City Council Meeting   4/7/2008

Ms. Kochis, if you could call the roll please.

We're going to start with a series of announcements and I have a few I'd like to make.

First of all, this Wednesday morning, two days from now, we're going to be offering a tour of the recycling plant.

A number of questions have been raised over the past number of months about where all of our recyclables go.

So this is our chance to allow citizens to come and join us on a bus trip to the recycling plant.

to see what happens to all the things that you all leave on the curb.

If anybody would like to join in the tour, it is a first come, first serve opportunity.

I just need to call City Hall at 970-3301.

Again, it's leaving this Wednesday morning in front of the Downtown Transit Center at 830

We'll be going out to Chester, Virginia for that and thank you to the staff for organizing that.

Secondly, April 12th, which is this Saturday, we'll be having the next charrette regarding the design of the west side of McIntire Park.

in the city space, in the city garage, in the Market Street garage from 9 a.m. to 12 and it is open to the public and we encourage people to participate in that.

Yes, I have an announcement in regards to

the Charlottesville Fire Corps.

The Charlottesville Fire Department has undertaken an initiative and created a group called the Charlottesville Fire Corps and they need volunteers for this and this is an opportunity for you to participate in a city program and they'll match your skills and the time that you have available to work with them.

It's been a successful program across the country and

If there's any interest in this, you can call 9-7-0-3-2-4-0, and the Fire Corps Coordinator for the City Fire Department is Linda Seaman.

So I would encourage anyone that's interested in volunteering for this to please follow up.

I had a couple of announcements.

April will mark the seventh annual Women and Girls Wellness Month in Virginia.

It was created in 2002 by the General Assembly and it was created to observe the importance of

Girls and Women's Health as a continuous lifelong process.

If you'd like more information about the activities, you can go to www.womenshealthvirginia.org, and you can call Mimi Bender at 220-4500.

And speaking of women's health, on May 29th, that's a Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.,

Women's Health Day will take place at the West Haven Clinic and is sponsored by Every Woman's Life and EVA Cancer Center.

This means that for all women age 45 and over, if you don't have health insurance, you have an opportunity to get a mammogram, a breast exam, and a pap smear.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, last meeting under comments by the public we had Mr. Moore brought up some concerns about the cost of our retirement system and I would like under other business tonight for us to kind of

Okay, so we will add that to the end of the agenda.

Any other items to be added or announcements?

We have a series of recognitions tonight and I'm going to start with a few proclamations and the first has to do with the month of the young child.

I don't know if there's anybody here to, okay.

So I'm a proclamation, whereas the Central Virginia Association for the Education of Young Children is celebrating the month of the young child in April 2008 in conjunction with the Virginia Association for Early Childhood Education and the National Association for the Education of Young Children

and whereas these organizations are working to improve early learning opportunities which are crucial to the growth and development of young children and to building better futures for everyone in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On behalf of the Central Virginia Association for the Education of Young Childhood, we do appreciate your recognition of the week of the young child.

We do appreciate everything that the City Council is doing, and we know that we do need a whole lot of help raising our children before they enter the public schools.

I can just quickly add that our organization is giving 350 books entitled Player Box Talk this month to some of the early childhood teachers and preschools at Family Day Care Home.

We'd also like to invite anyone who has to do it again with children to a reception as part of the Lockerbie Young Title on Saturday, April 19th at the Baltimore County Office Building from 11 to 1.

I'll do a copy here, so thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

The second proclamation has to do with Arbor Day.

Is anybody here to receive the Arbor Day proclamation, Mr. Daley?

Whereas in 1872, J.

Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for the planting of trees, whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world,

Whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce life-giving oxygen, and provide habitat for wildlife.

Whereas trees, wherever they planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal.

Therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim April 18th, 2008, as Arbor Day in the City of Charlottesville,

and I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands.

Just one reminder, for those of you who may not know, there will be a tree planting event on Arbor Day morning at Jacksonville Elementary School at 1030.

Hope you can be there.

And the last proclamation has to do with Fair Housing Month.

Is anybody here to receive this proclamation?

It basically says, whereas April is Fair Housing Month and marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act, and whereas the Fair Housing Act provides that no person shall be subjected to discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status in the rental, sale, financing, or advertising of housing,

Now, therefore, I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby declare April 2008 as Fair Housing Month in Charlottesville and encourage all residents and organizations, public and private, to abide by the letter and the spirit of the fair housing laws.

And the last recognition is a very special one.

You all see a row of young people lined up in the back of the chambers here.

These are some guests that have traveled from places, in many cases, in places

hundreds if not thousands of miles away here to our community through the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, which is a residential leadership program for young people ages 18 to 24.

And this team of 11 has worked alongside community volunteers here in Charlottesville to jumpstart the eradication and control portion of the city's new initiative to manage invasive species on our publicly owned lands.

and they have worked in McIntire, Penn, Meadow Creek, Azalea, Quarry, Jordan and Greenleaf Parks and at Buford School during the past month.

And I want to invite Mike Svetz, Director of Parks and Recreation to come forward.

Mike's going to read through their names and has a token of our appreciation.

I want to thank you all on behalf of the Charlottesville community for your work.

All right, I hope I don't butcher your names as I go through these.

Do you want to say where they're from?

I can do that.

From Boulder, Colorado.

Jesse Bloom from Walla Walla, Washington.

Corey Frazier from Menifee, California Wendy Huber from Monroe, Wisconsin Jennifer Murphy from Sheridan, California

Liz Newman, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Ben Nichols from Overland Park, Kansas Jeffrey Osborne from Denver, Colorado

Jordan Scheel from Sacramento, California, Bridget Schwarn from South Sioux City, Nebraska, and Christina Taylor from Hampton, Maine.

And I don't have a shirt for her, but Susan Plice, our volunteer and outreach coordinator, absolutely positively dreamed this for our department and for our city.

Not only did she have the vision for it, she put together the application, and because of Susan,

and her hard work and her vision not only ahead of time, but during these last four weeks and these next couple of weeks is making these AmeriCorps kids work very hard.

They're enjoying the nice, cool Charlottesville spring.

Thank you, Mr. Spence.

We're now going to move on to matters by the public.

We would ask that speakers limit their comments to three minutes and please give us your name and address.

The first person who signed up to speak is Megan, I know I butchered this last time and I'm going to do it again, Jeton?

Good evening.

My name is Meghan Chetan.

I live at 120 Dogwood Heights in Scottsville, and I'm here this evening to thank you on behalf of Monticello High School's Student Peace Alliance Club for the positive comments you made regarding the campaign for the U.S. Department of Peace and the resolution we presented you with on March 17th.

We are all very appreciative of your time and are honored to have your support.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor and Council Members, my name is Joe Mooney.

I live at 201 Sunset Avenue.

And I can't help but think about the AmeriCorps kids being here.

I saw them out on Meadow Creek this week and it relates to what I have to talk about.

And I think if we could put as much energy into environmental issues as these kids will hopefully now and throughout their lives,

I think we'll all obviously be better off.

First, I've got good news.

Usually, what am I doing?

Complaining or commenting or something.

Good news.

This is about saving money and the environment, and it's a win-win situation, and maybe saving 50 million dollars.

So, I hope we can all work hard toward this goal.

What I left at your places is a news release from 1998 from the US Army Corps of Engineers, and what it is

is an announcement of the Army Corps of Engineers slash Army Corps of Engineers dredging slash Philadelphia International Airport project reached the Vice President Gore Hammer Award.

We have a similar situation that I've talked about a couple of times down here and I think this is appropriate.

The Hammer Award Vice President Gore established

It was approved for recognizing teams of federal employees and their partners whose work resulted in a government that functions better, works together and costs less.

And I think this is the goal that we should be pursuing.

The award was given for a project in which

The Delaware River was dredged and an airport runway at Philadelphia International Airport, which many of us have probably landed on with US Air, was combined.

The Hammer Award, I didn't quite understand.

I thought it was a man's name or a woman's name at first.

but then was told that it was a hammer as a symbolic thing, sort of like the Golden Fleece, except 180 degrees opposite, that this is positive.

And the idea was that sometimes bureaucracies become so entrenched that the old idea, well, give it a lick with a hammer, maybe it'll work, came out.

And that was President Gore's idea.

So I hope that we don't really have to give our bureaucracies a lick with a hammer, but maybe we will.

Our situation is very similar, and I just wanted to read a couple of things from Philadelphia.

Even with dredging costs included, the city of Philadelphia saved approximately $7 million by using a fill from the Delaware River instead of upland sources.

Significant adverse environmental and social impacts caused by the mining and transporting of upland fill material was avoided, and because river fill was used for the runway, valuable dredge disposal site capacity was conserved

for future navigation channel maintenance.

Our situation, very similar.

In fact, two million cubic yards was the amount in this project.

That's exactly the amount that we have that we would need for the airport runway extension.

Thank you, Dr. Mooney.

The next speaker is Jim Moore.

Now I notice, Mr. Moore, that you signed up to speak about the real estate tax increase.

I'd certainly welcome you to offer those comments as part of that public hearing.

And if you want to, that's fine.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane, President of NDRA, the Neighborhood Association for North Downtown.

The Planning Commission has recommended 4th Street for the permanent vehicular crossing through the downtown mall.

As directed by the board of NDRA, I ask for your consideration regarding 4th Street as it passes under the railroad track bridge.

I urge you to amend the proposed resolution and keep 4th Street one way going northbound as it passes under the railroad track bridge.

A two-way street here is decidedly not in the best interest of the north downtown, the Beaumont Carlton,

and the Ridge Street neighborhoods or the mall.

These neighborhoods and the mall will become a cut-through route for vehicles especially traveling south.

This could mean southbound vehicles beginning on 4th Street via Hedge Street would go through a heavily congested area of residences, Jackson Park, three courthouses, professional offices, a bank drive-thru, retail shops, restaurants, over the mall, and into the Belmont, Carlton and Ridge Street neighborhoods.

Why?

As a vehicular route to Interstate 64,

Route 20 South, Avon Street South, and the large planned southern developments in the county.

4th Street would become a McIntire Road.

4th Street is not, nor should it be, a collector route in size or scope.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Downing Smith.

I live at 810 Locust Avenue here in the city.

If your car needed some repair work and you took it to the dealership and they said it's going to cost you $15,000 and then a friend came and told you, well, I know a mechanic who could do the work for $3,000.

Well, I'd go check it out and I certainly hope y'all would too.

Here's a picture of some of my friends and my friends have told me

that we can fix our water problem for 30 million dollars as opposed to 150 million dollars.

And so, I'd like to ask you to do two things for me.

One, take your choice, read one of these articles from one of these books.

It'll take you about 15 minutes.

And then pick up the telephone and call my next door neighbor, Mr. Oliver Kuehner, and invite him to your meeting on May 6th.

I don't know Mr. Kuehner very well even though he's my next door neighbor.

but he appears to be a very successful businessman and if he says he can dredge the North Fork of the Rivanna River Reservoir for 30 million dollars and make money on it, I think you need to talk to it.

I guess the only arguments I see against not doing that are, once again, I get all my information from newspapers, either from the book or from Mr. Rosen over there, whatever, or paid advertisements and

Apparently the reason not to look into it is because you've already looked into it.

Well if you've gotten misinformation, incorrect information, it seems like to me that maybe that would be a reason to go back and take a look at the decision.

Just because you've made a decision and spent a bunch of time on it doesn't mean that if you've found some new information you shouldn't look at it.

I think I have a few minutes left.

There are two more points I'd like to make.

One, who's watching the chicken coop?

From what I've read in here, and I don't know if this is complete information, the consultant is also going to do the dredging.

That is not a good business practice.

It's a conflict of interest.

It's what I've known as a wire job when someone who tells you what you need to do and then sets it up so that they're the only person who can do it is not a good business practice.

And the last point I want to make is I don't want to pay whether it's $150 million or $30 million or whatever to have my water rates go up because of what we need to do.

The reason that we need this is because of uncontrolled growth in Albemarle County.

The population of Charlottesville stays pretty much the same.

Those poor folks out in Albemarle County are paying 68 cents per hundred dollars in their property taxes.

I don't want to, they're going to have to pay a little bit more rather than have me pay more for my water.

And if you guys need a copy of this article, let me know.

I'll be happy to get it.

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Richard Berman, 205A, Second Street Northwest, Charlottesville.

I'm not here to beat on you about what I usually beat on you about, but the conversion of McGuffey Park to basically what I consider McGuffey playground, it's absolutely beautiful, although I understand some of it has to be redone because of water drainage.

but what we've noticed with the increased usage of the park by ladies with their little children and everything is the severe lack of a porta potty.

All the ladies are bringing the kids over behind that little short wall over our garage and having them do their business back there.

And I would like to suggest that you provide a porta john for the park.

Ridge Schuyler Good evening, I'm Ridge Schuyler and I live at 112 Robinson Woods Drive.

In addition to being a resident of the city of Charlottesville, I'm also director of the Piedmont Program for the Nature Conservancy in Virginia and I'm focused on protecting the Rivanna Watershed.

In the past, I've discussed two overarching threats to the health of the Rivanna Watershed, excessive sedimentation and excessive water withdrawals.

For the rest of my talks before city council, I want to focus not on the threats, but on possible solutions.

Tonight, I want to talk about the Rivanna River Basin Commission.

It was an idea born of the citizens of this watershed.

Motivated by a love for their river and propelled by the efforts of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, in 1996, a group of citizens formed the Rivanna River Roundtable to assess past and current conditions of the Rivanna River

and articulate desired future conditions.

Hundreds of volunteers spent 15 months gathering information and developing recommendations for preserving the health of the watershed.

In 1998, that work culminated in a State of the Basin report, which contained five recommendations.

Many of them stem from a central idea, that a single oversight group involving the local governments be focused on protecting the health of the Rivanna.

The benefit of having local governments involved is clear.

While nature has no borders, we do.

And there are four different localities that have a majority of their land in the Rivanna watershed, the counties of Albemarle, Green, and Fluvanna, and of course, the city of Charlottesville.

A commission with a focus on the entire watershed provides localities the opportunities to look beyond their borders and protect this common resource.

Unfortunately, funding ran out before any of the recommendations could be implemented.

Wanting to build on this community effort, in 2003, the Conservancy worked to advance this recommendation and sought state legislation authorizing the creation of the Rivanna River Basin Commission.

That legislation was sponsored by our beloved and much-missed, Mitch Vannieris and Senator Pree Deeds.

It passed the General Assembly unanimously and was signed by Governor Warner in April of 2004.

Knowing how tight local government budgets can be, the Conservancy then raised private funds for the River Basin Commission to help get it started.

To date, we have raised $360,000 for the Rivanna River Basin Commission from private citizens around the watershed concerned for its continued health.

With funding in hand, each of the four localities agreed unanimously to join, and the Commission has been up and running since April of last year.

There are two elected officials from each locality on the 14-member board, including two new additions from the City of Charlottesville.

The Commission is lucky to have Mrs. Edwards and Mr. Huja on the board.

Since April, the Commission has reviewed what we currently know about the health of the Rivanna watershed.

Based on this review, Commission members have decided to tackle the threat posed by excessive sedimentation.

In particular, the Commission is addressing the scouring stream flows which appear to be a major cause of that sedimentation threat.

Mayor Norris, City Council, I'm John False out of the 1503 Rugby Road.

I hadn't thought to come down here to talk to this particular on tax issues because I found it kind of futile to look at minor things now when the city staff has already decided the major parts of the budget.

But I had a very chance encounter with a former neighbor this morning in the post office.

and I learned that he sold his house for $300,000 less than its assessed value.

He's two houses away from me.

The assessments didn't change and yet clearly in our neighborhood, yeah it's a high rent neighborhood, I admit Rugby Road is expensive, our property values are dropping considerably.

I've looked.

You know what?

I'm coming to the conclusion I don't completely trust the real estate assessment process.

This really upsets me tremendously for this government.

Why didn't the assessments drop?

I've heard rumors that city staff sort of sets what the real estate assessment ought to be and then based on spending and I've always discounted that.

But now I'm beginning to wonder, have assessments in the city really gone up 4%?

Ours didn't.

Well, ours didn't go up, but the real estate values have been dropping.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Falls.

Is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak at this time?

Good evening, Councillors.

I'm Peter Klayman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

and I noticed that you have the permanent vehicular crossing at the downtown mall of 4th Street on your agenda as a resolution and I did send you some material expressing some concerns about the fact that much of the design and planning of that particular crossing as to be decided by you tonight has been done after the last opportunity for the public to weigh in on that particular project and in fact

there was really no clear decision as to which street it was going to be on and it looks like the design of that is dramatically different from what was being considered at the last opportunity for the public.

Maybe it should be addressed in the budget issue, but there was a $1 million price tag on making that to a permanent crossing and in the resolution that you have before you, it states that there's no significant budgetary impact.

and so I'm curious as to what are we not getting in this proposal that we were willing to pay a million dollars for in the past and just to understand better why this is becoming permanent without an opportunity for a clear evaluation of design.

As I mentioned in my material I sent to you, which I also posted on klumenblog.blogspot.com, it starts with a K,

you can see that there's been a significant change I'm sure you've experienced a significant change in traffic on 4th Street and Ms. Hall mentioned some of those same concerns that my hunch is that that's becoming one of the most heavily traveled streets in the north downtown area so it appears to me that this is not just a convenience for people going around the mall and to parking as this was originally intended to be

or even a boost to the downtown business community's revenues as we haven't seen any information that supports either of those goals being even approached.

So my concern is that this decision is going on in spite of the fact that we haven't seen any strong, positive information in support of what this proposal is supposed to bring about for our community.

So I would hope that you would defer taking an action on this as a permanent decision

and that you allow some further consideration of what this project really is and whether it is essential to do.

I thank you very much.

I saw another hand up earlier.

Any other citizens?

We have time for one more comment.

Okay, we will close the matters by the public and now move on to council responses to matters by the public.

I'll go first.

First I'd like to say that I agree with Colette Hall that I have concerns about the plan to open 4th Street so it can go straight across the mall, continue going straight across over

to Garrett Street.

I do have concern that might create an incentive for people to use that as a cut through.

I think if we are to elect, I mean the problem with it is that when there's a train you can't get across the tracks now and I understand that is a concern.

If we do elect to open it, I hope we'll take the time to collect data first on how many cars are going across the mall so we can see if there's a change by opening that so we can go back and have some data upon which to up to it.

Anyway, we can discuss that more later, obviously, but I wanted to reply to that.

Secondly, I wanted to reply on Mr. Falt's concerns, a little reckless in his language, I thought about the assessments and how we get those assessments.

You know, there's certainly a time lag and I was going to ask Mr. O'Connell between when do we take values on what's sold and what hasn't sold and when does it get translated into our assessments.

We're done on a calendar year basis, so if sales occur during the calendar year, they will be considered at the end of the calendar year, which is when the new assessments come up.

And I've heard a couple stories of houses that are selling for way above the assessment.

My impression is I agree with the fundamental issue.

I think the prices are declining.

I think we're going to see ourselves having lower assessments in the future.

I think it's something we need to be prepared for.

I don't think it's a dramatic decline in the city the way it will be in the county.

The third thing I wanted to respond to Mr. Smith regarding his, I have read all the articles from The Hook, and I'd like to encourage you to go to the Rivanna website and read the report on dredging if you haven't taken the time to do that yet yourself.

It's my belief that the Hook articles have contained a lot of misinformation, and in particular that the Hook states the case that we can just dredge and that'll solve our water supply plan.

The fact, as I understand them, and I believe it's a very persuasive set of facts, is that we can't just dredge and get enough water for 50 years.

It just won't happen.

The hook is not taking into account the fact that regulators will require us when we redo the dam at Ragged Mountain to allow water in times of drought to be periodically released to maintain the health of the Mormon's River or the Rivanna River.

So number one is you have to do something else, too.

We need somewhere else besides the reservoir, even if we were able to quickly get all the silt out of it.

The second issue is, and I think the report on dredging is that it's a complicated issue, but there's a lot of stuff to dredge.

A tremendous volume of material needs to be taken out of the side fork, if that were to be part of the plan,

Basically, the way it's been explained to me is that if you took the playing field at Scott Stadium, you could fill it to 27 feet every year for 50 years in order to empty out the reservoir.

It's a lot of stuff.

And you can't just take it one place.

You have to take it one place so it can dry, either pumping it or truck it, and then you have to take it somewhere else to eventually dispose of it.

And so just those numbers, I think there's a lot of cost, and I think we're getting

I think we took a thorough look at it previously, and I'd encourage you to take a look at that report.

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

Yes, I'd like to make two comments.

First, I share some of the concerns with Mrs. Glitt Hall on 4th Street.

I think we ought to look at that issue of going under the railroad and what implications it might have.

I'm also not sure that we have a plan to spend a million dollars on 4th street crossing.

So I think design still has to be done.

I think we need to look at that in that context.

Let me just echo some of the comments.

I'm looking forward to the work session on the water plane because I think it's an opportunity to get all of the information out on the table all at once so we can all be truly clear about what's available

and what our options are.

And again, the whole water supply issue for me was like coming in in the middle of a really bad movie.

So it's really nice to really just find out exactly what the options are.

Regarding the fourth street crossing, I had some concerns about that because my concern was with the

Train going over the track, what would be the options for emergency vehicles or some other vehicles that might need to get on the other side of town.

So I'm also thinking in terms of what's going to be the best thing to do regarding that because I don't want to see it as another cut through route because if you've ever walked under there, there's not a lot of space to walk underneath that underpass.

Regarding the assessments, my house is one of the ones that

has gone up.

And I guess when I heard Mr. Falls speak, what I was hearing was more of a how.

So I'm wondering how we can just get more information out to everyone so everyone can really understand how the assessment's done, what the process is.

And sometimes if people understand how things are done, whether or not you agree with it is secondary to the fact that now you just get it.

And so there might be an opportunity for that.

And I want to say something about the point of challenge in the park.

Just because I wanted to say something about them.

On behalf of the Mothers with Little Children, thank you for bringing up the Portajohns.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could just get Portajohns everywhere to solve all of our issues?

It's a hard act to follow.

I have nothing to add really other than I agree also with the comments made about the water supply and encourage people to attend the May 6 work session and I also agree with adding a port-a-potty at McGuffey Park.

All right, thank you all very much.

We're going to now move on to our consent agenda.

There's quite a few items on the consent agenda for tonight.

Item A is minutes of March 6th, 13th, 15th, 17th and 18th.

Item B is an appropriation of $14,888, a contribution from Albemarle County for therapeutic recreation, the second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $54,466.66, a fire department grant, second of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $600,116 Community Development Block Grant, FY 2009, the first of two readings.

Item E is an appropriation of $160,279 Housing Opportunities Made Equal Home, FY 2009, first of two readings.

Item F, a resolution approving reprogramming of CDBG funds for FY 2009, first of one reading.

Item G is a Resolution Adoption of Design Standards Manual for Subdivision Ordinance, the first of one meeting.

Item H is a Resolution Changing the Name of 15th Street SW to Jeanette Lancaster Way, well deserved by the way, and Monroe Lane, the first of one meeting.

Resolution increasing eligibility limits for VHDA home stride funds, first of one reading.

Item J, resolution authorizing $5,000 for energy efficiency campaign, first of one reading.

Item K is an ordinance reenacting the subdivision ordinance, first of two readings.

Item L, an ordinance amending floodplain ordinance, first of two readings.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

We are now going to move to the last public hearing.

We've had a series of opportunities in recent months for the public to comment on our proposed FY 2009 budget.

And as I said several times, this is the biggest thing that we do every year.

We greatly appreciate all the citizens who have submitted their input via the citizen budget surveys, by coming out to events, by coming to our work sessions, and speaking at public hearings.

Your comments have been valuable to us.

We are not going to go through an extended overview once again of the proposed budget just because we've done it a few times now.

Let me just step back one minute.

We've had, as the mayor said, a whole series of public hearings, public presentations, a community budget forum for several hours where council had a chance to interact with citizens that were interested in the budget.

I thought I might point out a couple of highlights in this budget that make it

what it is for next year.

There's strong support for education.

The request from the school board was fully funded.

There are a number of capital projects that are in this budget that I think bode well for us as a community in the future.

There's some new initiatives for affordable housing and continuation of a tax grant program that council started last year and I'll mention in a minute some changes that council has decided to make.

a number of new youth recreation programs.

That's maybe one of the more significant things that hasn't, I don't recall seeing anything in the media, but it's significant for us to try to address that need and interest that's in the community in a year where obviously budgets are tight.

New routes and improvements in routes for Charlottesville Transit and a couple other things.

What I thought I would spend a few minutes doing is talking about

As we've gone through the budget process, what's in front of the city council tonight to consider and changes that they have discussed making.

First place I want to start with is the total appropriation that's in front of the council is almost 141 million dollars.

I will read you quickly some of the changes that council is proposing to make.

If council would like to get into some details, you could ask me a question about it.

There were suggested changes about the use of the revenues from the city-county revenue sharing and some of that money has moved to help support some capital improvements.

An adjustment in the City Council's reserve.

An additional cost for a membership in the Virginia Municipal League, which we found out at the last minute.

Council's desire to support a program in Children, Youth and Family Services called Real Dads, which was talked about at the last council meeting.

Probably one of the most significant changes is to increase the tax grant program.

It's based on income.

Anyone that's less than $25,000 that qualifies would receive a $525 grant, and anybody above $25,000 to $50,000, a $375 grant that they'd be eligible for.

That's a significant increase over where we are in the current year.

Support for the Dogwood Festival, increased funding in the Capital Improvements Program,

some reductions and some special events to support the Dogwood Festival and those are the changes that are being recommended.

The one that I wanted to talk about a minute and I apologize for this city council but we didn't get information about this this weekend.

I think all of us have been reading about the state budget and reductions that the state is making I'll say on the backs of local government.

But we just got information over the weekend from the state budget office through the Virginia Municipal League.

It is so disjointed in piecemeal that all it can do is report some gases.

And I've given you a memo that we sent out via email today.

Our best guess is that next year's revenues could be affected by as much as $500,000.

In digging through that today, that number could be less, possibly could be more depending on what the state finally does.

They're talking about reducing things like the Comprehensive Services Act, which is a mandated service that we have to do and we have to fund.

They're talking about reducing police, funding for constitutional officers, juvenile justice, social services relief, elections, the library, the jail, and so on.

I'm not giving you dollars and cents because I don't think any of us know.

And I sit here tonight and another community adopted their budget the other night, not even having this information.

What we're told is from the state budget office that we'll get final numbers in August, long after this budget is adopted and after the new fiscal year has started.

Our suggestion at this point is to go forward with the budget as we've presented it.

We think we have two alternatives if these cuts come about.

I suspect they'll come about.

It's exactly where and what are the conditions.

but either we could make an across the board half a percent reduction in the budgets, which we've looked at quickly, or selective cuts within the budget in early August once we have the numbers.

I hate to present this to you this way, it's not typically the way budgets would be done, but it's the fix that we're in.

The General Assembly approved a $50 million in local funding support

throughout the state and then how it plays out to each locality and each particular program is something we have to wait for.

So that's probably the best that we can tell you about that.

So I'll stop there, see if there are any questions that you have before the public hearing and this is scheduled for a public hearing.

The tax levy is being considered by the city council tonight which maintains the real estate

tax rate at 95 cents and the personal property rate at $4.20.

And then the first rating of the city budget appropriation is being considered by council tonight.

For those of you that are new to this, there are two ratings required.

Thank you, Mr. Connolly.

I did have one question.

Maybe I missed it.

Council did talk about

The discussions as I understood it was Council, we had a lot of discussions but in terms of changes to be recommended there wasn't a conclusion that those go forward.

Any other questions?

If not, we'll open the public hearing.

We've got quite a few residents that have signed up to speak, and we'll open it up to others afterward.

And again, we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes.

Good evening.

I'm Allison Saffington, District Manager of the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Lower Conservation District.

Charlottesville's two elected directors of our district, John Conover and Rich Collins, were unable to be here this evening.

I understand that during your last budget work session you had some questions and needed some clarifications about our district and the budget requests.

I hope that the information I provided through Ms. Beauregard was helpful to you and addressed the questions.

I don't want to waste your time reiterating the information that I sent, but I did want to let you know that I'm here to clarify anything in addition if necessary.

Additionally, I did want to highlight the emphasis we've been putting on education for both youth and adults in this community.

Most recently, we hosted our local Envirothon, which is a nationwide competition.

There was a teacher from Charlottesville High School there who was quite impressed with what she saw and is anxious to participate in the coming year.

with a team from Charlottesville.

Regardless of your funding decision, I hope you'll take the time to read the supplemental information so that you become more familiar with how the district operates and how we're funded and the part Charlottesville plays in the district.

Thank you, Ms. Avigan.

Good evening.

I'm Carolyn Nicklin.

I live at 413 A. Mosley Drive in the city, and I'm the program director of the African American Teaching Fellows Program, and I'm here in reference to the byline that Charlottesville, Virginia is a great place to live for all of our citizens.

I would just like to share

One statistic with you that I think will hopefully be very much of interest to the council.

These are high school graduation rates for 2005-2006, which is the latest that we were able to get for the city of Charlottesville.

In Charlottesville, 87% of the white students graduate who entered at the ninth grade.

63% of the black students.

This is a great concern to the city and they have made of their top five goals for the next five years to close the achievement gap.

Our program was started by Charlottesville citizens to address another top goal, which is to increase the number of minority teachers in the schools.

You may or may not be aware that 46% of the

students in the Charlottesville schools are African American and 15% of the teachers are African American.

This is a very serious thing because although there's not a direct correlation, there is a body of research that says that when the diversity of the staff is increased, those students of color who are represented by that diversity do

achieve at a higher level.

And I think this is something that's a great concern for all of us.

Ours is a very small program.

We were very disappointed to find the zero in our letter from the city saying that our request for $7,500 had been taken out of the budget.

We are requesting tonight that it be put back in.

Thank you, Ms. Smith.

Good evening.

I'm Ann Smith.

I live at 1025 Cottonwood Road here in the city.

I am here also in support of the African American Teaching Fellows and I request for $7,500.

I am a board member.

I come, though, and Ms. Midland had shared some of the research that was made about the percentage of African American students in this community.

However, I come with

a different background as I have served in the community as a Charlottesville City School educator for over 30 years and I have witnessed firsthand how as African American teachers left they were very seldom replaced so that at this point in time we have such a great disparity.

I believe that in supporting our program

in which we recruit, we offer support, whether it be financially, whether it be emotionally, through mentoring, academically, and we hope to retain qualified African American teachers, not only in the city of Charlottesville, which is very important for our community, but also in the county of Albemarle.

With that in mind,

I hope that you will reconsider our request for $7,500.

It's only a little bit, but just think of all the opportunities it will provide for our children of color as they go into a classroom in the future and they see someone that looks just like them.

Thank you, Ms. Smith.

Ryan Hubbard.

We will go to Bob's.

Hello, I'm Ryan Hubbard, 1211 West Main Street.

I occupy seat 8 of the CACBB Board of Directors, and I'd like to read a letter here on behalf of the Board.

Mayor Norris and Council, on behalf of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, Board of Directors, and the City Tourism and Hospitality Business, I ask for your continued funding support of the Wayfinding and Signage Program

as proposed

The CACVB Board strongly believes that the Wayfinding and Signage Program is an opportunity for us to deliver our welcome to visitors who respond to our invitation to visit our destination through promotion and marketing efforts.

Additionally, members of the CACVB staff served on the Wayfinding Committee to assist in the development of this program as well as directly with the BAR to work towards developing signage that aligns with the Bureau's new branding initiative that was initiated last year.

Wayfinding signage will better connect the traveler to our tourism product for an enhanced visitor experience.

We appreciate the funding approved in last year's budget.

and ask for you to fully fund the request and the upcoming budget under consideration.

While there are extraordinary demands on the city's limited resources and the current budget process, you have expressed that tourism is an opportunity for continued economic prosperity during slow times.

Support of the wayfinding and signage is a critical component in helping the visitor stay longer, spend more money, and increase the potential visitor loyalty, return business.

Thank you.

Mary Norris, Council, City staff.

My name is Bob Stroh.

I live at 1412 Kenwood Lane in the City of Charlottesville.

On behalf of the downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, we are asking for your continued funding support of the Wayfinding and Signage Program, as proposed by the Neighborhood Development Services of Charlottesville City and approved by the Board of Architecture Review.

The program includes the design and planning of gateways, vehicular directional signs, parking lot trailblazers, and identification of pedestrian signage.

I've given you all a copy of this letter so I'm going to skip to the bottom not to waste your time with this, but we appreciate the limited funding approved at last year's budget and we ask for your continued support in the current budget under consideration.

While there are extraordinary demands of the city's limited resources, you have consistently expressed your support for the downtown business community.

This includes funding the planned mall renovation and the final approval of the mall crossing.

These efforts will be less successful

if our customers and visitors can't find them all due to poor or non-existent signage.

We ask for your continued funding support for the Wayfinding Program.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Bill Sampson at 609 Long Zola Circle.

Mr. Mayor, Councilman, it's a pleasure to be back to speak with you.

As Councilor is presenting the budget for the fiscal year 2008 and 2009,

One must consider many items listed as needing funding for the upcoming year.

How many of those budget items are really essential to the needs of a city which is facing financial shortfalls over the next five to ten year period?

The city is in desperate need to repair or replace its aging infrastructure, but council chooses to spend five million dollars on a new Smith pool.

Also, while money is being allotted to a transit system requiring new buses and additional routes, where I see every morning buses traveling our city streets with only one or two riders, often there are no riders at all, unless you count the driver.

Even more egregious is the vast sums being allotted to affordable housing.

while you are taxing the homeowners at such a rate many are forced to move to a more tax-friendly community.

A city manager proudly proclaimed that this year's budget increase is smallest in 10 years.

It's really sad when you consider how much it's increased over that period.

The school system was again asking for even more money, requesting that the taxpayers pay for their gym memberships.

I have sat on the last two council meetings and watched a parade of people coming before council asking for tax money to fund their various projects.

All those organizations appear to have worthwhile causes, but many are returning this year after receiving funds the previous year.

Perhaps if council had said no, we wouldn't be dealing with them this year.

The council has recently promised to donate $500,000 to an organization called Impact.

Again, this may be an honorable cause, but should our city government be contributing to charities while taxing the homeowners at such an outrageous rate?

The citizens of Charlottesville have proved again and again their generosity.

when there is a worthy cause.

I have my own favorite charities, but I give as a little vigil.

I do not force others to contribute by taking their money.

For years the citizens of Charlottesville have generously supported the Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad, and it has survived many years without help from the city government.

Now the city is going to launch their own ambulance service, which the council says will supplement cars.

I suspect once the new city service is in full swing, cars will slowly disappear.

To do that would be a crime.

Finally, I would like to recommend leaving charitable giving to the individual citizen, not by taking the taxpayer's money for that purpose.

And finally, I call upon counsel to review the budget again and eliminate all unnecessary items.

If you are having any trouble accomplishing this task, I will gladly donate my time.

It's a little out of line for me to do this, but just a quick factual correction.

There is no money in this budget for impact.

We've never given any money to impact.

It's not in this budget, but I can explain that later.

My name is Dick Gibson and I live at 1431 Grove Road.

I'm the Chairman of the Jefferson Area Board for Aging and I'm here tonight on behalf of Mountainside which is our assisted living facility for affordable housing for seniors.

You all have generously supported Mountainside in the past and

I am here tonight to ask you for a very, very slight increase of 6.7% of the $24,000 some odd dollar allocation, which is in dollars $1,661.

The problem that we have, we are about the leanest assisted living facility that you could imagine.

In fact, we had a national company

that operates an international company that operates assisted living facilities all over the world come and look at us to see what we could do to improve and they said not only can we not tell you anything that you can do to improve because you spend every dollar wisely but we've learned some things from you so we do operate a very very tight ship and the problem that we're having is for the auxiliary grant beds of which we have reserved 25 for the city

We're not getting any increase from the state government for the auxiliary grant bids, but our costs keep going up.

So even though it is a small amount, we've pulled together contributions from the city, from individuals, from private pay people, and from auxiliary grant.

to make this work and we would respectfully request that you grant us the additional $1,661 and also while I'm here we've got JEC which operates mountainside and we've got Java and we would ask that those be considered in future years together as one request to come to city council.

JEC currently goes through the

the budget review team process and it really is just a subsidiary of Java.

Thank you Mr. Gibson.

Mayor Norris, City Councilors,

My name is Helen Plaisance and I live at 702 Del Lane.

I've been a resident of this area for 25 years and I trust I'm aging reasonably gracefully, but I come tonight to speak and to support Dr. Gibson's statement on Java and mountainside.

I care a lot about the elders in our community and they are growing in number fairly substantially.

I've been a long distance caregiver for my parents.

I am currently a caretaker for my remaining auntie.

I work with the elders at my church and I started getting involved with Java because of its commitment, like Charlottesville, to provide the best that is available for our senior citizens and elders.

Mountainside is a wonderful place.

and as Dr. Gibson said, it operates on a shoestring.

One of the things that Java is doing that reflects a lot of what's great about Charlottesville is its commitment to its fresh food initiative that was described in detail today in the Charlottesville Daily Progress.

That doesn't come cheap.

A 6.7% increase to help address some of the increases in costs to services would go a long way towards

keeping our elder citizens that have given so much to our city here and available locally.

And I would encourage you to rethink that.

Thank you very much, Ms. Plazance.

Mayor Norris, Ladies and Gentlemen of the City Council, I have lived at Mountainside for two years, but I am not here to speak for myself, but for the residents of Mountainside who are in need.

At any time, around 50% of the residents are on subsidized payments, which

on the cost of a half of what it costs to keep them there.

Their monthly income from Social Security and their social services comes to $77 a month.

Out of this, they are expected to pay for their personal items, their laundry, and the co-payment on their drugs.

It takes

from $300,000 to $400,000 invested for a person to live even at Mountainside, which is the most reasonable place here.

And I know to pay for your room and maintain the needs, you need to help the gap in the operating costs for those residents who cannot pay.

I've been sitting here looking at your sign.

A great place for all citizens.

According to citizens from Charlottesville that live at Mountain Side, do not think it's a great place to live.

That's why they're on Mountain Side.

And Java doesn't have the funds to help Mountain Side to cover this gap.

Many residents have mental illnesses, and there are all kinds of mental illnesses.

Some of them from Alzheimer's, the side effects of chronic diseases, such as cancer, and others, two numerous to name.

Mountainside does create a home away from home.

for individuals that apply and take care of them with the help of hospice and other organizations until they have to leave for their own safety's sake.

But most of them say they're in die.

I'm 90.

I'm a youngster to a lot of people up there.

We have residents over 800.

Mountain Side is the most caring place to know if you've ever been acquainted

with the facilities in this area, and I have.

I've had family in all the nursing homes in this area are visiting friends.

I know to compare.

I nursed for 30 years.

The retirement activities they've been living are met by the staff.

They are given activities taken to senior rides.

They are met in every way.

In closing,

I hope that you all will support mountainside because there's no other place like it in Charlottesville, of County of Albemarle, to take care of those people who have nowhere else to go.

Thank you, Ms. Marshall.

Okay.

It's just my notes.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I hope that what you've heard underscores that Mountainside is a good investment for the city as you're addressing affordable living for residents of Charlottesville and their families.

Of the 113 auxiliary grand beds in Planning District 10, Mountain Side provides over 50% of those beds and we do have allocated 25 for citizens of Charlottesville and year to date we've been providing services or homes for 28 Charlottesville residents.

So again this evening we're asking for a very modest increase in our funding, 6.7%, and we're also asking that again next year when Java for the first time is going to be able to come directly to you for funding, that we be able to do that with Mountainside as part of the Java application.

Thank you, Ms. Cooper.

Hello, my name is John Grant.

I live at 1709 Old Forge Road in Charlottesville.

I'm here tonight to represent the McGuffey Arts Association, which I'm president.

I'd like to hand you, first of all, the annual report for previous year.

If any of you came to the opening last First Fridays, which I think Mr. Huja in fact did, I think he can probably attest to the energy and enthusiasm in the community for the arts.

I think there were probably five or six hundred people that were there and I think one of the things that I'm proud of in terms of the way it was organized was that not only were there four artists in the community that were represented, but the upstairs of the building had a show by high school artists which brought a lot of parents in and gave a lot of visibility to young artists and people who were trying to achieve in that realm.

My purpose here tonight really is to talk to you about, is to advocate for the continued support of MAC, to thank you for the support that you've given us, and also to advocate for the proposed five-year lease that is up and is included in the current budget.

I like to break down the contributions of the McGuffey Art Center into three major categories.

Essentially, I look at it as gallery and exhibition and performance space, which in some ways is the best there is in the community for certain kinds of events.

That's one area.

Another big area is teaching and outreach, and there's a tremendous amount of teaching that goes on within the building and sometimes without.

and a lot of outreach as well.

That's all outlined in the annual report that you'll read there in terms of last year.

And then lastly we have individual artistic endeavors and contributions.

Again, that's all outlined in the annual report.

I'll give you just a few of the highlights for the previous year and actually these things are ongoing propositions in general.

We have the jail program that was started by Rose Hill and Mickey Lindsay Eads that essentially people from McGuffey go to the jails and help educate inmates and then the inmates actually display their art at McGuffey.

This has been not only an important program for the city, but it's gotten its visibility nationally and has good PR potential and really is a wonderfully good-hearted program.

We also are going to be hosting again this year the Festival of the Photograph, which again has international visibility and creates a lot of potential for Charlottesville to be in the spotlight and be a destination.

to help raise revenues for lots of different kinds of events that we hear about tonight.

And then, in addition to that, you'll see in the annual report that we do many community-oriented activities.

Last year we did a fundraising program called Artivism, which helped the Waldorf School raise money for their new Green School in America.

Again, it's a win-win-win kind of situation when you have something where the artists support a good cause and the good cause becomes well-known in the community and actually, again, in this case, in the Waldorf community, it's a national community of schools and therefore we need to move on.

That's the kind of thing we are really pleased to be involved with.

This year, I'll state finally that we have also

Thank you Mr. Mayor.

Good evening.

I'm Jim Moore.

I live at 1213 Hazel Street.

I want to thank you, Mayor Norris and Julian Taliaferro, for supporting the creation of a volunteer commission to perform a resource utilization review and to help staff include performance factors in next year's budget.

I ask that other council members support this project as much work is needed for the budget to represent a highly effective organization.

To illustrate this need, let's continue the budget questions we started at the last meeting.

These questions highlight more than $12 million in current resources that might be reallocated without affecting the quality of current service.

My first question was, why are city retirement benefits 15 to 39 percent greater than market standards?

I understand there will be a reply to that tonight.

I haven't received anything.

to date and if I leave I'll be watching in earnest at home.

The second question addresses basic staffing structure by analyzing the city staffing organizational chart.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have one.

And without this fundamental tool, basic staff questions cannot really be addressed.

So question 3 is, why is the 4% wage increase twice that of UVA's increase and almost 30% greater

than the regional average of other localities.

The city's own survey does not support the proposed 4% increase.

It makes some reference to there being an average of 4%, but the numbers provided averaged much closer to 3%.

Since staff compensation appears to be inflated by very generous benefits, an increase of at most two to three percent is really more than appropriate.

If we provide the same increase as the university is providing, we would be able to reallocate over $820,000.

We could fund every one of the unfunded new requests that are in the budget, or we could fund mountainside for over 600 years.

My fourth question, if I have time, is

Why doesn't the city contract with the county for paid rescue squad services?

The recent $80,000 fire study concludes that it isn't feasible to merge the city and county departments only because city staff is paid so much more than the county staff.

Doesn't it follow that we should use the less expensive resource for these new services?

Savings, maybe $300,000 a year.

So thank you again for your consideration of this request.

Every year there is confusion about the real estate tax.

It should be clear that tonight you are doing the first reading and at the next meeting you will be voting to increase our real estate tax by over 6%.

It would be less confusing if you would in the future publish your budget guidelines in terms of limiting the tax increase rather than the tax rate.

Thank you.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors, Collette Hall, Lorna Long, Roberts and Lane.

Why is the school budget sacrosanct?

My husband and I believe in the importance of education.

He has a PhD in applied mathematics, I have a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing and a registered nursing license which allows me to practice as an RN in four states.

Why is the school budget sacrosanct?

To totally fund or increase the school budget every year directly tells the school board and school administrators that they do not have to tighten their belts as the citizens do.

There has been no growth in student population but an increase in cost per pupil.

When Mrs. Atkins presented the school budget at last meeting, she did not answer Vice Mayor Taliaferro's direct question regarding the dropout rate.

We do not expect her to have the numbers for 2008, but she should have them for 2007.

The dropout rate is one of the most significant measurements in the yardstick of effectiveness.

As the dropout rate decreased due to the yearly infusion of millions of dollars,

When the seven candidates for the last school board election spoke at the North Downtown neighborhood meeting, the dropout rate was one of their biggest concerns.

Mrs. Atkins stated that within the school budget, the taxpayers will now pay for teachers and staff memberships in fitness centers.

Mr. Mayor, you are an advocate for affordable housing.

There are families living in shelters, in cars and with relatives.

Impact has told us that routine dental care is a priority.

Legitimate needs go on and on.

I ask before final approval the City Council remove that extravagant item from the school budget.

About one third of the school budget, that is $43,967,502 is designated for schools.

This actually does not reflect the true school budget which is $71,049,346 or $17,530.86 per student.

a number based on an average of 4,050 students.

These numbers are taken from page 81 of the city's fiscal year 2008-2009 proposed operating and capital budget and from speaking to the front office of the school administration.

A recent article in the Daily Progress told us about increased school attendance at Jackson Viya.

We learned the assistant principal drove to delinquent students' homes to discuss the student's absence with the parent or family.

The purpose was to stress the importance of school attendance and to engage the parent or caretaker in the process.

The strategy appears to be working and with no additional funding.

When I was a public health nurse, I was also the public school nurse for three schools.

I also went to the child's home.

So my remarks do not come from living in an ivory tower.

I too have talked with lower socioeconomic, cultural and racial diversity parents.

The school budget must be answerable to the taxpayers and residents of Charlottesville as any other budget item.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council.

My name is Stuart Mills.

I'm the executive director of the Northwestern Virginia Health Systems Agency here in town.

We're the nonprofit corporation that's been mandated under the laws of the Commonwealth for the past 31 years to provide health planning services for the 32 cities and counties of Northwestern Virginia.

The most important of all mandated responsibilities is to analyze and make recommendations to the Commissioner of Health on major healthcare capital expenditures throughout our region.

Projects such as the relocation of the Martha Jefferson Hospital, the new Emily Kirk Cancer Center at UVA, the new long-term acute care hospital at UVA, and right now I'm reviewing a proposal to expand the University Hospital Medical Center itself.

This review and recommendation function is critically important as it begins with our local health advisory councils.

These are citizen consumers and health care providers from within each of our planning districts who conduct our public hearings and provide us with a grassroots perspective on the impact of these proposals on the community health systems.

This perspective is vital to our board of directors and to the commissioner who must approve or deny the proposals.

And this perspective will be lost to the process unless regional health planning agencies like ours survive.

When Virginia's health planning legislation was rewritten in the early 90s, funding of regional health planning agencies was to be shared between the state and each of the agency's local jurisdictions, with a total target rate of 15 cents per capita.

Initially, most of the jurisdictions contributed their share, but over the years, many counties and cities Charlottesville among them.

became unable to help due to various budget crises.

Our agencies shrank, and we became almost entirely dependent on state funding to do our work.

With the state's current budget crisis, that funding is very likely to be eliminated, resulting in our work being an unfunded mandate in fiscal year 2009.

I don't need to tell you all about unfunded mandates.

As I hope you'll read in the handout that we've distributed, there are additional copies in the back for the public if you'd all like to see them.

Without a clear analysis of potential impact of a new health facility or equipment proposal on local hospitals and health care systems, the impact of such proposals can be devastating.

The problem could not be clearer than the case of Ohio, where demise of critical health planning and certificate of need review resulted in the proliferation of duplicative, proprietary surgery centers and diagnostic imaging centers.

and subsequently in the bankruptcy and closure of 15 local hospitals.

And that all happened in the space of four years.

Larger referral hospitals like UVA may be able to withstand such challenges, but smaller hospitals like Martha Jefferson may not.

Imagine what it would mean to Charlottesville residents if their only option for visiting an ER or a delivery room was UVA.

The problem is real and the stakes are high.

Our agency has become accustomed to operating on a shoestring, so we're not asking for much help from you.

Just a nickel per resident for a total of under $2,000.

That's a bit over one one-thousandth of one percent of your budget.

If every county and city does its part, we can continue our mission and help to assure the preservation of high quality, modestly priced health care in Virginia.

We know of no other program that serves all of your constituents equally and at such a low cost.

Without your help, the days of rational, transparent and cost effective health planning are numbered and our fragile local health care systems are at risk.

Yes, I'm Bill Daggett.

I'm the president of the Northwestern Virginia Health Systems Board and also a member of the Jefferson Council which serves Planning District 10 of which Charlottesville is a part.

Before I talk about that, I want to say a little bit about the assisted living

and tell you that having gotten into this COPN process, I can tell you that the problems that these folks are talking about are the tip of the iceberg.

There's a wave coming that we as a society are simply unprepared for.

Part of what Stuart has told you is

a way to address that and deal with it, but we've got to go way beyond it as a society.

I just want to talk about health planning a little bit anecdotally.

I'm an architect, as you all know, I've been before you many times.

I work for medical providers, University of Virginia for one, Martha Jefferson in the past.

Before I got involved in this, I didn't know much about COPN and I didn't understand why they supported it so much, but I do now.

They cannot contribute because we essentially help in regulating all of this and their contributions would be a conflict of interest, but they do support us in terms of supporting COPN and here's the best way I can demonstrate that.

The University of Virginia as a state funded institution does not have to submit

to the COPN process.

They voluntarily do so because they know and understand

that with local representation and the planning process the way it is designed, it assists them in organizing better to serve the public and it assists all of us in getting health care that is as affordable as it can be and more importantly accessible.

I think Stu made that clear with the Ohio situation.

So we ask you to support this if you can.

Thank you, Mr. Daggett.

and John Murphy.

I live at 823 Old Turner Mountain Lane out in the county, Ivy Area.

I've submitted a new expanded application and an example of stream watch reports that I hope you have had a chance to look at.

I understand that there was some discussion about stream watch funding at the last session and due to some misunderstandings I wasn't here and I regret that.

but I hope that we can get to some of the issues this time.

The report that you have before, I'll walk you through some of it in the two minutes that I have left.

First, a little bit of background.

StreamWatch is a regional partnership devoted exclusively to monitoring stream conditions in the Rivanna Basin.

are most, during the most recent assessment cycle and according to a report that we're going to be publishing very shortly, about 75% of representative streams in the Rivanna Basin are impaired in terms of the state's aquatic life standard.

And the philosophy behind the program is that in order to manage Rivanna Basin streams

Regional collaboration is necessary in order to serve a very diverse partnership, a group of stakeholders that all have a common interest in the management of the basin.

The Stream Watch's mission is constrained just to developing data and information.

We don't do any advocacy.

We have a funding framework that is frankly fairly informal.

We've developed our funding opportunistically as various partners have come on board.

And Charlottesville's joining the program last year and continuing to support the program

this year is vital to gluing this partnership together.

The benefits to the program I've listed for you on page 4 and 5 of the application and there are some very specific benefits that redound to Charlottesville's environmental management program.

Thank you very much.

Yes.

Could I just, I'm sorry to interject, but I'd like to ask the members of the public who are here, if they have side conversations that they'd like to have, if you could step outside.

I think it's, you know, people that take a lot of time to come forward.

I certainly could hear audible whispering a couple of times now involving the same person.

And so if you have a conversation you feel like you really need to have, if you could confuse yourself, go outside, come back in and be respectful to the person who's taking the time

Thank you Dr. Brown.

I didn't come here intending to speak, but I'm a little disappointed that I sent all six of you a letter

and heard not a single response even though my letter was filled with questions.

Then tonight I heard Mr. O'Connell in a long laundry list of things that were in the budget brag about increased funding for various recreational programs.

One of my questions was, why are we spending the $200,000 that we're saving by closing Smith Pool

on eight new recreational programs rather than spending that $200,000 on building this very expensive new pool that is going to mostly serve non-residents of our fair city.

So that's a question that you guys did not answer for me.

On a totally unrelated topic, I sat here and listened to

Two people talk about wanting money for African American teaching fellows and the argument was that African American children have to have African American teachers in order to succeed.

15% of our teachers are African American, I heard them say.

That actually reflects

the racial makeup of our labor market, which is 15% African American.

So this is really no surprise.

Thank you.

Naomi Roberts, 740 St. Clairview.

I apologize that I was guilty of conversing with Mr. Moore.

It was about the retirement and I'm not the only one that does converse during council, I've noticed.

But I do apologize and thank you for calling me down.

I'm here to speak about the retirement

package that Mr. Moore spoke about.

I'm a retiree and I've been a very dedicated 33 year member of the

of the city and I've worked hard.

I've given the city time and never put in overtime for a lot of hours that I put in.

And I have relatives still working for the city and I don't think you should break something that is working for us retirees.

I could not afford to live in Charlottesville and pay my taxes if I didn't get the retirement that I do get from the city, which I do appreciate.

Prior council

personnel have been the ones that have established the retirement system for us city employees.

And I ask you not to change it.

To give it serious consideration, there are a lot of people that work in City Yard are getting very minimal money.

and Ken Harley make it, and I am making it thanks to you all.

I'm living a different standard.

I can't do the things that I used to, but there are a lot of people not going to even be able to do what I'm able to do, one-third or one-fourth of what I'm able to do, if you change our retirement system.

Thank you, Ms. Roberts.

Richard Berman, 205 Second Street Northwest.

That's the proposal for the school budget.

I think that's absolutely ridiculous and a waste of the taxpayers' money.

If somebody wants to go to a gym, let them pay for themselves.

Thank you.

Anybody else like to speak?

Okay, we are going to close the public hearing on the city budget and we now have, we actually separate this out into two separate actions.

You want to just take the tax levy out to individuals or have the whole discussion?

It's up to you.

There's not much to add in what I said.

The real estate property tax rate that's proposed per calendar year 2008 is proposed at 95 cents per hundred dollars of value in the personal property tax rate.

and the associated other taxes that are based on that is proposed to be at $4.20 per hundred dollars of value.

Those are the current rates for 2007 and our proposal is to continue those.

I think from the comments that people made and different assessments will drive impacts on different people.

A third of the households in Charlottesville are at zero or less in terms of their assessments.

We held a public hearing on March the 17th

So it's in front of council to consider for first rating tonight.

Questions or comments from councilors on the tax levy?

Or a motion to approve?

OK, and that's the first reading.

So it moves on to a second reading at our next meeting.

Now the appropriation, annual budget appropriation.

And this has obviously been the subject of much discussion in recent months.

I would like to speak about one of the side.

First of all, I want to disclose that I am on Java board.

I don't get paid.

I represent city on Java board because this one is cast of members representing different boards.

So I don't have conflict of interest in terms of money, except that I do serve on the board.

As a matter of fact, it ends up that you have to end up paying them instead of them paying you.

So it's the other way around.

And I think on the other side, there is a

Thank you Mr. Huja.

I'd just like to also support the request of the mountainside

We have a lot of former city residents that reside there for one thing and I think they do a great job and I know personally a couple people there and I think it would be nice if we did that.

Also as we vote on the budget matter of full disclosure I want to point out that I am a city retiree and that

When I vote, I do benefit from that from the standpoint that retirees get half of what the normal cost of living increase is.

Well, I think I should add that to myself also.

Thank you.

Miss Edwards, Dr. Brown?

I think Mountain Side does a good job, but I also think it's an example of how most states, assisted living, there's some meaningful state assistance for that program.

In Virginia, there's not.

Virginia assisted living is another thing that's really inadequately funded.

Northwest Health Systems.

I was looking for the name of the group, the Northwest Health Systems, the group that oversees our needs, healthcare needs, MRIs and the like.

So it's not a lot of money, although all these little things that come before us, they do add up.

but it kind of irks me to see a stepping forward on that to take what is really a state responsibility because the more we do that the less the state feels like they need to do.

I want to talk for a second about the school issue because I think people brought that up.

I want to talk about it in a small way and a big way.

The big way is that our

My point of view with the schools is to determine our level of funding, not to determine exactly how the school board spends their funding.

We don't manage their budget.

We can offer suggestions, but it's more of we allocate money to them.

I think there's good reasons why we should be

supporting the school system in a significant way.

I think our school system has the challenges of an urban system at the same time that it's managed to keep the affluent kids in the system and have a system

that has opportunities for very high achievement, but we've really had to put money and time into boosting achievement at the low end, both for the sake of boosting achievement, which is very important, but also for the sake of being accredited and playing the game and going through the testing, lots of testing, testing which is not paid for, we have to pay for that as well.

But I do have a question coming out of that, which is that I understand the concept of businesses, lots of businesses, which support entering into an agreement with an athletic club in order to have a reduced membership for their employees.

Is that the case here, or is this a complete funding of memberships?

What it is, the reduced-price membership, is part of a preventative health care program.

And it's a similar program that Almar County employees and Almar County school system also has, and a lot of private employers.

And I think it's one that does encourage health and productivity.

But I want to make sure people don't feel like

It's paying for a gym membership.

It's not.

It's paying for a small percentage of the gym membership, and we can debate the merits of that.

People may disagree that that's important, but it's not paying for the full membership, and I think that was misleading.

Ms. Edwards?

I echo the sentiments of Mountainside because when I grow up I want to be a retired city employee and maybe there will be a place at Mountainside for me.

Regarding the school budget, I think that maybe we need to re-evaluate how we become accountable for the things that we are funding through our budget.

and perhaps we need to get better at and asking the questions to see what we're really getting our money for.

I'm trying to figure out what that balance is between providing the funding and then trying to micromanage it too.

And I think that that's the role of the superintendent and the school board.

But as we go through this process, I'd like to make sure that we are

getting all the answers that we want regarding the outcomes and the success of our students.

I guess I'm still blown away at the graduation rate for our students and I would be amiss if I didn't make a comment about the African American Teaching Fellows.

I like to believe that we haven't reverted to

a separate but equal even way of thinking because I think the separate but equal phenomena is what brought us here now and that AATF is really just one way of addressing not just the achievement gap but the gaps that are created in the system where you don't have opportunities to learn from other people and I think there is some

some merit in having a diverse workforce and not only a diverse workforce but a workforce that's also culturally competent.

And I think that AATF is just one way of achieving that goal.

And also I wanted to just make a brief comment about the recreational programs.

and it was my understanding that part of the desire to increase the recreation programs is to really provide comprehensive programs for our youth and I can't help but think about

Mr. Mayor, I have two sets of comments I would like to share.

First, I would like to start with what we have heard about wayfinding systems in the city, better signage systems so people can get to different places, and I support the general idea.

As a matter of fact, what wayfinding we have right now was done when I was planning a lecture, so I have some understanding of that, and I fully agree that there is a need for improvement of that system.

and I think it should be improved as soon as possible.

But I am not in support of spending a million dollars on wayfinding and signage.

I think a new proposal which the budget I think had really million dollars including last year and future years.

I am studying that a new proposal calls for less money.

of $450,000.

I thought it was more realistic and I would like to support that but I have one specific comment which I would like to make.

One specific item in the wave finance system is two welcomed sales for $50,000.

there will be signs at the entrance to the city but I feel that they are redundant and not necessary because we already have felt of signs on major entrances to the city right now and signs, if you do decide to do this, you have two different kinds of signs in the city so some entrances will have one kind of sign, other entrances will have another kind of sign secondly I must admit that the design which is proposed for those two signs

is less than adequate in my mind in terms of very pompous and very gaudy.

I don't think it speaks for Charlottesville.

I just want to try to clarify this a little bit.

Last year, we had a million dollars in the capital budget that was spread over four years, Mr. O'Connell, that's correct.

Starting last year, $250,000 was 250 this year and 250, 250 would have been a total of a million dollars.

And staff has gone back, as I understand it, and looked at the signs, they've reduced some signs, reduced some, I guess, some of the material being used in signs, etc.

and basically they think they can do most of this for around a half a million dollars including the 250 from last year.

Yes sir.

We talked to some other communities to get more up to date cost.

We re-looked at the program to try to see could we do it within.

Right, well I appreciate the information you got because I'd answer some information on some other cities is what they were doing.

But I think the signage is important.

I think it even becomes more important as we start the renovations on the mall.

and I will tell you from my personal experience it is very difficult to direct people in the city of Charlottesville from one point to another and I was fire chief for 30 something years and used to get stopped a couple times a week by people and they would say how did I get here and I'd try to go through it and sometimes I'd just say follow me and I'll take you there because it was a lot simpler really because it is difficult we have a lot of dead end streets the city's intersected by two major rail lines there's a lot of issues with that but

I have one more item, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to introduce a new item in the budget for your consideration for the council.

This is an energy conservation.

We have talked about sustainability, environmental sustainability and improvement of our environment and I think this idea I would like to propose for you to think about in this budget could help low-income families, especially low-income families.

The basic idea I have is that we should give some low-interest loans to low-income families

families who make less than 80% of the city's income and so that they can fix their houses in terms of energy conservation and there are many benefits.

One of the benefits will be that they will have less use of non-renewable energy, they will have less money to pay every month and poor people need more help than I think others.

It will facilitate extra work happening in the houses so that many houses can be improved.

and we have talked about global warming and energy conservation.

but I would like to see some action and one way to do that would be to help families, especially local families to actually do that but I would like to suggest depending upon what might be available anywhere from $50,000 to $125,000 per year for the next three years in that area it will be a revolving loan fund so money will come back as money is used but it will help families and again I am not

Well I would say I support it.

I think it's a good idea.

I've been a big fan of the compact fluorescent light bulbs, but obviously I think this would have a much bigger impact and probably be

helpful to a lot of people.

It would be a revolving fund.

Again, I would suggest that it be designed by a systematic committee.

As I was talking to Dr. Brown, he said maybe it would be useful to go to them for actual design of the program.

And I would think that they could design details of it.

Any questions, concerns?

Okay.

Well, if you ever give the first suggestion to yourself.

We had this discussion when we were going through the capital program.

There is contingency that's built into the budget for two reasons.

One is to cover project costs that aren't anticipated and the second is exactly for something like this.

A new worthwhile program that council considers to where you would have some flexibility for funding.

There's enough funds there and it continues

each year.

So as I understand Mr. Huja's suggestion, it would be for three years there would be funding that's available for that three years.

You could reserve that money as you adopt the budget and we could set it up that way so when a proposal comes back to the city council you could consider it and if you think everything is fitting together the dollars could then be released to be able to be used for the program.

My one reservation just while I talk about it is the committee looks at it

Well, I agree with you.

The reason I mention income requirements is because it may be only possible to be done for non-co-families and personal ones.

I think one of the issues that we have to work through, I agree with the intent of the program, is how does it relate to the other energy efficiency weatherization home rehab programs that we are already working on or already implementing and making sure that it's not duplicating or overlapping with some of those, but I fully agree with the

I sort of agree both to Mr. Connell's and the mayor's comments.

You know, it's at the intersection of sort of the energy efficiency and affordable housing at its essence.

And I think, you know, we've had other discussions about that intersection.

So I think, you know, it could be that this could be something that's looked at either from the sustainability point of view or from the affordable housing point of view.

And it sounds like, you know, it's a good idea, but I think it needs a fair amount of vetting

to figure out who do we want to reach, what's the best use of our resources as we move forward in addressing either of those issues, affordable housing, affordable rental housing, the cost of bills, and our sustainability initiatives.

Can I just mention one other thing on the stream watch program.

Very helpful information you've given and I may have been the one that raised that issue.

I just wanted to make a comment about Mr. Huja's proposal in that one of the things that came up when we initially talked about having kind of a tax break for people that are able to rehab their homes using a green standard, clearly only the people that could do that well were people that can afford to do this.

So I think the idea is to try to equalize the playing field

other people an opportunity.

So as we explore the idea I think it's important to include the people that are most affected with this as part of the conversation because I don't want it to be another idea where we're doing things to people and not with people and to make sure that this is an idea that's going to be well supported by the people that we say we're trying to help.

I think that

The people that are most close to the problem should be part of the process of solving it.

And I would just add to that that I think it's something when I mentioned other initiatives.

So we've already approved funding for a program through the Community Design Center to do energy efficiency, energy efficient improvements for with low and moderate income home buyers.

Dr. Brown and I were in a meeting not too long ago with a local architecture firm, a gentleman who's on the State Climate Change Commission talking about it, very innovative.

Initiative out in Berkeley, California on tax financing of energy efficiency improvements and is it possible to work with the General Assembly next year to enact a similar program here.

So I think we're looking at attacking this issue from a variety of angles and I appreciate your interest in seeing how we can build on those and I support the proposal.

I did want to make sure we dialouze and cross our T's because there were a number of items that came up tonight in the public hearing and also came up in our last work session relating to specific agency requests and we did ask all of these except for the Northwest Health System agents, I forget what the acronym is, NWVHSA, have been, we did ask staff to go back on each of these and get additional information

and I want to make sure that we have decided that we decide tonight whether or not we're going to honor these requests.

One is from the Soil and Water Conservation District.

I believe that was a $10,000 request.

$10,000?

$8,000.

I just want to ask a clarification question.

Sure.

Not that group, no, that was Stream Watch.

StreamWatch is the next one where they did get funding initially from the Green City Fund that's vetted by our Sustainability Committee and they are asking for a renewal of $10,000 this year.

Each of these, by the way, would come out of our, at least the suggestion would be to have them come out of our council reserve.

These would not be

We would not be adding to the budget that's been presented to us.

African American Teaching Fellows, $7,500, Java Mountainside, $1,661.

I believe those were all the specific agency requests.

A couple other comments that I would make, one about Mountainside.

I did check into this issue about whether or not Mountainside was going to be included in the same application process as Java next year, and I was told that it will be included with Java next year, so hopefully that eases that concern.

Also, I wanted to let Mr. Moore know we are taking steps now to implement the suggestion that you made about conducting an efficiency review, a pretty wide-ranging efficiency review of city operations.

It's unclear right now exactly what form that will take, but I appreciate you bringing that idea to us.

and also a number of questions were raised about school spending and I know in recent months and recent years even questions have been raised about central office staffing and as Mrs. Adkins reported at our last session

The school has also agreed to undertake a resource utilization review.

One of the primary motivations of which or goals of which is to look at central office staffing and I'm very pleased to see them take that step.

And then one last question on a specific agency request with McGuffey.

I don't know if Mr. Grant is still here from McGuffey.

I fully support our continued support for McGuffey.

I do think, though, that we have an opportunity now as we're about to renew their lease.

I believe we have a five-year lease with them.

Which will be coming to us separately.

Which will be coming to us separately.

I'd like to see us approach McGuffey about engaging with them in a strategic planning process to look at the future and the plan for the future of McGuffey because it is such a vital asset.

and we want to, I think it's a chance for us to take a step back and look at how McGuffey can ensure its long term sustainability and viability and fully support that process.

Signage, I appreciate the fact that the initial budget for signage has been cut in half.

Even though I'm a supporter of improved signage, I do think that was excessive.

and I'm confident that with the money that we have in hand now and the money that's proposed for this year's budget that we can accomplish the basic goals of a wayfinding program and do it well.

So I support that.

I support the funding that's in the budget this year.

So I would actually like to hear if there's any concerns from counselors on any of these specific items, otherwise we can sort of ask staff to, or task staff with inserting them under our council reserve allocations.

I think I shared with you my concerns and I want to share what I said.

It's work session also.

I thought we had a council visit of $100,000 instead of $68,000 which was taken out from that and you can see examples how that has gone down before we adopted the budget.

So I think we think of it like 12 months a year, there will be opportunities and I think

So it would be a significant increase from last year to this year.

I'm not concerned about the totality of adding these things in.

I think that next year we may decide that these are the type of things we can't fund if the budget is more difficult.

I certainly support our efforts to be a regional partner in stream health, and I think it's one of the pervasive, one of the benefits

of the water supply plan that's emerged is the fact that it restores the health of the Mormon's River and it improves the health of the Rivanna River.

Likewise with the teaching fellows, I do think there's research that a student population that's highly African-American such as ours does benefit by having mentors and peers that culturally can be related to.

But I also feel like that's the kind of thing I'd like to see kind of where we stand after a few years of this organization being going.

You know, is it able to reach its goals and achieve its goals?

Mr. Mayor, I don't know if it's the right time or not.

I'd like to make a motion for appropriation resolution for the city council.

which was suggested by you a little earlier and then the Energy Conservation Program from the city CIP and including the Wayfinding proposal as it is.

Even though I must say I do think those two science could live, we could live without and I hope you will give a serious thought about that because this really won't do anything, there will be two different kinds of science in the city so I will make the motion for discussion.

This is for Claire to just say them out loud just to be sure.

Okay.

So you'll be adding funding that would come from the council reserve, so it reduces the council reserve.

For the African American Teaching Fellows, it's $7,500.

The Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water District by $8,960, Stream Watch $10,000, and Mountainside $1,661.

And that's about a $40,000 council reserve that would be left.

and then we would change the capital improvements budget for next year to add in $125,000 to be reserved for energy conservation.

I don't want to belabor the point too much.

I do hope that staff will think seriously about those two sides because they are duplication of the efforts that we have right now.

Thank you.

I guess what I was suggesting is that

It'd be technically reserved, but you'll have to come back to council to spend with a specific program.

Yes.

And you could use some or all of it.

What you don't use could be used for something else.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

Does that make sense?

OK, so the motion's been moved and seconded as the first of two readings.

It will carry over to the next meeting.

And I would just ask staff as an addendum to review the request by the Virginia Health Systems Authority, our agency.

I think we would agree with what Dr. Brown said.

It's a state mandate.

Alright, thank you all very much.

The next item on our agenda is a public hearing and ordinance relating to the conveyance of a portion of city property on the corner of Lee Street and Jefferson Park Avenue to the University of Virginia.

It's the first of two readings and Mr. Brown is going to introduce this.

As the mayor noted, this is the first reading of an ordinance which authorizes the sale of approximately 682 square feet of city property, which is located at the corner of Lee Street and Jefferson Park Avenue.

The university has requested this conveyance as providing property that's needed for the new Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center.

Okay, I don't believe anybody's signed up for the, is that correct?

Nobody's signed up for the public hearing.

Yes, I do have a question.

Sure.

I talked to city attorney earlier

I support the idea totally to cooperate in the University of Virginia on this venture and I just was wondering why the assessment is about $6,840 and we're selling for $10.

The compensation that the council seeks is certainly within your discretion.

I think

Given the small amount of land that's an issue and the fact that I think historically when you think about some of the south law improvements and some of the air rights that have been transferred, council has not looked for compensation from the university.

Any other questions before we open up for public hearing?

Colette Hall 101, Robertson Lane.

That's exactly my question.

I thought I heard our city attorney say two different things.

I thought I heard him say transfer and I thought I heard him say sell.

And I really didn't hear again, if it is a sale, what are we selling it for?

Because I'm not against the cancer hospital, but once the land becomes part of the university,

We've lost it to the city.

We can't tax them, right?

Because they're a state agency.

They're part of a state agency.

They're part of the state.

So, why shouldn't we make money on the sale of the property since we're going to lose that tax base?

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Anybody else from the public like to speak?

I'm Charlie Hurt.

I represent the University of Virginia on this matter.

I just thought I'd clarify just a couple things.

We need a little bit of land between what's now West Garage and what's going to be the cancer center and JPA.

And most of that land is taken up with underground utilities, sewer lines and that sort of thing.

We needed a little bit of extra land for landscaping, retaining walls, that sort of thing for the cancer center, so we identified this piece of land and went to the

to the assessment records and the entire parcel, most of which is out in the street, was appraised for something less than $4,000.

And so, given that we were going to take such a small part of that, it didn't really make sense to suggest a price.

I think the proposal is $10 total.

Thank you, Mr. Hurt.

Any other questions, or sorry, public comment?

We'll close with public comment.

I'll lead off with, you know, this is a small sliver of land that cannot be built on.

It's not currently on the tax base.

It's city-owned, so we're not drawing any tax revenue from it currently.

Mr. Mayor, I agree completely.

I think it's, you know, we are talking about a cancer center.

I think it would be, it would make me feel a little small-minded to be charging for a small piece of land that we cannot build on.

Anybody else like to comment or make a motion?

I'll move the ordinance.

That's right, it's a first of two readings, so this will carry over to our next meeting.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, item number six does involve a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance.

This is not a sale of property, but rather a vacation and closing of an unopened portion of Palatine Avenue that's never been accepted into the city street system.

The area in question is approximately 60 feet by 96 feet.

As I mentioned, it's unimproved.

It's a portion of palatine, the platted palatine right away that's between Rialto and Green Streets.

If you were to look at this particular section of unopened palatine, you would see that it is currently a very steep, grassed over slope.

The applicant is the developer of the Rialto Beach project which has gotten preliminary site plan approval from the Planning Commission.

The vacation and street closing policy which this council adopted in, I believe it was 2005, lists three factors that you consider when presented with an ordinance of this nature.

The first involves whether the alley will impede any person's access to this property.

The second is whether there are any public utilities currently located in the area proposed to be vacated.

And third will vacation of the Streeter Alley result in an inverse impact on traffic on nearby streets.

The applicant, Colway Development, has responded to each of those three questions in the attached letter.

Any questions before we open up the public hearing?

All right, we'll open the public hearing.

There's nobody signed up to speak.

Is there anybody that would like to speak on this issue?

Sam Tower, 1601 Green Street.

and we own the other half of the block that's undeveloped.

Behind our house there's like four vacant lots facing on Palatine.

We agreed that the street can be closed up except our only problem was is our four vacant lots have no sewer access so Colway agreed to put a sewer line up

The middle of Palatine coming up.

So we had three basic questions on the sewer line that they would build.

Does the city supervise them putting in the sewer line?

That was our first question.

And will the sewer line be deep enough in the ground so if and when the four lots we have are developed that we wouldn't have to have a pump going to the sewer line.

It would just go naturally.

Let's see, our second question was

After installation of the sewer line, will the ground be graded back to its present state?

The third line is in the 20-foot right-of-way, does the city want no public access, like nobody walking through there?

Like they're putting in 19 houses, and if they want to walk to the quarry park,

Do you want them walking all the way up to Rocklin and coming around or do you want this to stay pedestrian?

We're not saying one way or the other.

Okay, thank you.

Any other public comment?

We'll close the public hearing.

Some of the questions I think relate to cycling.

I'm afraid I can't answer.

I think your initial question

whether the city would supervise the installation of the sewer line.

If this is a sewer main that will be dedicated to the city and it sounds like it is from your description then I believe the answer is yes, that the city does have to inspect that.

as it's being installed and it has to meet certain standards that the city sets.

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question about whether it would be deep enough to serve the adjoining properties.

I will note for Council's benefit that there are currently no utilities in this right-of-way, but the applicant, the developer, has asked

that the city reserve a 20 foot wide easement for a sanitary sewer and that is in the ordinance.

So I think it's clear that they contemplate a sanitary sewer easement running through there.

I just can't answer some of the more technical questions.

I don't know whether Mr. Tolbert can answer that but as I say the portion that they have requested to be closed is extremely steep.

I wish I had the answers.

I hadn't looked at that site plan in six months but I will be glad to get staff to look at it before the second reading

We'll get you those answers.

So you'll follow up, Mr. Tolar?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Given that information, is there a motion to approve contingent upon these issues being addressed?

So moved.

Second.

Any further?

Well, it's now carried over.

Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Tolar, for coming tonight and raising those issues with us.

Okay, the next item is a resolution regarding the permanent vehicular crossing of the downtown mall at 4th Street.

This is another one of those long lasting projects it seems.

If you remember sometime back council authorized the opening of the 4th street crossing on the model as a temporary trial basis that lasted about a year.

Early last fall we came back to you and asked if you wanted to make it permanent and council decided that yes you were in favor of making it permanent but

You referred it to the Planning Commission to answer several questions.

The first was, since we had a new comprehensive plan, was a second mall crossing still consistent with the comprehensive plan?

The Planning Commission reviewed that question and have answered that in the affirmative that yes, they believe that

another model crossing is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

The second question was whether it should be located at 4th Street or 5th Street and then the third question was should the flow of traffic on the crossings be reversed from its current south to north on 2nd and north to south on 4th and were there any other traffic changes and you also asked that they look at the 4th Street south from

Water to Garrett and make recommendations.

Planning Commission did that.

They held a public joint public hearing, another work session, and they recommended to you several things.

First, that the additional mall crossing be at 4th Street East.

rather than 5th.

They felt for a variety of reasons, particularly sight distance, the fact that it's worked at 4th and they just felt like it contributed to better flow, it was farther from the pavilion to allow spillover from the pavilion not to be directly into it, that it was better at 4th than it would be at 5th.

They recommended that the directional flow remain unchanged, that it continue as south to north on 2nd and north to south on 4th.

They recommended that the section of 4th between Water and Garrett be reopened as 2A and that there be very good signage put there but that it also be evaluated at the end of 12 months to make sure that the concerns that have been raised about cut through traffic not be taking place and they asked that we monitor it on an interim basis

to bring it, even to make sure and bring it back to you.

If we saw that that was a problem, we could bring it back to council and ask that that be reevaluated.

Our traffic engineer has looked at it in detail and she did recommend to the Planning Commission that she felt it was appropriate to open it up to two-way.

Given its constricted nature, she felt like the advantages for railroad crossings and to the people that lived on that side for access were more valuable and that the cut-through should not be a problem.

Realizing we need to make sure that we're monitored on a regular basis.

Number four, the Planning Commission asks that council be urged to reconsider its decision made when we first did the temporary to close the 4th Street crossing during pavilion events.

I would say that the police department has said that they have some pretty strong concerns about

going back on that.

They feel like that's been a real advantage in his work so they ask that I make you aware of that.

They also ask that there be increased efforts by law enforcement to reduce stopping parking standing in the crossing and that the redesign should include spaces for drop-off.

They were really concerned about the number of vehicles that have decided that's a great place to use for deliveries and loading and unloading and they bring 18-wheelers in and completely block up the ball and stop traffic.

They asked that the final design come back to the commission for comment.

They also asked that there be the elimination of the two hour parking spaces nearest the mall and consider eliminating all parking on 4th to avoid congestion and replace that with a drop-off area if recommended by the pending parking study.

That's not included in the resolution that you have before you because, again, it's waiting on the parking study.

to be complete to make recommendations about the utilization of that space.

They ask that any change include better signage to direct traffic to the alley that is perpendicular to 4th and 5th Streets so that if 9th and 4th is closed that there be an outlet and be readily available and that there be better design, striping and signals at the crossing to alert pedestrians and vehicles to the crossing.

clear out one bit of confusion about the original, if you go back almost two years, the recommendation, not recommendation, but the study we did, there was some cost in there that ranged up to close to a million dollars.

Those assume that if the mile crossing was done, that the side streets also would be underground, the utilities would be undergrounded, and that there would be streetscape improvements between market and water.

And what's being recommended now based on what council has said about your concern and reluctance to do any of the

side street improvements anymore, those for a while is that we would just do the mall bricking improvements as part of the redesign of the mall project and we would deal with it as part of that project.

It would not extend out beyond the contours and the width of the mall basically building face to building face except as necessary to make sure that what we want to do on both second and fourth is make sure that any automobile coming up realizes they're entering a pedestrian space.

that it's not, the pedestrian walking down the mall doesn't think they're entering a vehicular space except as necessary to make it safe but that any car coming there realizes clearly that they're entering a pedestrian space.

So the cost will be much, much less because it will not involve any of the undergrounding of utilities or the improvements the other 200 feet out in either direction on that project.

I think that was some confusion.

We had costs done before to make sure we were looking at apples and apples on 5th and it wasn't more expensive than the other.

Again, that's the recommendation.

You've got a resolution in your packet that implements everything that was recommended by the Planning Commission with the exception of leaving the crossing open during pavilion events.

We didn't put that in there.

Thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

I have a question.

Well I guess on one hand we're saying we want more enforcement of people

loading and unloading there at the crossing, which I understand they fill it.

I mean, there's a lot of loading zones in that area, handicapped parking and

I don't know.

I mean, in the conscious world, we're generally talking about parking in the area, but not to micromanage whether within a certain block we should have parking or not.

First of all, I do support the crossing of 4th Street the way it is recommended.

I think it is needed and is working pretty well as it is.

I also support your comments that it will be primarily for pedestrian and the quarter will realize when it is coming to the pedestrian area, vice versa.

So that spirit of design is I think very crucial to the spirit of the downtown mall.

I did have some questions as Julian had with parking, but that I don't see as part of the resolution.

I did not understand the question relating to closing the 4th Street on the events.

Yes sir, when we open the 4th Street crossing

as a temporary crossing.

One of the conditions was that any time there was an event at the pavilion that it would be closed to traffic, to vehicular traffic.

There was concern that with the volumes of traffic leaving and going to the pavilion that it was just too many pedestrians there and so we have closed it

And the police support that?

The police support that, yes.

It's really worked well.

I mean, there's so many people down here.

And I think one of the concerns is that

The Planning Commission had was if people turn down forth, they don't know how to get down there and say, oh, it's closed.

They're not sure how to get back out.

And so better signage as you come down that would direct you.

And because of the alley, you can get out of there.

Right.

Right.

We had a regular discussion with the Planning Commission about that and I think it's one that we all share as a concern.

The concern is that it might be more convenient

than say taking, and especially in the evening, than taking the 9th Street Bridge, the Belmont Bridge and Avon to cut through downtown and get over to that part of town.

The Planning Commission felt after a regular discussion that the fact that it's narrow, the fact that we would treat it like the Franklin underpass with stop signs on both sides of it that would say

stop and then proceed would make it inconvenient enough that you basically would live there or be going there before you would want to use it.

There's not total confidence in that, though, and that's why we felt like it would be very important to very quickly, we wanted the spring, we're going to do some traffic counts in the next couple of weeks and then do maybe monthly monitoring of the traffic through there and try to determine.

We didn't see it.

We don't have any proof that it would be cut through.

It just seems like it might be.

I was just wondering if you

evaluate whether or not there's a significant increase in traffic.

Yes, ma'am.

We did, before we brought this back in September, we did traffic counts and there was not a significant increase at the time.

We have not done any counts basically since the fall with the weather as it is.

It's so hard to tell, but we do need to do a new set in April.

or later this month in May.

Sure, and one of the things that was really interesting in the year study period, all the count showed the pedestrian counts going down and then we got to evaluating the weather and what it really proved is that it's so weather sensitive on the mall that if it gets up above 90 or down below 65 that the counts just are so skewed that it's hard, you've almost got to find a 75 to 85 degree day and do the counts and do them every time with that consistency to get

Mr. Talbert, the concern that was raised is that the two-way street will encourage cut-through traffic.

I think it's a difference in cut-through.

It's cut-through in that it's going from the north side to the south, but

You know, it seems to be looking for parking or looking for businesses on the south side of downtown now, as opposed to the other concern being that it might be somebody that's working somewhere on the north side of the community and rather again than take the Avon Bridge, for instance, Belmont Bridge, they're going to avoid that traffic that backs up there occasionally and cut through to go somewhere on the, you know, somewhere further south.

into the Belmont neighborhood.

Right.

My concern is that we will get true cut-through traffic, which means people who are coming from north of Charlottesville on Park Street or would end up

And I think we get contact pretty simply.

I mean, I think we can just see what the total number of people crossing the mall is.

We certainly can just see how many of them go straight across.

And that gives us some clues as to whether we're having a problem.

So I think we need to be prepared to go back on that part of the decision.

But on the other hand, it may be that it really isn't that convenient.

It is a narrow street.

You're going to have to stop.

I think that currently, to the degree that it's cut through, it's cut through with destinations, either a destination you're leaving that's in the downtown area, a destination you're going to, someone going to ACAC, for example.

I think that's the anticipated kind of need, either parking or local destination.

What it's not intended to be is someone who's coming from

North of Charlottesville and going to Mill Creek using it as a way to avoid some traffic.

But I also think we should support our police department in their assessment of what's safe for pedestrians during pavilion events and there certainly is a large

I think we're almost ready for a motion.

I just wanted to state for the record that if this were simply a resolution retaining the 4th Street Crossing as it is now, I would support it.

I'm going to vote against the resolution because this is also a resolution that essentially codifies the permanent establishment of the 4th Street Crossing.

I've never supported the 4th Street Crossing.

I do think it is a pedestrian space, and I know it may be a throwback, but I do believe that the crossing was approved on evidence that was not, to me, convincing about the need for an additional vehicular crossing.

I do support keeping it where it is now.

If we're going to have a crossing, I support keeping it where it is now.

I'm divided on the idea of making it two-way over to Garrett.

I initially supported it and then I heard Mr. Repas make comments at the public hearing and I found them convincing or persuasive.

I don't necessarily hear support from council for removing that item, but I think there's a sense that we'll give it a try and get a sense of what it does to traffic patterns.

and then you may choose to vote.

Sure.

I would like to support the resolution as it is with two changes.

One that we do to the monitoring for pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the street and all the way to the garage so that we make sure that it is not having adverse impact on the neighborhood.

Secondly, I would like to change number five.

Is there a second?

No, we feel they can't bring the entire model design, we'll just find the length.

It's not the trial period.

Please indicate your vote.

Thank you Mr. Tolbert.

The last item on our agenda is a resolution that was brought to us by Ms. Chetan and some other students at our last meeting supporting a nationwide effort by cities to ask Congress to establish a federal department of peace and nonviolence.

I just want to comment that I support this resolution for reasons because I think it is important

the value which we hold in this community and nationwide and so it should be reflected in our government.

I know some people say that it is none of our business but we are part of the citizens of the community and the country.

As I said last time we came here I think we get asked to pass resolutions on a wide range of subjects and I think we need to be careful to stay within things that we can say you know have at their essence city residents being affected.

and you know so for example the resolution we passed in Tibet met that criteria for me.

This one does not, even though I think it's a worthwhile endeavor, I would not want to vote against a resolution like this so I intend to abstain for that reason.

Any other comments or is there a motion to approve the resolution?

I missed a city council meeting where there was an initial presentation about that so I missed that part of it but in the 40th year that we're recognizing the assassination of Martin Luther King it's kind of hard not to want to have a resolution like this and I think that in terms of how a locality

affects federal government legislation.

I think that many of the civil rights movements were based on grassroots organizing and local people and people making a difference.

I agree.

If there's no further discussion, please indicate your vote.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Tom.

And please pass on appreciation to your colleagues.

And the last item on, well, there's one additional business item we need to address regarding information on a retirement plan.

Mr. Mayor, members of city council, at the last council meeting a citizen came forward and basically gave you an idea to save I think it was $5 million if our retirement contribution rate was the same as Albemarle's contribution rate.

I think basically the comment

was, Albemarle provides a very generous 13%.

Let me talk about what 13% is.

13% is a contribution the city makes in their budget.

It's a percentage of total payroll.

It's not 13% that the citizen will, I mean that the employee will get.

It's just a contribution to total payroll.

And it says that the Charlottesville benefits range from 26 to 48%.

Before I get into the reason why there's a difference there, let me explain that purely retirement contribution, if you work 30 years for Charlottesville, you make $30,000, your retirement contribution is around $15,000.

That's what he's comparing with the 13th percent for Albemarle.

When you look at the total contribution the city of Charlottesville makes, and you add in the, and we have two plans, we have the defined benefit plan, which is the example I just gave you here with the defined contribution plan.

which is basically 8% of the employee's payroll.

We've got over 700 people in defined benefit plan, over 200 people in defined contribution plan.

When you put the retirement plan together, our rate is 13.4%.

Albemarle's 13.43%.

We can't save any money that way.

Our rate is actually less than theirs.

The other side of our contribution rate, which Albemarle has not implemented, very few cities and counties in the country have implemented, is called OPEB, Other Post Employment Benefits.

And that's basically the health care for retirees.

That is 14% of city payroll, or about $3.8 million.

Certainly Albemarle has costs for retiree health insurance.

It's just not funded like we're funding it.

So that numbers are not in his calculations whatsoever.

Albemarle also has not funded the accrued liability they're going to have to fund based on this new government accounting standard board statement 45 that says you have to fund health care benefits the same way as you fund retiree benefits.

This is brand new.

Luckily for Charlottesville, we've been doing it for five or six years.

We're probably the only city, only locality in the Commonwealth of Virginia who's done that.

That is one of the major reasons we're a AAA city compared to other localities in Virginia.

If you're looking at saving $5 billion, it's not going to happen because our retirement rate is actually less when you combine all those benefit and depend contribution.

where we're looks like hires because we're actually funding on an actual accrue basis to health care where Albemarle's not.

They certainly have health care expense.

They've got part of it, but they're going to have more expense coming when they implement this standard.

Any questions?

I don't think we're paying any more than the county's gonna have to pay.

Because the county's gonna have to do something to fund that accrued liability that the new governmental county standard board is telling localities they have to fund.

So their expense is coming.

Luckily, we've had it.

So it's built in our budget already.

They don't have it budgeted yet.

Would it be fair to say that

The county is more or less paying for it each year.

That's the term basically you use.

That's only part of the cost.

Now you have to fund it just like we do a retirement system.

You're going to have to have additional costs that are going to come into that.

Because it's basically saying you have to expense the benefits when you earn them, not when you retire.

Right.

Not the cost, the benefit.

On retirement, very similar, the retirement side, their BRS system, so therefore general employee is 1.70% a year multiplier.

So if you have 30 years, you would take 30 years times 1.70 and you come to maybe 51%.

I multiply as 1.65 for general employees, so we would come to like 49.5%.

So actually on just the retirement side, for general employees, we're probably not quite as good as Albemarle.

It looks like we may be a little bit better on the healthcare side.

What I did find out was that we pay our retirees about $394 a month if you retire prior to 2002.

After that, it's based on years of service.

We have two very different systems where they pay more for a short period of time

I don't know how many employees I have.

It has to be factored in the fact that we have a lower multiplier, so we pay a little less on the actual retirement, but we pay more for the health insurance piece.

Exactly.

But the big difference here is that we've chosen

to be actuarily funding the health benefit healthcare.

They're going to have to account for it.

They either have to fund it

What they don't fund, they have to add that liability to the balance sheets.

If we didn't fund out actual calculation for retirement, we would have to add a liability to our balance sheet.

Basically, over time, that liability would grow and the city's assets would grow.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you Mr. Ray, thank you Dr. Brown for encouraging us to have this discussion.

I got one quick one.

Just to pass this out, I won't belabor it.

We've been asked by a number of people, including at some of these meetings, about a comparison between the city and county, both in terms of tax rates and services.

So we've prepared, and this brief was quickly done over the last week just to give you some sense for some of the services that the city provides that the county does not, all the way from Parks and Recreation and

Corpside, Refugine, Recycling, et cetera.

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

I have a question.

I may have missed this, I just scanned through it.

There's nothing in here about police services.

No sir, we were... And I'll tell you why I mentioned that, because that's another valuable service.

Three o'clock in the morning, someone's kicking your door.

We were doing this on a quick turnaround.

Okay.

Okay.

And look, can I ask, while we're talking, not directly about this particularly, but

Could you have Mr. Beck maybe send Mr. Moore or something?

I think he actually has the study.

Mr. Mayor, just one more piece of information.

I got a letter today, and I think you all got it too, from VDOT, that there is approximately 44% reduction in available state funds.

They supposedly are saying that that does not affect the Mater Creek Parkway.

They made that discussion.

Well, what they've said is that they will give priority to projects that have the best chance of leveraging federal dollars and that is a project, despite what you may feel about that project, that has leveraged a tremendous amount of federal dollars.

Mr. Mayor, I have one more citizen question I wanted to raise because it applies to many people.

The question was asked whether people who live in condominiums, why can't they have recycling provided for them because they will give us free taxes and I would like to... Condos or apartments?

Condos.

And I would just like to leave this for the city manager to... Why don't you give me the money?

Probably depends on where they are.

If you can let me know which... That will come.

Well, they may have private trash collection.

I don't know.

They do.

Okay, I just wanted to raise a question because they're asking, they're paying taxes while they're not getting recycling.

Well, we have group housing like that.

It's done.

and we just changed it for a lot of the apartments of the community and I think for some of the condos, but I'll have to check on that one.

Any other business?

We'll now have our closing matters by the public.

Anybody from the public would like to speak?

Good evening.

I'm Peter Kleenan.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge that this is a very good order of business.

I'm delighted that the changes made that we in the public have the opportunity to comment not on just things prior to the discussion by council for open business, but afterward.

And in fact, I would like to make a comment about some of the things said during

I think one of the issues Mr. Norris mentioned was that there would be leveraging federal dollars on the Meadow Creek Parkway.