out to Seminole Square and back and I don't think at peak travel time even the most

Assertive motorists could actually make that journey in the amount of time that we're giving to it and so we need to find a way to provide more travel time so that we can keep our schedules and basically deliver the service that we specified in the writer's guide.

and again there will be some comment on how we might go about doing it.

Now the way service is organized for all of the A and the B routes is that a bus is shared.

So there's approximately 30 minutes to do an A loop and then approximately 30 minutes to do a B loop.

And so what is happening with both the 4A, 4B and the 6A, 6B combination is that the B leg in particular is slow.

but it automatically has a negative impact on the A leg because if the B leg is late then the A leg is late and it sort of snowballs.

So we need to find a way either to break route pairings apart so that we can keep schedule with separated routes or to keep route pairings together but to have the routes run on time.

So that's where the next phase of this is, is what might we do about this?

And this is going to be something for discussion and decision as part of the budget process.

Some of the solutions can be budget neutral.

I would point to the first group of issues related to Route 4.

I believe we need to make the changes that are shown in pink on the first map.

We have been getting positive response from rider groups and we want to continue talking to the rider groups in the neighborhoods.

We want to be very deliberate about what we would implement in terms of a change.

But if we run this route on approximately the same schedule as what we're doing with the 4A and 4B, this can be a budget neutral solution.

But again, what it would do is to create a new way to connect the Prospect Orange Dale neighborhood to the University Hospital, and I'll describe that.

as well as bringing Johnson Village service back into the mix.

So in a nutshell what we would do is eliminate service on Market Street and instead use Monticello Avenue

take the time savings from those two things in order to then be able to do a loop through the prospect neighborhood and go straight up 9th and Roosevelt Brown to Lee Street, bringing folks directly to the UVA hospital.

The bus would then continue on down JPA and do the loop as shown here

on Harris Street and up Willard to Cherry and then down into Johnson Village and do a loop, the exact same loop that this route used to perform, and then it would double back on itself coming up to the intersection of West Main Street and Roosevelt Brown.

Then it would come back down into the neighborhood and do a loop before returning downtown using Cherry, Elliott and Avon Street.

Now the challenge with this routing is that Bailey and Prospect would no longer be served by this new Route 4.

So looking at this route in combination with your second page, which shows what we'd like to do with Route 6A,

We have a way to provide service on Bailey and Prospect with Route 6A.

Again, the rider groups that we've talked to about this seem to believe that this would be a good way to go, but the dilemma that we have is we're no more able to do the new Route 6A because Brookwood still is not available for public use.

The housing development is still going in.

I guess it's sort of anyone's guess whether they will be ready by late August, which is when we normally change service.

But unfortunately, I guess my guess right now would be that we can't count on that.

So I believe we have a good plan, but I don't know when we will be able to implement this plan if what we want to do

is to link changes to our Route 4 with changes to the Route 6A.

I would also point out that these changes, again, to Route 6A could also be budget neutral.

This is not something that requires an expenditure of additional funds to do what's shown on these two maps, the first two maps in your packet.

Can you just repeat the book?

The lending is that Bailey and Prospect, until we can bring Route 6A onto Brookwood Drive, we will not be able to get the bus over to Bailey and Prospect.

So if we were to make the changes to Route 4, but not be able to make the changes to Route 6A, we would not have a bus on Bailey and Prospect.

Because I've used it.

The old portion that used to be a cul-de-sac.

So what else do we need to do because the critical issue that isn't covered in these first two maps is what do we do about Route 6B, which again I'll remind you is service between downtown and Kmart, Seminole Square using Prospect and Barracks Road and Emmett Street.

This is also a bus that goes to Kroger.

My estimation is that we would need a minimum of 45 minutes without any stops to do a bus on this route.

And so, in this instance, I would recommend that we isolate this.

I'm calling it a new Route 8.

And we actually do more with a bus, where we would bring this bus into Barracks Road Shopping Center.

And that's the little rectangles shown there.

sort of midpoint on this route.

And I would also recommend that we try to work with Best Buy to make a detour into the Best Buy parking lot and then come back to Emmett Street via Angus Road.

What this would do is eliminate the KFC stop there at Angus Road while still being able to provide the neighborhood there with a bus stop and bus service on Angus Road.

with the future holding another right-hand turn on-ramp onto 250, it's not going to be workable to continue to have a bus stop at KFC.

So this route, the cost of this route would be dependent upon sort of the level of service we put on it.

What you see in your packet is a number of different option combinations.

We're not looking for a decision tonight that will come in the budget process.

In the final piece I wanted to say, and then certainly try to answer your questions, is the fourth map you have in your packet, the only one I haven't referred to yet, would be a possible new Route 6B.

There are a couple of different possibilities on how we might do Route 6.

The first possibility that could be budget neutral is to continue to run Route 6A at the same frequency, though we could change the routing once Bookcliff Drive becomes open.

That would be neutral.

And then we could take the resources that are currently going into the 6B service that goes out to Kmart and instead put them into service between downtown and the Charlottesville high school area.

So we could do a 6A, 6B combination that's just a little different than what we're doing now and that could be a budget neutral decision.

We could do the new Route 4 which is shown on your first map and that could be budget neutral and what wouldn't be budget neutral then is the map on Page 3 which would be to do a new Route 8.

So with that, I hope I haven't caused thorough confusion.

Any other questions?

I just want to thank you for listening to people in the community that have expressed their concern.

We hear about that from time to time.

I want to commend you all for listening to them and making some changes and trying to address some of their issues, because I think that is helpful.

It's also helpful in increasing their ridership, which is our ultimate objective.

I have a number of comments which I'd like to make.

I agree with Julian that I think you are being explosive within your existing means as much as you can be.

I think if you need new services, we'll have to discuss this part of the budget as to if you need more money or not.

But my comments, I guess one of the concerns I have is that every

goes around downtown.

Every route, other than one which you just mentioned, you want to take away from Market Street, one of the routes.

And that takes about at least five to seven minutes additional to the route, or maybe more, I'm not sure.

And I was wondering if that should be explored, why it's necessary to go around Market and more every time you go through, or is it a short way to do it, or is it a way to avoid one or the other?

because you can still get to downtown because that way it works streets and you could also use a mall crossover, I think it was used before a few times, I'm not sure.

One of the things that's embedded in the changes proposed for routes 4a and 4b is to do exactly that.

One of the things that we did with route 6a is to make that kind of change.

What I think in terms of routes that can be, I'll call it gracefully adjusted in that way, is probably Route 3A.

We're very sensitive to what you're saying about making the travel time

efficient in not taking people out of direction, but one of the challenges that sometimes comes up is with the hub being on Water Street and being obligated to approach Water Street in the same pattern because we can only approach the station coming from the east and going to the west.

It's not a two-sided station.

Okay.

Another item I would like to, I also view change 6A as a good change, I think, which you're proposing.

It will help out, I think, many ways for people to service.

Excuse me, I'm trying to read my own handwriting, so this is a challenge.

I would say that one of the principles I would like to promote, if possible, I don't know if it is possible, is that, because we are a fairly small city, we are about 10 square miles, 11 square miles, and if you can avoid transfers, and you can get a direct service based on the origin and destination of our customers, it would be very desirable, I think, because we are a very large city, and I have been to many cities where you can go from long distances without having to transfer, whereas

That brings me to something which you want to think about, I am not sure, I have a solution for it, but the general principle I would like to promote is to have reduced, wherever we can in the city, go without transferring, because we are not a very large community, it is a land area, but it may not be possible, I am just raising the question for you.

think that the changes which you have mentioned are good and probably need to be done by specific columns related to 6B.

And I think it is about time, the whole generation of young people have not learnt to ride bus because they don't go to high school.

And I think this addition will be helpful.

And again, I would suggest that we think about, as John mentioned, the two

One of the interests I have on this route, besides that I live in a neighborhood, I need to declare that pretty clearly, is that one of the high school and then giving children more options to use the transit system and getting used to the elements of transportation in the car.

And second is that I think there is a fair amount of population in this neighborhood which would use it if it was convenient to go to universities.

only if you explore the possibility of looping it without looking around the downtown, so you can come, I am not going to design a route for you today, so I am just exploring the possibility and again if that is not possible because of your time limits or frequency you require, one way in my change I would make would be I would

Make sure I reiterate is that particularly with this routing, this is more conceptual.

If this is something that council would like to do, then there needs to be exploration in the neighborhood about where to put the bus.

It will be challenging to get that far north and be able to get out and back in 30 minutes.

So I appreciate your comment about the university, but yes, without expending additional resources, it's not really possible.

Well, going on the same discussion.

First of all, I want to commend you for your attention on this service, and I think it can be done, it used to be done, and I think, especially if it is marketed with students and other people, I think it could be successful.

And secondly, I would again come back to this going all the way downtown loop.

in this case.

I am not sure it is necessary or can you avoid that, you can come in and go to Silverwater Street and get away from there but I am not sure it is possible but I would ask you to explore that possibility and I would support this general idea.

I would also like to encourage you to

We look at the original destination data of your customers and see how we can design roofs which will work right for them.

One of the key reflections of that is the notion of having the 6B replacement service, the Route A that is proposed, would include Beardsford Shopping Center as a very popular destination.

Well, the general way it certainly adds to it is that with our arrangement now where those with UVA ID being able to ride CTS fare free, I think we now have a new group of advocates that would like to see CTS going more destinations because they can ride it fare free.

In terms of the particular changes, the one that is most relevant would be the changes to Route 4.

And I guess what I would say in this instance, because no

University service comes to the Prospect Orange Dale area.

You mentioned the

the four roots and the six roots being roots that have problem with being on time because of the 6b and the 4b problem.

Yes.

When I arrived here three and a half years ago, our mainline route, Route 7, was frequently late.

I would say our Route 7 now is rarely late.

Our Route 5 service was also one that we had time schedule problems with.

We don't have time schedule problems with that any longer.

and we have service every 30 minutes and that's certainly something to the county's credit for making more investment there.

We also have particular problems with our Route 10 service which is another county route but in this case it does connect from downtown out to the Pantops area and that service is also a service that runs on time now.

Our other neighborhood routes had some issues with on-time performance but nothing to the degree of Route 4 and Route 6.

You know, if nothing else, I hope I'm going to be known as the transit manager who came to Charlottesville and made sure the buses ran on time.

Well, I think you've done a good job.

I mean, you're certainly headed in the right direction.

We've been talking about having global positioning

the same system at UVA and for CTS.

Can you tell us what the timeline for that is?

Within the next couple of months, you're going to see some bright red boxes at two dozen bus stops in our system, high-use bus stops, and they're going to be called bus finders.

And you push a series of buttons.

Well, excuse me, you push the screen where it indicates to put your thumb and then there's a series of lights that will show you in two minute graduation how long until the next bus on the route that you're interested in serves that stop.

That is something that we had hoped to have in place by the end of 07, but we've had a little bit of delay.

So has the university.

I just learned today that the university may be attempting to go live with their system without having their bus finder units in the field yet.

They're going to rely on the fact that this also has a web connection, so folks can check it out on the web.

That will be part of the CTS system as well, but we anticipate that the bus finders are a critical component of our service.

And I'm just throwing out an idea, which I'm sure is a terrible idea, but I'll throw it out.

The challenge is... And the reason I thought of that, that would allow you the ability if you had the resource to occasionally put an extra bus in the field to help

We do that anyway and we'll continue to need to do that because even with a schedule that works perfectly when there isn't an accident or some other major delay, there will be accidents or some other major delay and we have to be prepared to do that and we do do that.

We're trying to get rid of sort of the institutionalized tardiness and we'll still have to deal with the spot issues.

I guess I'm going to go you one better, Mayor, because what we're doing is that we are going to be trying to combine the 6A and the 4A, so rather than combine

the routes as separate legs because they're so close together geographically I think the more efficient thing is to do that and then treat Route 4 rather than as two separate routes with two separate arrivals downtown which gets at the comments that Counselor Huja is making that we treat this as a route that is now centered on the UVA hospital and the downtown is one end of one leg and Fry's Spring is the other end of a leg

So your suggestion is a good one in some instances, but I think in this instance, the approach we're taking would be a better one.

Yeah, but it's dependent on Brookwood.

Coming into the system, okay.

I'm sorry to have so many questions, but I'm actually enjoying not being the mayor.

We'll have to worry about how much time the other councilors are taking.

When we look at the budgetary impacts, I know this is very preliminary, but just so I understand, a bunch of these things in our packet say

This will cost an additional $190,000 in combination with the new Route 6.

Does that mean it's in addition to the $80,000 you have listed here for the new Route 6?

One of the things that if Mr. Lynch was still here, he would bring up, but I hear discussed by people, other counselors talk about, is that maybe what we need is radical change.

Maybe we need a really different way of seeing how the bus system works, and I know you've been part of, you've heard Mr. Lynch talk in this party more than I have, whether it's a backbone feeder, but something besides these big loops.

Can you just talk a little bit about

Any comments you might offer about is there a different organizational structure that could be considered at some point in time?

What would be advantages?

What would be costs?

What would be disadvantages?

Sure.

There are lots of ways to try to organize transit service and different communities get different solutions and hopefully they're driven by some of the realities of the community.

One of the realities here is that we have very long-standing transit routes and I'm learning every day that there is a devotion to the routing that we've had and so trying to find ways to make

Seemingly minimalist kind of solutions is cause for concern and discussion is needed and that's fine.

So transformational change is something I guess I would always like to say we're open to looking at.

It's important to get the fundamentals right and part of getting the fundamentals right is to make the buses run on time.

I would say in some respects the concept of having a trunk line that is fed by minor branch routes which is I believe in a nutshell

what former counselor Lynch spoke to is being employed very effectively with certain route combinations.

I would give an example of Route 3A which does a loop in Belmont which is to the east and south of downtown.

It does a fairly quick and efficient loop and then it comes downtown and it meets the Route 7 bus that is going to head to the commercial district in the university area

and that works really well.

There probably are some of our other neighborhood routes that just because of where they are, it's a little awkward for certain destination patterns to take direct paths of travel, but creating a central hub that has a trunk line like Route 7 is very much in keeping with the trunk and feeder kind of concept.

I guess I would view it as sort of a blend that is recognizing some of what I believe Councilor Edwards was saying in terms of a neighborhood like Prospect.

I think folks there are going to welcome changes that benefit them but be very concerned about changes that they think might not benefit them.

And so I want to try to strike the right balance there.

In terms of new services that might emerge, I would definitely think we need to look about where to bring them.

In some cases, I think it will make sense to bring them downtown.

In other cases, it won't.

I would hope that a lot of the new service will be in the county, and we need to look at logical places to tie them into either the CTS system, or whatever the CTS system becomes known as, and certainly the university system.

There may be some routes that get developed that sort of go across county and they're going from points in the county to other points in the county and they rely on other routes to bring them into the city.

I think we're on a very good path.

The possibility to get more transformational change is going to be somewhat dependent upon resources, because the more frequent the service network we have, the more it can work, I guess, to go to new places that are sort of like branches, as long as then they can tie into a strong network.

I just have a couple more quick questions.

Greenbrier obviously doesn't have any service and you're talking today about addressing that.

Are there any other neighborhoods or parts of Charlottesville where residents don't have particularly easy access?

I definitely think that the primary area that is within the city limits would be the Greenbrier area now.

If one wanted to use some sort of application of a standard walking distance of a quarter mile, you might be able to find some other pockets.

But I guess I would comment that no one from the public has come forward from another area that is unserved.

Certainly folks make comments about wanting to have service be more frequent or go to more different kinds of direct destinations than it does now.

And finally, your guide has both CTS and UTS maps.

Does that imply that

Yes, for I believe two years now we've had an understanding with the university that they will welcome everyone on board their buses that will fare free.

It wasn't sort of a part of the deal that has made our system fare free to them, but it's sort of in the spirit of trying to make the two systems work better

for the community.

And I know that provides a solution for some people whose transit has changed or who have difficult solutions.

I think we should make sure we give UVA credit.

They support the trolley, which I think is a cornerstone of our system, and they make their system available.

So, thank you.

I just have one more question I'd like to ask.

Well, West Main Street, there actually has been some past investment in signal pre-insulin.

Right.

Certainly emergency vehicles have that ability.

What happened early on after I arrived here is that there was a major effort to do traffic signal synchronization in key corridors starting with West Main.

And I believe there has been an observable difference

and the flow of traffic on West Main and right now because we operate in mixed traffic that benefits us.

So I believe that that's working.

There might be spot situations where having some sort of signal preemption or better yet sort of extended greens or something like that could be valuable.

Particularly when you get to state highways, though, whether they will allow us that ability would remain to be seen.

I'm not sure.

I thought there were, but I don't know for sure.

I don't know.

I think that as we partner with the county on regional transit,

that corridor is going to be a key corridor, maybe the key corridor in solutions that allow transit to move in a way that's benefited.

The traffic gets heavier and heavier if you can prevent those intersections.

Could you take a look at that?

Sure.

Thank you.

Two or three more comments.

is that again this is just a suggestion and I'm not saying it can be done but I travel quite a bit around the world and everywhere I go I find very easy maps to read and your sister I've got many times where I have a lot of them scared off from reading it because it's quite comprehensive and it is good in many ways but I must say I haven't had the courage to read it very much

I was wondering if there are ways to make our schedule more simple.

There are only examples which come to my mind and I realize that it does not have time for each stop.

In London you can have yourself two or four cars to go anywhere you want to go.

or just one car, but it does not have time for each stop.

That is a very good impediment, I understand that.

I couldn't be better than you.

I want to follow up on Ms. Brown's comments.

I also want to encourage you to really look at radical approaches, the tendency that you can do them, but at least explore the possibilities of how we can restructure our system.

Because this system is, I wrote the original grand photonic system in 1974, I think.

And this is basically the same system as it was drawn for grand application.

There are some changes, obviously.

and so 35 years is a good system so it's done the best it can do.

I also just want to think about some medical approaches which may be not practical right now but maybe we think about it and maybe restructure this in a way that it will become more efficient and maybe not so a lot of people with a half-hearted desk put some blood filling up with a frequency more

looking at a radical overhaul of the way the system works.

And I think the investigation of the Regional Transit Authority gives us that opportunity to look at how this entire system can really function in a much different way than it does now.

I think the improvements that you suggested make a whole lot of sense to me within the confines of the system we have today, and I would support the direction you're heading in.

But I think this regional conversation we're having gives us an opportunity to think bigger

and about how the system could work.

It will require, as you say, more resources.

And I think, again, partnering with the county and potentially the university gives us the opportunity to leverage additional resources.

It will also very likely require additional hubs, or at least one additional hub.

And this is the problem that you've identified, Mr. Huja, which is right now, given the fact that we have one hub in downtown,

We can't take a route from Greenbrier and send it straight to the university, whereas if we had an additional hub over on the western side of town or in the barracks road area, for instance, we could operate the system differently to take people more directly to where they want to go.

I'd like to think that by August, particularly if we can get our city staff behind it, we can open up access through Brookwood.

As several people said, it's already improved.

The road is paved.

I've driven through there myself, and I'd like to think by August we should be able to move that and hopefully staff can help encourage

I encourage that, or move us in that direction so that we can make sure that nobody in the prospect area is in any danger whatsoever losing their transit service.

I want to again heartily endorse the comments by Mr. Frechtman about, and I'd like to invite you to bring us back a proposal regarding the use of CHS IDs to allow high school kids to be able to use the buses free of charge.

and also I know another proposal that came up last year that we discussed had to do with creating an annual bus pass and I don't know where that is it's still under active exploration but that's another thing that I'd like to see us adopt if possible this year.

And then lastly

Dr. Brown said, are there any other neighborhoods?

I believe there's no bus service today up into the Meadows neighborhood and I'm wondering if it doesn't work out to send a bus into the Best Buy parking lot if it would make sense to do at least a short loop into the Meadows neighborhood to get that bus out in front of KFC.

Those are my comments.

Any other

Can I just mention two things?

Sure.

Well, let me ask a second question, and we'll come back to that one.

The challenge is to transform in the system.

One of the ones that I know is cost.

We're looking at three, four times the current cost.

I agree.

A rule of thumb would be

We have buses every 15 minutes on Route 7, for example, and that's our trunk line.

And the neighborhood routes, which are generally every hour, and in a few cases, they are at peak at 30 minute service.

So if you take a route that's every 60 minutes, and you want it to be every 15 minutes, you've got to multiply by four.

So you need four times the resources for operating expense.

And that doesn't take into consideration the fact that you're also going to need additional vehicles.

so there would be a significant capital investment needed as well.

The schools cannot provide the service via CTS.

Well certainly students could I guess make a choice and it could open up some possibilities I would think in terms of after school activities that could potentially save the school system money for after school activity buses that might not be needed if there was fixed route transportation.

One of the comments that I've heard

is that parents without cars that need to get to the high school for whatever reason, usually involving one of their children, that's a big gap in the current service.

Now, it's probably going to be modest ridership totals in my understanding that the service that used to be in Greenbrier was withdrawn because budget limitations and it was by far the least used service in the system.

and I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that we're talking high use.

So it's really a policy type of decision.

Does the council think that providing fixed route bus service to the high school is kind of a policy statement that you want to make?

Mr. Mayor, may I make one more comment?

Sure.

As I'm looking at all kinds of

suggestions without asking for your response right now.

Let me make one more just to make sure that I get off.

When we first first started this bus system, we had small buses and we moved to big buses and I understand why we moved to big buses.

But I would still want to challenge you to think about if there are small buses, at least medium sized buses, because I don't think we have that much ridership in our routes with large buses

Most of the time they run fairly empty, at least that's what I observed.

I agree with you and we will be doing that and you will be seeing more of it.

I would anticipate, if you do want to do this new service to the high school, that by creating the new combination with the Ridge Street 6A service and the new high school 6B, we would do that with what we call a minibus, the smallest buses that we have in our fleet, because that would be appropriate for the ridership demand.

That's what we do on routes 1A and 1B, that's what we do on routes 2A and 2B.

What is a standard bus in the transit industry is a 40-foot heavy-duty bus.

We don't own any of them, so to an extent we already are right-sized, but we can do better.

Our biggest bus is a 35-foot bus, and we have many 30-foot buses.

In this coming year, we'll be adding a number of 35-foot buses that are aimed at the football shuttle service and our Route 7 service, but after we take these big 35-foot buses in, you'll be seeing

So I think for tonight, you're not necessarily asking us to obviously commit to funding a new route to the high school, but I think you're looking for general direction from us as to is this the direction you want to see us move?

Correct.

So I'd like to just sort of poll informally my fellow counselors.

Would we like to invite a proposal, a budget proposal, to add a new route to Greenbrier?

Is there anybody that just off the top of their heads would not even want to explore that kind of a proposal?

All right.

Well, I'm going to take that as support for further exploration of this new route.

And I think you've heard a lot of comments from us, and hopefully that's been helpful.

And I think we all agree you're moving in the right directions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last presentation for the evening regards energy efficiency in municipal and school buildings and here to present on this topic is Mr. Lance Stewart.

Do you all know Lance?

He's our facilities manager, buildings manager, but he's become our guru on energy savings

Conversions of equipment and filing state regulations and purchasing contracts and all those kinds of things.

I just want to recognize him stepping up to a little bit of a different role in addition to what he does every day.

Thank you for that though.

You saved me the trouble, Gary.

Are there any questions?

Yeah, that was great.

Again, I'm responsible just for municipal buildings and school buildings.

There's been some interest in the committee, the CCOES committee to take education outside of the realm of what we do or take some of the lessons we learn and I'm hoping that we might go in that direction at some point.

But this proposal is really focused on finding a way to make some improvements to our buildings to have them be more energy efficient from the standpoint of cost savings, environmental impact,

It's utilizing a state contract and a mechanism that's in place that has been now tried by about 20 state agencies or municipalities that's being explored by almost everyone at this point.

And it's really pretty exciting.

It's something I've been working toward for about three years now.

So I guess you've read the background memo, so I'll try to provide as much meat

for that plate as I can.

We are a few weeks away from completing phase two of a two-phase audit of our buildings.

That audit is performed by mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, other consultants.

They go into these buildings and look for opportunities to save us money.

So we've done 31 buildings to this point.

We'll have our final numbers in in the next few weeks.

We've also done our traffic signals.

That was an opportunity that we looked into and explored for our second phase.

These audit results come back with things like major mechanical equipment replacements.

In Phase 1, that audit, there were a few items that we felt were particularly important to pursue, and we were able to do so through existing capital funds.

So we've completed a major mechanical renovation of the City Hall Annex, also some work at the Circuit Court Building.

That mechanical renovation at the City Hall Annex

We replaced the air handler, the boilers, a number of various pieces of equipment most of you haven't heard of I'm sure.

We installed an electronic control system which allows us to have night time setbacks and programming for events and overrides and to take maximum advantage of

carbon dioxide meters, things like that within the building.

It's been remarkably successful.

We just completed it about five months ago, but in the first six months of this fiscal year, we've saved or avoided $40,000 worth of bills we would have paid in the past year, and that's based on an average of the three previous years, so that may be about $70,000 or $80,000.

one year for that one building similarly very great results at the circuit court so you get some of those big major investments but in all of these buildings there are going to be lighting upgrades and improvements and one example a good example is this room right here there are 57 light fixtures in this room fluorescent light fixtures recessed up in the ceiling there those all have old fat fluorescent tubes in them and

and the magnetic ballasts on the ends to control the flow of electricity.

Those are going to be, the fixtures will remain in place but we'll retrofit those fixtures to have a T6 fixture and electronic ballasts.

Also there are 15 I believe, 14 recessed can lights, those will all get

the compact fluorescent light bulbs in those and then the exit signs will be replaced with LEDs.

So the total cost for that portion of the project as we're estimating it right now is about $3,300.

That'll save us about $484 per year.

So multiply that times about 1.8 million square feet of buildings, all the city schools,

all of our major city buildings and you can see that it's a lot of light fixtures.

We also have a lot of water fixtures and those will be upgraded as well.

We are looking at a pretty innovative solution at the central fire station to put a solar water heating system in place there.

That was one building that that made sense because there are showers taken there, there's

Meals cooked on a regular basis.

It's got a good flat roof on it.

So that's actually going to have an investment versus payback ratio of about nine years, which is pretty good.

Not too many opportunities like that in an office building, but I think it's something that we can really point to for the future and also just something that we can look to expanding our experience with solar power.

And then the traffic signals I mentioned, what we'll be doing there is converting all of the traffic signals to LED fixtures.

That's got a, looks like about a payback period of about eight years for that process.

Could save us

in the neighborhood of $120,000, $130,000 per year.

The bulbs have longer life, about 10 years, so we'd have fewer outages.

Our maintenance costs would be lower over that 10-year period.

It would also allow us to install battery backups on those poles because they draw so much less energy that you could get up to 10 hours possible of a power outage where the lights would still run.

The police in that kind of emergency can be responding to other things instead of directing traffic.

So the audit results are pretty exciting and the environmental impact is very interesting too.

Did you get it?

Okay, you've seen this chart and I hope this makes some sense to you.

I really tried to put a lot of information on here.

What this shows is basically going back to the US Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement where we were to establish a 1990 baseline and then our goal for greenhouse gas emissions reductions would be 7% less than that 1990 baseline.

What we were able to do, Christopher Witterhold and her staff, is establish a 2,000 baseline.

That's the best we could do with the information we have from a regional standpoint.

So our goal for our 2,000 baseline would be a total reduction of about 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

So you can see in the next year shown, it's that green bar there, it's 2006, that's where we were in the intervening years between when we

We established the baseline and when we figured out we needed to start attacking it.

So in 2007 you can see we're actually well below our goal.

Our goal is represented on that orange line.

So we've exceeded our expectations from a municipal building standpoint.

We need to set a new set of goals and one of those goals needs to be sustainable growth.

There's a blue line on here as well and that is our total square footage of municipal buildings and as you know we have

We've brought in a number of new buildings online in the past six years.

We've got a transit operation center on Avon Street that we'll be building, and a number of others in the pipeline.

As we grow, we need to of course build those to be as energy efficient as possible, but also take our existing municipal buildings, make those as energy efficient as possible.

As you can see in the chart here there's a line that diverts there and that represents where the green goes on where I estimate our carbon dioxide tonnage to be on an annual basis the green without this initiative the energy performance contract in the red

you know, what that gets us if we do this energy performance contract which is about an 11.4% total reduction in where we are today in this one project alone.

So this project, I wish I could tell you exactly how much it was going to cost and how much it was going to save you.

In a few weeks I should be able to do that.

But it will be in the neighborhood of two to three million dollars most likely.

The annual savings will be between three and four hundred thousand dollars a year and the idea is that it will take no more than nine years to pay that back.

and in the first year, it will be a net.

Whatever we have to pay out in that first year, we will save at least that much out of our utility bills.

And in subsequent years, over that nine year period, we'll actually have savings above and beyond what our payments are towards the lease purchase agreement.

So maybe you can explain that in a little bit simpler terms for myself and people at home, but I think what you're trying to say is that we won't, you say it'll cost us two to three million dollars, but I think what you're trying to say is we don't have to put that up front.

Right, we would seek a financing deal called a lease purchase financing agreement where we would get a loan from a bank just like we would for a fire truck.

That's a good example.

At the end of the lease purchase term, seven years, eight years, nine years, we own the fire truck or we own the improvements that we'd be making to our building.

In the meantime, we're taking our loan and those are paid directly out of our energy savings.

And if for some reason our project doesn't perform as well as it's supposed to have performed and those savings aren't there, our contractor will be contractually bound to make up a difference.

So we're looking for questions and a nod that this makes sense to move forward on it.

I think it makes a lot of sense, but I'd like to, I wonder if there'd be some way of

documenting or listing some generalities that we've learned from this such that replacing a boiler that's this old is probably going to save you.

There's some generalities that come around in terms of what actually pays for itself in six years or seven years that could be brief enough that local businesses, rather than trying to decide

just right off the bat what should I go invest in an energy auditor or not might be able to read it and say well you know our boiler was built in 1983 and maybe we should also you know look into whether it would pay for itself short enough that we want to do it I mean I guess what I'd like to do is see if we can take our lessons learned and make it available to the business community and I also think that another group that would be interested and I think we would

be able to share, it didn't take too much work on staff's part, is the other members of the planning district.

You know, the localities have heard from at planning district meetings of what we're doing with our energy audits and are really interested in it, probably not enough to embark on this kind of thing themselves, but if they were to learn that our school system saved X amount, we were able to finance it, and they would look at their buildings and say, gosh, our buildings are even older, maybe

You know, this is what we should do.

Absolutely, and you know, I think it's, and we've gotten a bit of press, you know, locally and nationally for, you know, this effort, but, and some other efforts that we've done, and I think there's a pretty good network of

of Energy Managers throughout the state who I communicate with, but certainly all of this can go up on our website.

It can be some good examples.

You can have some sort of generalizations, as you say, rules of thumb, but there are really a lot of variables.

How much we pay for energy varies from what the public pays for energy.

We have a slightly better deal.

Which means they save more.

Exactly.

And our building use varies.

Our schools are closed for three months of the year, so that limits how much we can save in those.

There's variables for every one of our buildings.

I think you've done a great job.

Can you describe briefly the partnership that you entered into, that we entered into last year with the schools and sort of the challenge?

I don't know if a lot of people know what we've done with the schools because when I tell this story,

You're talking about educating other cities.

Right.

Well, in many ways, the school system's buildings are in much better shape than the city buildings are from the standpoint of energy management.

There have been more funds made available over the years to the schools for that.

So you reach a point where you think, well, okay, other than these lighting improvements, you know, what can we do?

We've got electronic controls everywhere.

We've had major mechanical innovations everywhere.

But we're not satisfied.

You can't be satisfied with making those improvements.

And the next step to me was getting buy-in from the people in those buildings

to commit to the things that residents can do to save energy much as homeowners can do to save energy.

You don't leave every light in the house on or walk away with the TV on or leave the refrigerator door standing open for hours on end.

And there had been a kind of a disconnect too because the city maintains the school buildings and pays the utility bills and manages that.

If we ran over budget in a given year, which we had quite a few years in a row,

The school system didn't feel the pain, the city did, so we wanted to do everything we could and in order to help this education process we also set up an incentive package for each of the schools and I established a baseline goal for each school, tried to be as fair about it as I could, taking in the history of

utility consumption in those buildings and its use.

But basically we set a dollar goal for each school.

We said if you can beat this goal for this quarter, let's say it's $50,000 at Charlottesville High School, if you can bring it in at $45,000 and there's $5,000 left over, we're going to give you half and cut a check to the school.

And the other half of that money we'll set aside for energy savings efforts.

So we cut, I think it's about $57,000 worth of checks to the schools in the first full year of the program.

They did some really neat things with those from an educational standpoint, including putting in some science, you know, outfitting a science lab to teach environmental programs.

Science was the bigger push on what they got.

But we got the principals thinking about it, we got the custodians thinking about it.

We were able to get some teachers involved in lesson plans that we helped them find on the EPA website.

Okay, well thank you so much for your, unless there's any other comments, thank you so much for your work and you really are a pioneer and we appreciate everything you're doing.

That's the last item on our regularly scheduled agenda for tonight.

We have a couple items on our other business, but the next item is matters by the public.

Thank you.

There was an item on consent agenda item C, an appropriation of $750,000 for stormwater improvements from the 2007 surplus.

First of all, I do very much support what we are doing with drainage and want to do with this money.

I think it would be a good investment for city infrastructure.

In our work session, we discussed

these dollar amounts and I had some questions and concerns about consulting fees and I would like to suggest, I don't know if it's possible, but that we move at least 50,000 from the consulting fees

and 25,000 dollars from outreach into some actual improvement like new construction, or demonstration, or rehab.

This is going to transfer 75,000 dollars and if we do not look for something fees, we can always come back to those.

My worry is that if you just put it in there, it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy sometimes.

I don't object to the $73,000 devoted to drainage I think needed.

Let me remind you too while she's coming up, this is on first reading so we can get you more information out of tonight.

Thank you.

I believe the question that was asked at the work session that may somewhat help Mr. Huja's question is we talked about the facilitator that was going to work with the advisory committee.

We estimate that to be somewhere in the $15,000 to $20,000 based on the other cities that have done this.

The rest of these dollars are really earmarked for setting up the billing system,

getting the data integrated into that billing system.

Remember, each commercial piece of property has to have an individual number developed for it and put into the billing system.

So it's not just a consultant that's working with our group.

It's the actual implementation.

Well, I understood that this was consulting for all different purposes besides facilitator.

Yes.

Yes.

And that's how much we believe, and in fact, this is probably low.

We have an RFP out right now that will be coming back in next month.

That's to get the advisory, the citizens advisory committee that we talked about.

to get them facilitators.

It would be dramatically more than that.

based on, and again it depends, are you going to do a separate billing system, are you going to put on real estate, are you going to put on utility, all of those are different.

Would this be available before the next reading?

I mean, I can't give you any better numbers than what I have.

We have an RFP out now, and as you know, the RFPs don't come back with dollars on them.

We have to select a consultant and then negotiate fees.

So I think it would be April.

Mr. Mayor, while I understand Mr. Huja's concern, I'm concerned.

I felt I had the work session.

We had a thoughtful presentation by staff in which a lot of work had gone into trying to anticipate what areas of real expertise needed to be brought in in order to make this project a success, and I think that's reflected in this section.

Resolution has been motioned, is there a second?

I'll say.

Any further discussion?

Carries over to the next meeting.

And hopefully by that time we'll have at least some more information on some of these costs.

Thank you very much.

And now I believe we proceed to matters by the public.

If there's anybody from the public that would like to offer comments, feel free to do so.

there being no public comment.

We'll move to other business.

I did have an item that I'd like to bring up for Council's consideration and I'm going to ask Mr. Tolbert to introduce it for us.

This has to do with a piece of legislation that's going to benefit the city that's under active consideration right now at the Virginia General Assembly.

My normal preference is not to introduce

resolutions the same day we're asking for a vote on said resolutions, but given the pace of things in the General Assembly, this is an item that we need to act on, at least to give the General Assembly some direction on how the city wishes to proceed.

Thank you.

Senator Deeds was kind enough to submit a bill to give us some authority to actually with our special use permit applications and rezoning to obtain either affordable housing units or cash in lieu thereof and delegate Toscano has a bill also House Bill 883 the same bill essentially the issue before us tonight is that of course every time one of these affordable housing bills goes in

If our Home Builders Association statewide opposes it, they generally don't make it out of committee.

I met yesterday with representatives from our local home builders.

We went over the bill, talked about the numbers.

They are supportive to the point that they will not oppose this bill.

I just got an email from David Blount who said that the state home builder's lobbyist has said he will not oppose the bill if our locals don't oppose the bill.

The only thing they ask, they say, is if we're going to have this bill which is going to add to the cost of housing, to provide affordable housing, they would like some work from us to reduce some of their front-end costs.

And they feel the best way to do that is by speeding up the plan review process and the permitting process.

What they generally have in mind is that on these particular applications is that we would take a look at our code

and look at things like making site plans administrative approval as opposed to having to go to the Planning Commission which will reduce a couple of months out of the process.

Any of those things that could be done administratively that we would try to do that on these types of applications.

I think that's very doable.

The Planning Commission has even been talking about some of those changes themselves to try to reduce some of their agenda items.

What they said is if you would pass a resolution tonight indicating a willingness to do this prior to making any amendments that would allow us to enact these bills, then they would not oppose this.

It would give us the four or five months, six months to put together a process before either of these became effective if they passed.

So I drafted a little resolution for you to consider tonight.

that essentially very simply says that council will not adopt changes to the city zoning ordinance to enact standards allowed by these bills until the following occurs.

An expedited plan review and permitting process is adopted as part of the code for all projects that provide affordable housing units as defined in allowing these bills.

This will include site plan approval, subdivision approval, and waivers required for approval.

Again, it doesn't lock us into anything, it just gives us the ability to negotiate and hopefully get this affordable housing bill as a first step through the general assembly.

Could you just talk about, as a practical matter, what this would mean?

I mean, what's the difference between an expedited

Yes sir, these would only occur in two cases, special use permits and rezoning.

So automatically the council planning commissioner is going to get a review of those on the front end, on the approval of the SUP or rezoning.

What this would mean then is when that site plan came in to implement that, rather than it going to the planning commission, having to wait for an agenda, we would take it, we would have our site plan conference where the public gets involved, we get all the public comment, but we would then review it.

It would go to the top of our list.

We would say that any of these came in, the first time they came in, they would go on top of the pile instead of the bottom of the pile.

And we would review it, again, administratively without taking it to the planning commission.

We used to do a lot more of these.

We've changed where the Planning Commission has gotten more involved in them.

But there's still the public process where there is that site plan review conference.

I told them and suggested that we would do the first review that way and then if their plans were sufficient they came back with the changes and not having to negotiate a bunch of times.

If we did that, all bets were off.

They'd have to go back and go through a regular process.

Well, we have a lot of ministerial review now.

Any site plan under the code can be done administratively.

The planning commission back in 2003 or 2004 decided that any that was in an entrance corridor, for instance, they wanted to see.

Code doesn't require it, they just said they wanted to see them.

We had been doing those all along as administrative reviews.

Subdivisions can be done as administrative reviews unless they are major, but then they can still be delegated.

I mean, 10 lots more.

We rarely have those.

What we've had is a Planning Commission shift over the last couple of years to really get more engaged in the ministerial review issues where they really don't have a lot of authority.

And so what this resolution would do would say that they'll support this bill, but we're resolving that this bill will not be implemented until such time as an expedited process has been worked out.

Right.

Right.

Right.

And if we don't come up with an expedited process that

They're trusting you that you will not enact provisions.

Yeah, we won't enact it until we come up with the processes.

Any other questions or comments?

I'll second it.

Any further discussion?

All in favor?

I want to publicly thank the home builders here for their willingness to try to make this work.

This gives us a tool that has tremendous potential for generating new affordable housing units and affordable housing funding, and their willingness to be part of the solution to our affordable housing challenges I think is really commendable.

And thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

Who did all this on his day off?

That's right.

That concludes our business for the day.

I just have one question for the city manager.

I was just sitting here thinking about it and I see Mr. Talbert here too.

Where are we on 8th and Main on the parking issue up there?

Thank you all.

and David Brown.

P.S.