City Council Meeting   3/17/2008

Thanks for watching!

You'd be surprised what I've done.

Are there images floating around of you and tie-dye's here?

Long hair?

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

for any other announcements or items to be added to other business.

They're having a meeting for both staff and elected officials, which I would like to attend as the chair of the Sustainability Committee and I'll give you a lot of details on that and other business.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor Charlottesville, do hereby recognize March 16th to 22nd, 2008 as Poison Prevention Week and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens and I have a proclamation to this effect.

Thank you very much.

Can you speak that number?

Thank you.

And whereas the arts offer an intensely personal and powerful way of expressing and sharing the experience of cancer, now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, do hereby proclaim the week of April 14, 2008 as a time to be aware of the power of art in the healing process, to encourage the citizens of Charlottesville to know the facts about ovarian and other forms of cancer, and to engage actively in helping patients and loved ones deal with this experience.

So, thank you for this recognition.

Thank you very much.

So thank you.

Especially during this extraordinary time for our country, I encourage all Americans to support this organization's noble humanitarian mission.

I think that we could not be the kind of quality organization we are without the volunteers and the support of this community and the city of Charlottesville.

The first person that signed up is Colette Hall.

Come and walk with me and you will cry at what the city will lose as its heritage and future.

Did I pronounce that correct?

And thank you for your time, and if you choose to adopt this resolution, thanks for your support.

The next speaker is Erin Wise-Ackenbaum.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's a peace loving people.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is I have over 100 signatures from Charlottesville High School, two policemen from Charlottesville High School as well as from Mont Shell High School that support this department.

The next speaker is Allison and

My handwriting is a little bit illegible at times.

Can you give us your address, please?

Katie, and we actually, we're also here for a piece and whatnot and we actually have a song that we would really like to play for you guys.

We'd love it.

Do you want a chair?

That would be probably a good idea.

One, two, three.

Thank you.

Okay, so Mary Kelly is next.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Christine Solom.

I just wanted to let you all know.

And our last signed up speaker is Rich Schuyler.

I don't have a song, but I do have pictures.

That's a good thing, Rich.

Thank you.

Yes.

I hope everything continues to go well.

Thank you.

Can you sign up?

Would anybody like to offer any thoughts?

That's the only comments I had today.

And I think it would be good to pass a resolution to support this kind of effort on our country's part.

Any comments, Mr. Taliaferro?

So thank you for your efforts.

Yes.

Is there a second?

I move the agenda.

Second.

We have a PowerPoint presentation.

Do you have some introductory comments or you want to move?

Take this.

Thank you.

The way the school system has done business, like everyone else, has switched from lots of manual processes and labor to a lot more technology, so that piece of the pie is probably the one that's grown the most over the last 10 years.

We'll be glad to answer any questions that you might have.

Any questions on the part of counselors?

Do you remember right off the bat?

In the general fund, it's 12.1 and net of the special revenue fund, which is grant sources, we go down to about 11, just over 11.

Thank you.

Other questions?

I was wondering if that has changed in the last year.

That's one of the components of our alternative school program, which will be a comprehensive program.

Dr. Brown, I don't have any questions.

I wonder if there's others that you're pursuing or that are reflected in the budget that didn't come up tonight

So that's another opportunity for collaboration.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

So certainly we are moving forward with that.

Can you talk about where you are in that thought process?

That will be the base of all of our salaries.

You continue to be very impressed with the work of you and your team, and I look forward to good things to come.

Thank you.

Our next item is a public hearing on the annual tax levy and I'm going to have our city manager Mr. O'Connell introduce this.

It will come up at the early meeting in April for council to consider formally adopting a tax rate.

And the first person to sign up is Carl Shaw.

Ms. Collette Howell.

Thank you.

Yes.

How did it go?

We can answer that after the public hearing on behalf of them.

Thank you.

Mr. Moore?

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Just as a point of clarification, Mr. Brown, do you want to address the comment by Mr. Moore about the effective tax rate?

So that has been published in the newspaper.

Any comments, thoughts from Councillors on the comments that were raised?

I thought we had information on

I know Mr. Ray is here and I don't know if, I don't see Mr. Richards here, but I know we did have.

We're checking right now.

So we've got to redouble our efforts to engage more citizens and provide the tax relief that citizens are due.

Because a lot of people are embarrassed to do that.

Mr. O'Connell.

A real quick overview of what the budget proposals are and then where we're going over the next couple weeks.

We have seven members of the public that have signed up to speak and the first of them is Jackie Bryant.

I'm going to turn it over to Eddie and let him tell you a little bit about what he does.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks so much for your time.

The next speaker is Rod Gentry.

So, again, I want to ask you to reconsider that as you go forward and thank you for all the support that you've given the workforce system thus far.

Thank you.

The next speaker is the Piedmont Council of the Arts, Terry Grant.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you very much.

We're going to move on to Colette Hall.

Budget our needs and not our wants.

Jim Moore.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

The next speaker is Elizabeth Kuchai.

Why not take that $200,000 and apply it to the $5 million here to build the new pool?

Oh, Ms. Roberts.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sampson.

Thank you, Mr. Sampson.

Anybody else like to speak?

Any comments by city councilors?

We're dealing with agency budgets so I can talk about them tomorrow when we discuss the agency.

Yeah, that'd be fine.

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

We've been pretty successful at doing that in the city and we've had a long standing program going on for many years and I think this current year I think we've got what a 2% increase?

Lowest in the region.

I understand what you're saying, but I always thought that that was a personal matter, that you should take care of yourself.

There is absolutely nothing unethical done in the administration of that fund, and so I think calling for anybody's resignation is out of order.

The accounting for the specific dollars we've committed to City Council to provide, they have a detailed report and we'll continue to provide that in the future and make it available to anybody in the public that would like to see it.

And I believe Mr. O'Connell or Mr. Tolbert is going to introduce this.

And I assume you're going to do a PowerPoint since you're wiring up, so we'll move.

I'm assuming I'm going to do a PowerPoint with the assistance of

There's a gentleman here.

How are you?

Good.

That's exactly the way it feels some days.

Almost.

Oh!

and we bring them up to contemporary standards and utilization factors.

Next.

And I will, of course, answer questions if you haven't.

That's good.

Any questions?

Dr. Brown?

So thank you very much.

So I'm optimistic about that as well.

and I personally am not convinced that that's a good idea and I'm wondering do you see any opportunities given our desire to see West Main Street realize its economic potential and do you see what are the obstacles that would prevent the university from joining in partnership with the city and with the private sector to identify some potential and fill opportunities along that avenue?

And I know former Mayor Brown had brought that up to me as well, and I think that we can be open to that sort of discussion because I think there's certainly some mutual issues there.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

Thank you for your time.

Mr. Tolbert.

That is correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Does that answer your question?

Any questions?

Is this...

It was proposed for new housing only.

Is that quite clear?

Maybe the resolution should be clear.

That's fine.

That's a great point.

Any other questions?

So I think it's really something we need to move towards.

I have three questions slash comments.

I mean, I'm just saying I think it would be good on a policy basis for us to adopt the same standard if we're doing it already administratively.

It's probably a broader issue than just this for us to meet the LEED standards.

I'm not suggesting LEED necessarily again.

I mean that's administratively what we've been doing.

The LEED certified goods service, I think we could aspire towards that.

I have no problem doing LEED, I'm just saying at least do what we're asking of.

We can get some language in.

and what we've been practicing on renovations is to weigh exceed those standards.

Do you happen to know Mr. Brown?

So as soon as those changes are officially law, then we will bring that forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Kleeman.

Thank you, Mr. Kleeman.

We have had that discussion already and we'll get to that in a minute, but Mr. Halbert.

Thank you Mr. Howard, anybody else?

Do you want to touch on that?

We've got to add all those up.

Yeah, I have a couple things I want to bring up.

I think that's our committee's findings were somewhat consistent with what the Board of Supervisors have said and I believe it's up to you to figure out what step we take next on this.

We discussed, we've given general approval to the allocation, we just wanted to...

I'd be glad to offer a motion that we move forward with funding of the ASAP project, but with the request that that funding be limited to the first three items on their list of work.

Is there a second?

How much is it?

Please indicate your vote.

So I would like to attend and I just wanted to see if I could get your concurrence on that.

I wasn't going to travel anywhere without you guys saying that.

This is a discussion, not a three class meeting if you want, but a work session somewhere appropriate.

Any other additional business?

We appreciate that.

Meeting is adjourned.

and Michael

We bet you'll love the book.

Don't ruin the book for me.

I want to read it myself.

You should visit your local library and join people all across the Charlottesville area reading To Kill Mockingbird this March and April.

Cool.