City Council Meeting   5/4/2009

and Michael

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

Okay, for announcements, I want to start off with one announcement.

Does anyone else have any other announcements?

Keep this up and we'll be on our way to being America's healthiest city, okay?

Postal Service, held its 17th Annual Food Drive for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Area Food Banks.

and I've already presented that to you earlier today at the post house and if you'd like to say a few words, please.

It's always the Saturday before Mother's Day and we want to thank you for your help.

I'd like to say a few words.

I think everyone had one, so I thank you for your support and we look forward to bringing many more good things to the city in the year to come.

Good evening.

and I would like to remind you that actually you do not need the approvals of the four boards in order to get this on the Rivanna meeting agenda.

Thank you.

Kevin Lynch.

Richard Collins

to see that we have looked at these alternatives and looked at them carefully.

Collette Hall.

And I have a copy for you all of the article that I wrote.

Mark Cabot.

Thank you.

If I do, I apologize.

Richard Lloyd

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

It's a bad situation and I wish I would file that fine.

George Benford.

Thank you.

Who wants to start off?

I'm not sure what is holding it up.

So that will be in place for the next meeting as well.

I guess I for one, I think my colleagues would like to go ahead and move forward so we can get the issue of dredging resolved.

There's a number of different things brought up, but most of them were things that had been brought up before, so I'll pass.

I wanted to get involved with that board because of the things that I learned as a result of being on the task force and all the experience with an authority has been with the housing authority so I really am looking forward to that.

Okay, now, appointments.

Mr. Taliaferro, I'd like to move that city council make the following appointments to the dialogue on Ray's Steering Committee Charles Barber, Leland Bates, Linda Bowen, Elizabeth Breeden, Jim Bundy, Alvin Edwards, Gretchen Ellis, Bob Gross, William Harvey, Walter Heineke, Gertrude Ivory, Brenda Lambert, Dion Lewis, Peter Loach, James Moore, Alicia Morris, Cindy Stratton and Colette Wells

Second.

Any vote?

and to talk about the mission in charge.

about how best to move forward and also see if that model will be a good fit for Charlottesville.

Mr. Vice Mayor, that reminds me, I'd like to actually also move that we appoint Councillor Edwards to that committee.

Second.

Good vote.

Do I get the vote too?

Item J, Ordinance, Amendment, reference cafes and vendors, second of two readings.

Second.

Ordinance conveying city right of way on North Avenue, first of two readings.

Staff recommends that City Council convey this property for approximately $1,625 and we need to hold a public hearing and then have a vote to move to second reading.

Is there anyone who would like to speak on this item?

Joe and Sarah, Joe Murray and Sarah MacGyver, they're here, of course they live at 617 North Avenue.

This is their first home that they bought and it's a technical title problem that's been created and they just hope, if you all didn't know if you all had any questions of them or me, I'd be glad to answer them for you.

If not, I will close the public hearing.

Second.

No, we don't.

We just closed this out of the meeting.

First of one reading.

So I have some updated materials to pass out before approving the plan.

It's $12,000 more, is that right?

So it's pages 14 and 15 and pages 32 and 33 and also the budget that you approved at your previous meeting.

So where were those two items added to?

And then we'll move it off to HUD by its deadline and receive our funds dry first.

Okay, well, thank you for a great report, and we're always glad to hear we got some more money.

We're not sure yet, but once we know that, we'll be right on top of things to get that going and get those monies out there as soon as possible.

The Councillor, is there any questions?

Where was the public notice posted?

It was posted in Redaria Progress, as well as the future PVC's website and the city's website.

How do we know which vouchers are actually being used based on these numbers?

They're not necessarily the official numbers utilized or the official numbers that are fully funded.

What are the differences in the numbers?

I can correlate with all the different voucher recipients to try to get that number to you as far as what the utilization rates are and how many are tenant-based or project-based.

Is there any way, because I'd be interested in finding out how many people were successful.

I can get that information.

Is there a way to include in the consolidated plan or a way of really addressing moving people out of poverty using the CDBG funds?

I need a better understanding of what tax credits mean.

I believe Friendship Court has tax credits in them.

I think you mentioned another program as well.

Well, it's time for hiring houses there, politically, for AHEP.

For the CDBG program, because it's federal money, it requires that all houses be brought up to code, so even if there's not necessarily something that was part of the original scope of work, AHIP's gonna need to do that to meet their federal requirements, so it causes CDBG rehab projects to be a little bit more expensive, whereas the projects AHIP's able to do with our housing fund, they're able to do more affordably.

The ones that are listed, are there more of those organizations within the city?

If another organization wanted to be, they would have to go through HUD to get approval out of that regional feature though.

Okay, so a private developer or a private landlord that just could not automatically become...

Okay.

We'll take a brief pause.

Say goodbye to Charlottesville Hospital.

Do I have a motion?

You make the motion, then you call for a question, ask a question, or do I ask one question?

I suggest we ask questions or have any discussion.

How do we know they'll have some changes that they want to make that we might want to hear about or how does that work?

So if we get it in by May 15th, we'll get our funds by July 1st.

Okay.

Do I have a motion?

Second.

Okay, once again, moving to another public hearing on the Ordinance of Banning, Sir Aisman Wellington Court Apartments, first of two readings.

He's been working closely with my office, Public Works and Engineering, to get this application forward and he's here as well to answer questions.

Hearing none, I will close the public hearing and ask for a motion.

I move the motion to move the service.

Second.

Second.

Okay, next we have a report on P3, plan, performed, perfect.

Introduce yourself for the last time.

I am the Director of Budget and Performance Management with the City of Charlottesville.

Okay.

That's fine, yeah.

I guess so, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

You have a PSA?

Okay.

Two, three, yay!

Can I say a couple things?

I hope it will too, and I think it will.

For the city manager, I wanted to know from you how have you seen things progress over the years and how is the P3 model different than what's been used before and how is it relevant now?

But you can see, we've been all over the organization, every meeting has got what, 15 people?

The larger ones have had in the teens.

That may be the most significant thing.

It might be that departments involved might internally study this and not quite come up with that as being

maybe we do an annual survey and just throwing ideas out there and we do focus groups every three to five years or something so there's a lot of things you can do to get that feedback.

If we get lots of input on what would be the most meaningful data, input from city council, input from the public, and not just have it be internally generated data.

I agree with that and I agree that we're kind of generating a vacuum right now but getting that measurement information in addition to making sure our objectives are aligned is very important and some communities actually have citizens groups help them write their measures so there's lots of ways you can do that and we'll just have to decide how we want to do that, when the time is right to do that but absolutely, we've talked about that a lot recently knowing that we're kind of moving away from the workshop phase

They've got a ton of stuff on their website that any citizen can go and look at.

That's my point.

You're absolutely right.

Would I be interested in knowing how much time you're actually putting in to this?

I can try to figure that out.

And how much time each phase of the whole process is going to take to see if by next year this time we're in a different place with the whole process.

That's how I anticipate it being successful actually is if that is allowed to occur.

What is it that you've learned along the way that we can model to make it consistent across the board?

I think this is a great process if it can be implemented if you're outlining.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

I think a great process if it can be implemented according to the outline that she showed today is still curious.

Okay, well thank you very much.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Very good.

Dan Phantom, all up there.

Okay.

I finished the morning down there, they said, let's do everything we do from now on like this, because they were never really happy with what you all did, ranging from what you all did to the workers, and they really didn't have any bad things to say.

That was for me.

Well, it should have been for you, you know, you should have walked out of there.

I'm glad to answer any questions that you all have.

Do you all have some questions or comments?

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

And so I think it's been a remarkable achievement.

Thank you.

I want to join my colleagues, you did a great job as a whole team, working with people, citizens, and I was pleased that I was involved in both ends.

communications and did a great job and we'll be recognizing them also, but thank you for saying that.

And thank you for the update about the workforce development opportunities that were created.

That was good to see.

Can you talk about the celebration?

That's on the 29th, it's a Friday afternoon, 4.45, the intent being everybody can come enjoy that and then go to Friday's after 5 and have a good time and enjoy the new mall.

Okay, well thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move along.

Ms. Mueller is coming forward to tell us a little bit about this.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

What's the timeframe for this grant?

And again, it would be joint with the county and the university.

I think we should pursue it, and I know other members will agree with it.

I think they're doing a great job and I assume as a question that the county's got pretty much the same resolution in front of them and so I'm excited about this and as soon as everyone's finished answering questions I'd love to move this resolution and move the letter.

That's your staff.

So I'd first like to move the resolution to support the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance grant application.

Second.

It sounds like a real exciting project, and we've already gotten really a lot of state and national recognition because of your all's efforts, and obviously if we can pull this off, this will be another giant step forward.

Absolutely.

And we thank you for your efforts, so vote.

Mr. Vice Mayor, I'd also like to move that we authorize the signing by the mayor and the city manager of the letter regarding this program to the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance.

Second.

Okay, vote.

I know everything is not always forever, so if you want to explain this to us a little bit.

Since I'm here, I will.

Hey, Mr. Brown.

at the number of square feet they need to get a sixth unit.

Can you talk about what you mean by a unit, like a single building with six residents in it, six independent police departments?

and that's what Mr. Kawicki has been meeting with Mr. Baldhead and what they found out is really problematic to try to add anything to it that doesn't mean they can't but so all things being equal they could get one more unit because they get this land whether or not they could actually build one more we wouldn't know until we saw plans whether they could meet parking, whether they could meet setbacks and those sorts of things questions anyone?

I think they could give them a little bit of harm.

I'm sorry?

They would give them a little bit of harm because they took it.

This was not a zoning, this didn't change any zoning, this was just a simple request to purchase land.

But they were planning to right now add any units to the structure.

We have not seen any plans and Mr. Quicke says they're not.

It sounds like that was not the intent when it was brought before us, and the overall theme was simply to beautify the grounds with gardens.

Their requests later changed.

Yes, please.

So I just wanted to be clear about what their intentions were.

Yes, yes sir.

I'd like to say I think I basically agree with Mr. Huja that I don't see any

I'm in favor of selling this land.

Is that again?

I think it's by right communication that should take place before you come into City Hall will also help the process also.

But all I said, I would be happy to make a motion to sell this land

At this point we're doing, in the broader sense,

Let me just follow up one minute on the signing.

Do we do any type of signing on property?

I mean, we post a sign board or whatever.

and we have certifications in the files that they've been done on every one of them and the person putting it up.

Yeah, I think it is a good idea.

I guess with our overall ideas that people like to be aware of change.

Absolutely.

And the potential for change and just to be aware and informed makes a difference in how decisions are made and it also helps with how we define transparency also.

Does anyone have any other business to bring forward, any member of council?

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I just wanted to say that I miss the presence of our mayor, Dave Norris.

and the group that's traveling on the exploratory trip to Ghana should be on their way back, so I hope they had a wonderful trip and I hope they have safe travels as well.

It looks pretty unexpected, but I really do this.

Thank you all.

I've never seen anything like it.