City Council Meeting   2/16/2010

Michael Kochis, David Brown, David Brown

Dr. David B.

Bunch, Ph.D., Ph.D.

D.A.B.S.

O'Brien

Oh, before.

Good evening everyone.

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

and the visible, with the liberty and justice for all.

Here.

Here.

Mr. Bishop?

Yes.

Mr. Norris?

Ms. Davis?

And as you've noticed, Mayor, Dave Norris is not here yet.

I've left his seat empty so he can make a smooth entrance to maybe an hour and a half into the meeting.

Let's begin with awards and recognition.

The 40th anniversary of Virginia's scenic river program and I have the proclamation.

Whereas the Rivanna River was the first river in Virginia designated a state scenic river and whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the scenic river program and whereas

Plavana resident, Minnie Lee McGee

spearheaded the successful effort to have the General Assembly create the Scenic River Program and whereas the federal government has designated the Rivanna as a national treasure, the only river so honored in Virginia and whereas the General Assembly created the Rivanna River Basin Commission, a regional organization to assist in maintaining and improving the water quality of the Rivanna River and whereas

The four jurisdictions, Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Green, which constitute the greater part of the Rivanna River Basin, have acknowledged the importance of the Rivanna to their jurisdictions' health, welfare, and economy.

Now, therefore, be it resolved

that the City of Charlottesville is designating 2010 as the year of the Rivanna and extends its gratitude and appreciation to the many groups and organizations working together to organize the 40th anniversary celebration and to indicate its support of the celebration.

Are there any other announcements?

I'm sure all of you had quite a bit of winter this year and part of the winter is falling limbs.

So the City Public Works Department will be providing a free city-wide collection of winter storm debris from March 1st to 5th.

So not March 1st to 5th.

And it will be on the days of your routine pick up.

You must put up all the limbs before 7am on your day that week.

This is not for trees which have been cut by contractors for the residents.

Those should be taken away by the contractors themselves.

So again, the limbs which have fallen in the winter this last few weeks can be picked up by the city March 5th, March 1st to March 5th on your scheduled day.

I'd like to make a couple announcements.

I want to remind people that the city has a real estate tax relief program and a rent relief program for people elderly, disabled, low income.

The application for the real estate tax relief program is by March 1st and the rent relief program deadline is May 3rd and some people should contact the Commissioner of Revenue's office for details.

Also, the 2010 census is getting ready to start.

Questionnaires will be mailed or delivered to households and there's information on the city website for people who would like to learn more.

And then finally, Ms. Vice-Mayor, under other business, I'd like to talk a little bit about our street acceptance policy.

Are there any other announcements?

I have a couple short ones.

The annual Charlottesville High School Symphony and Chorus Concert, which was postponed from a couple weeks ago, is going to be tomorrow night, February 17th, at the Martin Luther King Jr.

Performing Arts Center at the high school.

We have a great commitment to performing arts in the city and this is where you see the fruits of those labors.

Also, the Venable students star in a film on February 21st.

The documentary World Peace and Other Fourth-Grade Achievements will premiere at the Paramount Theater Sunday, February 21st at 6 p.m.

The film shows teacher John Hunter and his 2006 Venable Elementary class as they participate in an educational exercise called the World Peace Game.

Tickets can be purchased at Paramount,

and I think that should be a really interesting show.

If there aren't any more announcements, I'm going to move on to matters by the public.

Just to remind everyone you have three minutes to speak.

I have the magic thing here that lets me know when your three minutes is up.

And to make your three minutes sweeter, I'm putting cookies down so anyone who comes to speak can have a cookie.

Good evening.

I'm Joe Sakas, the Executive Director of the Virginia Organizing Project, which is located at 703 Concord Avenue here in Charlottesville.

At the Virginia organizing project, we're very concerned about what the proposed budget cuts will do to all communities throughout the state.

We're particularly concerned with what will happen to low-income families, to families with special needs, and for those who are unemployed with little hope in finding a job if unemployment continues at such a high rate.

The federal government and 50 state governments have a wide range of revenue streams.

Unfortunately, local governments don't have many local options to raise revenue.

As a city council, you can tax meals, you can tax utilities, you can tax property, but you have very few other options.

Traditionally, local governments have relied on state and federal funds to help support the local budget for education, transportation,

Public Safety, Courts and Social Services.

So what happens when the state government decides to just cut everything and not explore ways to raise additional revenue?

Well, it's obvious that it puts more pressure on the budget on local governments.

Where can you go?

Well, not many places.

As I mentioned, you can only tax meals, tax utilities, tax retail sales, tax property, but don't have many other options.

We at the Virginia Organizing Project encourage you to ask our state legislators to use the many options they have to raise revenue.

The state income tax, for example, is the same rate for someone making $17,000 or $17 million.

Both pay at a rate of 5.75%.

If we raise the rate for people who make $100,000 or more, just 1%,

and we raised the rate for people who make $250,000 or more, just 2%, much of which they would write off their federal income taxes, the state would get an additional $776 million in revenue.

That's a lot of money.

Currently, the state tax system is grossly unfair.

People who make the least, the people at the bottom 20% of the income earners in Virginia,

pay 8.8% of their income in local and state taxes.

People who are at the top, the top 1% in income earners, only pay 5.2% of their income in local and state taxes.

So there's really a simple solution here.

Start asking people at the top of the income scale to pay their fair share.

Get lots more revenue at the state level, which can be shared with local governments.

and take the pressure off the local governments to raise property taxes and utility taxes and meals taxes and retail sales taxes and a few other minor taxes.

We don't want 30,000 low-income children across the state to lose their health insurance through the FAMIS program just because of budget cuts.

We don't want to lose more supports for those who are intellectually disabled and we don't want to see college tuition get beyond the reach

of many youth in our community.

The 2010 Virginia General Assembly should make some reasonable tax increases instead of further cutting an already damaged budget.

We encourage you, as our city council, to raise your voices on our behalf to our state legislature and ask them to raise more revenue.

Thank you.

Good evening Mayor and Vice Mayor and Councillors Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane,

Frankly, I was overwhelmed at the number of issues I would like to address.

Because I cannot focus in depth on any one issue, I will make brief comments on a few.

Item K in the consent agenda, the conservation easement to the nature conservancy.

I still do not think it is a wise choice to give city land to a private organization.

Better to keep it under local government control.

Item 5, neighborhood advocacy.

I was only informed about this yesterday, so I have not vetted it to the neighborhood.

This is in the suggestion.

The city should encourage and support the Alliance of Neighborhoods in its effort to organize in areas of the city currently without active neighborhood associations.

Whereas this is part of the Alliance's mission statement in constitution, the president of the Alliance Executive Board had not been contacted about this.

We however welcome this invitation, I'm on the board, and look forward to working toward this goal.

The cost to create a neighborhood advocacy position would range from $50,000 to $70,000 per year for salary benefits and so forth.

There is a position vacant in neighborhood development services that could be used so that a new position does not have to be created.

There seems to be a contradiction here.

Is this correct?

Well, someone new will be hired and there is a vacant position in NDS, so why not pay the salary that is the same as the current vacancy?

Also, I prefer that this position ultimately not be under NDS.

And last, item 7, the noise ordinance.

It is proposed to change the noise ordinance to limit the noise in the neighborhood commercial district to no greater than 55 decibels after 11 p.m.

Goes on with more language.

The end quote said the alternative ordinance would apply this restriction to all residential areas.

End of quote.

It is necessary to protect all neighborhoods from excess of noise.

Please adopt this ordinance to all residential areas.

Thank you.

And forgive me if I mispronounce your name.

Castiglione.

Hello, my name is Peter Castiglione.

I reside at 1516 Chesapeake Street.

I'm the owner of Maya restaurant and the property owner at 633 and 629 West Main Street.

That would be Maya and the outdoor patio.

I'm here tonight to ask the city why the downtown mall would be exempt from any change in decibel level regulations.

I strongly oppose the proposed changes and I am extremely concerned that if the decibel level regulations are reduced that certain business districts would be exempt while others would not.

The historic downtown mall already receives a relative majority of tax dollars and city assistance.

Exempting the mall would give restaurant and music venue owners in this area a very real advantage over like businesses in regulated areas.

How is East Main Street different than West Main Street?

How can business districts with the same zoning be treated differently?

The possibility of the proposed change is frightening on many levels culturally and economically, but the possibility of one area being regulated while others are not opens up a whole new realm of issues.

I ask that the city would consider the inherent inequalities of this situation.

Adam Frazier, 707 Gray Street.

I'm the owner of The Local, 824 Hinton, also 822, which is formerly Jean's Beauty Salon.

I wrote this actually before it became evident that this was a proposal now for a city-wide 55

I don't envy the position that you guys are in today.

You are going to vote on an important issue that has significant consequences for the parties directly involved with this issue.

The reason that Belmont has been voted the best Charlottesville neighborhood and recognized one of the 30 coolest neighborhoods in the national magazine is a combination of the proximity

to the downtown mall, Pantops and 64, and the charming houses and edifices that exist there.

But more than anything, it's the diversity and complexity of the people that reside there.

I'm bringing this up as a reminder to both residents and council members because somewhere lost in the discussion of rezoning Southern Crescent and the noise ordinance, we lost a sense of civil discourse concerning these topics.

I can't think of a northern neighborhood that has houses appraised over $550,000 next to another house.

which has been converted into a duplex offering two spacious bedroom apartments for rent at $650.

On my street alone we have young graduate students living next to architects, living next to pediatric residents, living next to supermarket managers, and it's just a really diverse group of people that live there.

I don't know of any other neighborhood in Charlottesville that boasts of such diversity.

Amongst all of those differences and acceptance of who people are and that they don't have to try and keep up with the Joneses.

The people in my neighborhood are accepting of my eccentricities and that is why I will not live or have my business in any other neighborhood in Charlottesville.

I suspect others share my enthusiasm from Belmont and that is why there is such an intensity and emotion when we are opposing views concerning the future of Belmont.

The brass tax of this issue, in my opinion, is a battle between Bell Rio and approximately four to five residences adjacent to the restaurant.

Seemingly, now I've grown into a situation that now

may affect businesses citywide.

I'm not throwing stones at Bell Rio if we were to have an honest discussion that you would have to include the local and other restaurants in Belmont as restaurants that can be seen contributing to noise pollution.

But the passing of the noise ordinance will not have the same catastrophic effect that it will have in Bell Rio, which in effect will be a death knell.

The people directly involved have a lot

I have a lot too.

More so than the previous rezoning proposal to lose.

So please be cognizant and deliberate accordingly on this vote.

On one side you have Jim Baldy, a long time resident of Belmont.

with two adolescent children and the viability of his business.

If he passes the ordinance, he will have to shutter his doors and all his employees will have to seek new jobs in an otherwise dismal job marketplace.

Local musicians will have one less mid-sized venue to play and all those who enjoy listening to them will no longer have regular opportunity to listen to them.

On the other side, you have four or five residents, some that have lived there for 30 years, that live in close proximity to Bell Rio and suffer each weekend with little or no sleep.

If the noise continues, their quality of life will suffer and then they have to vacate their domicile.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jim Baldy and I live in Elliott Avenue and I'm an owner of Bell Rio.

I guess first and foremost I would support Adam's request to you that you make a decision.

I feel like this has drawn on so long that it's starting to become really internalized and in some ways vicious.

And I think if we had a decision either way it would help a lot of us move on.

That being said, I'm looking at this report that Neighborhood Development Services submitted and I have some questions I hope you can address for me.

The first being, most importantly, the issue of budgetary impact where it says none.

I think common sense would dictate that if you have a negative impact on these businesses with regard to sales and meals tax and employment, it would be hard to argue there's no budgetary impact.

And secondly, the specified decibel level I feel is using a hammer to try to hit a fly.

I think if you ask the police officer at the door up there, at the beginning of the meeting before people came in, he had a decibel meter, and every time that door opened, I believe the decibel meter went to 62 and 63.

So if you pass something really reducing it from 75 decibels, it's going to be virtually unworkable for any of us to have outdoor patios, which is going to put us in a jam because of the non-smoking law, which is going to become a problem with people just opening a door during the dinner hours.

And what I have heard in the past is some of the critics of Del Rio in particular saying that they will not call in reports of noise violations for other restaurants.

To me that seems not a workable solution.

It's either all or none.

And then my penultimate point is if you look on the same page that the budgetary impact stated is none, there's a statement here that there is also attached for our review a decimal loudness comparison chart and as well a report from the tenant Sandridge to Chief Longo.

When we downloaded these reports and printed them, these are not in there, so we

are a little unclear as to how to proceed.

I can tell you that during our entire history of operations, we've never exceeded the noise ordinance.

So I think it would be very useful to have this report to Chief Longo in here.

And then lastly, in the prior meetings, it was our understanding that the violations would be measured at the property line of the complainant, which seems to me to be a reasonable approach.

If people have an issue, are they, in fact, being subjected to loud noise?

But on these alternative amendments, it only states that the sound is being measured at or outside the property boundary, which is unclear to me if that is essentially the restaurant in question or the complainant.

If it's the restaurant in question, you are saying you're going to take a noisy reading two feet outside the front door, whether or not the complainant might live 100 feet down the road.

We can show you some clarification on that as well.

Good evening, my name is Benny Dyne.

I've been a full-time musician in Charlottesville since 1976.

I've seen lots of people come to Charlottesville.

The music scene is pretty comparable to Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, and it's thriving.

If you're going to have this new ordinance passed,

I play on different sides of town.

I'm not used to losing sleep.

I'm used to playing up there at Coupe de Ville's and having a train come right through when I'm singing.

So that's some serious decibel noise.

I also live out in Fleuranda County and my dogs can't even go in the backyard and also have issues out there but you can't run away from noise no matter what you do.

I've played at Mr. Jim, the Bell Real, I play over at the University of Virginia, I play everywhere.

When you pass these ordinances, it's going to affect all of Charlottesville.

I probably won't have a job.

So it's going to close it down.

It's going to close down one of the best things about this town is the music scene.

Jamie Dyer I'm Jamie Dyer.

I own a guitar.

I've been playing music in Charlottesville for as long as I've been here and I started making a little money at it last week.

So, seriously.

This town's music scene is one of a kind.

There is no other music scene like the music scene that exists in this town.

And I would like to say the residents who are bothered by music, I've been at fault.

Musicians and residents should be working this out because we all live here.

The city and club owners have been duking it out and it ain't working.

Whatever you guys are doing isn't working.

So the people that live here were the ones that have to do it.

That makes sense to me.

I'm Jamal Milner.

I'm a musician, I'm a composer, I'm an educator, I'm an audio engineer.

And so all of those things would be, I guess, highly affected by the proposed city-wide noise ordinance.

I'm not even getting into the Belmont aspect.

That's exceptionally oppressive.

55 dB is what I'm doing right now.

I'm speaking, I bet you.

Noise meter, guys, what am I saying?

How much?

60.

60 dB.

I can sleep at a show.

If it's boring, I'd go to a metal show and pass out.

This is an individual problem for individuals.

They also make noise-canceling headphones.

If I lived next to something, it drove me crazy.

I'd get my 90 bucks out and get some Bose noise-canceling headphones.

They would make your life totally clean.

Or maybe Belmont.

You guys should invest in noise-canceling headphones for these four or five people.

There's 500 bucks for you.

They can put them on.

They will not hear.

This is their technological solutions.

Also, with a 55 dB ordinance, you can't be at the two feet from this person's house.

Noise, sounds, different frequencies travel at different rates and at different distances.

and also, I would also, although we had a little engineer argument back there, I think the gear you guys use is improper and cheap and isn't going to actually do the job right.

You would need a meter that showed the hole of audio instead of a peak audio.

I don't care what Radio Shack says for 200 bucks that you could give me.

Like a radar detector, say I went to buy a radar gun for the cops for 10 bucks from Radio Shack.

This is the equivalent for us in our business.

Chris Munson My name is Chris Munson.

I'd like to start off by asking Mr. Jerry Mallory to raise his hand every time the volume in this room goes over 55 decibels.

I've lived here for over 30 years.

I've been a nightclub owner, an audio engineer, and currently a booking agent.

I'd like to address several issues.

First of which is the limit of 55 decibels being very unreasonable in a matter of many situations.

A car or a conversation on the street could easily hit that level and therefore in order to pass this law you would have to cite every person that talked and drove down the street.

I'd also like to address the issue of equal enforcement including the downtown mall, the corner area,

and the University area.

If you address the noise level of 55 decibels, you would have to include night football games, concerts at the stadium, concerts at the pavilion.

Also, I'd like to bring up the point that in this time of economic difficulty for so many people, this will cause business closings, it will cause unemployment to go up, it will cause loss of tax revenue for the city.

And also, in closing, I would like to note

on the reverse side of your agenda.

Number four, the City Council vision, partnership and promotion of festivals, venues and events so that all may have opportunities to be part of this thriving arts, cultural and entertainment scene.

It seems to me that this will inflict upon the Council's vision themselves.

Jerry Mallory Hello, I'm Jerry Mallory.

I live on Highland Avenue and I've been measuring the entire conversation so far.

Basically, I just want everybody to be quiet for a second.

Nobody make a sound.

I just want to get a reference.

That's 55 dB.

With nobody over there, that's 55 dB right there.

Essentially, during the basic conversation, I've been getting on an average of about 61 to actually up to about 79 on the average.

So I just wanted to kind of point that out as far as that goes.

I have a sound company, so basically that is, I make noise.

You know, other bands and everything, I make noise.

So, and essentially that is kind of my livelihood, you know, quite a bit of my livelihood right now, the way the recession and everything was going.

55 dB, I've actually taken some measurements outside, just walking just down the mall with just the ambient noise and that's about 61 dB.

The 55 is just way too unreasonable.

I mean that's just basically you'd have to almost like put a bag over the top of the entire city and if two people are sitting out, I mean if you're going to enforce this thing, you're going to have two people sitting on their porch and everything having a conversation and then you're going to have to have the noise police come up here.

I do play with Benny, I am a bass player.

In some cases I think I have heard that in some cases that bass might be a little bit more

of problematic than, let's say, than regular music because it does have a tendency to resonate against a building.

In some cases, yeah, and I have to admit sometimes I do get carried away with it, as I'm sure some of these other guys in the room that are also bass players have probably also done it too.

You feel it, it makes you want to get up and dance, okay?

That's the idea.

Music basically makes you feel good.

The biggest issue is that I have as far as that goes.

In some cases, in terms of some buildings, there is technology out there.

Just have to kind of look for it in terms of if

I've never been inside Bell Rio, I'm sorry, never been in there, but I have heard in some cases maybe to kind of narrow it down, some people said that the base kind of rumbles because possibly the building maybe shakes a little bit.

I don't know.

I can't speak that specifically because like I said I've never been there.

But being kind of in the sound business and kind of just researching all that stuff, there is technology actually out there.

and actually some of it's pretty reasonable to actually try to find that, isolate that and actually probably to eliminate it.

I mean it could, there's, you know, there are these things that some of the people that might, you know, that tune, that set up rooms or high end stereos, there's a company called Tube Traps that actually makes kind of anti-resonating filters, like some of these wall panels and everything on the side of the walls.

Okay, alright, cool.

Okay, well basically I just want to, my main emphasis was right now 55 dB is just, that's just unrealistic.

Like I said, right now, just laying this thing here, this is 70 dB at this thing, you know, right now at the level that I'm talking at.

I'm having a hard time reading the first name, Falsini.

My name is Joe Falsini.

I live at 1013 Locust Avenue.

I'm the owner of Magnus Music LLC, booking agency and local promoter here in town.

The reason I'm here is to oppose the ruling of the noise ordinance from lowering it to 55 dB from 75 dB

Citywide.

I don't know what's going on in Belmont, but I'll let you guys decide that on your own.

But I know that if you were to extend or to create a 55 dB rule, it would severely impact the music scene in this city, which does draw a lot of revenue or pull in a lot of revenue for a lot of us here, as you've seen here in the audience.

There's a lot of musicians, a lot of music fans, and a lot of business owners that would be affected.

I found out just recently that this Citywide Ordinance, I read it on Wednesday's issue of the Daily Progress.

It seemed like Belmont was on Tuesday and then Wednesday it went Citywide.

55 dB, as you've heard, is very, very low.

I remember when you guys dropped it down to 75 dB and we were doing shows on Mona Loco's patio, for example,

and the police would show up and they'd hold a DB meter and it would be like 81 across the street, which would at least allow for us to turn the music down and not end the party.

We could lower it to 75, the police would be like, turn it down.

If they were to come up to us and say, you're at 81, the reader says 50, you know, the law is 55, that'd be the end of the party.

You'd have however many people in that location being told that the music's over, a lot of oohing and aahing and moaning and a lot of upset people because one person made a phone call.

Let's see, for many years this city, Charlottesville, has been able to boast as having a music scene which is not something very easily attainable.

Cities like Austin, Seattle, Burlington, Vermont, those places are small, well, only Burlington is small, but Austin and Seattle got that way because they encourage music.

I don't want to ramble on here, but

It's not very easy to start a music scene and if you have one, it's good to have because it obviously brings people to town.

Music is started in basements, right, by musicians.

Then if they stick with it, they go to colleges and they study it and then they go to small venues like Maya or Coupe de Ville and they play it and they start to develop followings.

After a while, their followings might get bigger and then they'll go to other places like say, you know, the Southern

or eventually maybe the Jefferson, and if they got even more popular they go to the Charlottesville Pavilion, they go to the JPJ, eventually they might be known on a national level.

In order for this to grow and grow and grow, we shouldn't shut down the musician at the beginning.

I mean 55 dB you could shut down somebody practicing in a basement, much less on a patio, Maya for example.

At the top of the sphere we have Red Light Management and Starr Hill Presents and Korn Capshaw who made this city famous because of Dave Matthews 30 some years ago or so I think a lot of musicians that when they play here they have that in the back of their minds they think that if they grow and they grow at some point they realize that hey maybe Korn might notice and he might pluck me out of obscurity and catapult me to the top of the national level

which he's done with Parachute, he's done with Sons of Bill recently, local bands that started on a local level that had followings that required starting in places like Starr Hill's cocktail lounge which only held like 200 capacity, moving up to Starr Hill's main stage, moving on to Charlottesville Pavilion, selling out the Jefferson last November for example, now touring all over the nation, their name is known by people all over the country

So there's musicians out here in Charlottesville and they are not known right now.

And they could be known.

And by knocking it down to 55 dB is a strike against that sort of thing happening again and again and again.

Okay?

I certainly have two more people that have signed up, so I'm going to call on the last two and if there are any other publics, there's another opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting.

Ma'am, ma'am, gentlemen, I'm Bob Fenwick, I live at 901 East Jefferson Street.

Several weeks ago I spoke on the 50 year water plan and I concentrated on one aspect of that, a very important aspect, the water demand figures for our community now and in the future.

And how these are affected by water conservation measures and I showed several water saving devices.

Several days later, Gary O'Connor reminded me that the city has a water conservation program, a kit that is free of charge to our citizens.

This little bag and other conservation measures could play a very big role in our community in saving literally hundreds of millions of dollars on a dam and a pipeline that might not be needed for generations.

Any resident can go into City Hall and ask for the water conservation kit.

And this is what they will get.

And I know you all know about this.

It has a shower head, two aerators, what's called a toilet tummy, which is like that brick we used to put in our tank to take up space in the toilet.

And it has a dye kit.

There are illustrated directions that almost anybody, well that some of us can follow.

I've heard some people get this kit and don't know how to put this installation in.

So on SevilleCitizen.com in a couple weeks there will be a video for the people in the city to show how simple it is to use this kit and start on the water conservation bandwagon.

Now the nature of your job is such that you hear about what doesn't work on a regular basis.

Every two weeks, people come in here and tell you what doesn't work.

This works.

It saves money and it saves water.

Last time I checked my water bill, it was about a penny a gallon, which is not much for one person, but when you translate it across a city and across a county,

It makes a huge difference and it makes a huge difference on the water demand figures that we've been talking about.

Now those of us who stand up in public and make our case for more accurate planning figures or make the case for dredging, challenge the dam proponents to do the same.

Stand up here in public and make your case.

If we are wrong, tell us how we are wrong.

Show the community how dredging can go on across Virginia, indeed close to Charlottesville, but not in the Rivanna Reservoir.

Lake of the Woods, which is in Orange County, dredged.

Lake Monticello, which is in Fluvanna County, is dredging now.

But apparently there is something unique about the Rivanna Reservoir that prevents us from dredging there.

What is it?

So I would urge the damned proponents to have this discussion prior to any decisions, not in back rooms without citizen participation and with faulty and incomplete water demand and financial figures, but in full view with public treatment.

That's when the public good will be served and that's when the best decision will be reached.

Thank you.

Is that your bike outside, Kevin?

Yes, it is.

Yes, it's going to be called Rodno.

but not that cool.

Counselors, good to see you all again this evening.

I was at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce several weeks ago, interesting meeting, on the topic of water supply.

and not as interesting as this meeting by the way or this good looking crowd but it was alright for lunch, they fed us.

And I'm sorry that the mayor's not here because he really gave a great presentation about the city's plans for water supply and in particular laid out a very solid set of business reasons why it makes sense to revisit some of the fundamental assumptions behind the current plan.

and in particular we now know that the cost of building this new dam, which the city has been planning to do for some time, has probably tripled in price from what it was originally thought to be.

The pipeline that would fill that dam is now nothing but a distant pipe dream.

The right of way, which was supposedly going to be along the 29 bypass, is now anybody's guess where that might or might not happen.

And of course, as we found out relatively recently, dredging looks like it will really be a fraction of what we were originally told

by a consultant that it would cost, it's not going to be a 250 million dollar project by a long shot, probably more like a 20 to 30 million dollar project.

And I think Dave laid out all of that very well.

Some of the other speakers, though, had some other interesting points that maybe weren't as presented as well.

I brought a few charts to give you.

One of them, let me hand this to you.

This is a chart.

You've seen some of it before.

The old supply and demand curve.

You see projected demand going up, up, up.

That's this blue arrow here.

And you see the red arrow.

That's our supply going down, down, down.

This is the chart that Rivanna's been scaring us with now for about eight years.

and it was shown by Charlottesville Tomorrow what they drew on here was something new which was informative I think which is to show what the actual demand is not the projected demand which is really imaginary demand but this is what we're really doing we're going down which is great for this community we have been saving water

All of the water savings that this community has done themselves has amounted to the same as if the city had built a new half billion gallon reservoir.

So I think this community really is to be applauded for saving water.

And as Mr. Fenwick said, there's a lot of easy ways to save water.

A rainbow in the backyard is another one.

That was an easy one for me.

I haven't even done the water saving kit yet.

But just using a rain barrel was a huge help with the garden.

So here's the question, if you're a business, and ten years ago you thought the man was going up up up like that,

and you say oh we got to spend hundreds of millions of dollars but then 10 years later you're looking well it's not really going up up up it's really going down down down down like that.

What are you going to do?

If you were in the horse and buggy business right before Ford started making the Model T you might think look at this demand we need to start buying some wagon wheels and that's essentially the position I think you all are in right now.

But you have to be realistic about where demand is going.

I brought a couple of other variations on that chart showing this is what happens if you dredge.

This is what happens if you

add 13 feet to the dam, which is about as high as you can go without getting into 64.

Yes.

But what you can see is that just dredging alone gets us about two and a half mgd right away, right now, and maintaining it keeps that.

So we can go much more water than we have right now, extending the dam even more than that,

And if you look at what demand is really doing, not this imaginary line, but what it's really doing, we'll have plenty of water for the foreseeable future.

I do want to say on this RFP that's coming up, there's a couple of aspects of that.

If you're going to look at taking the dam up to 13 feet,

Look at just the repair because the repair, that's what you are responsible for.

That's what maintaining existing infrastructure.

That's what city is responsible for.

If the county wants to build a 45 foot dam and pump it from wherever they want, they can pump it from the James River if they want.

They can pay for it too.

Charlottesville citizens, what we need to do is pay for half of that repair.

The other thing to look at in that RFP is read between the lines of that RFP.

It should note that there was a feasibility of a repair study done in 2003.

If you look at the RFP, it seems to say we the city don't really want to do this.

You need to make it an RFP that looks like the issuing entity really wants to get the job done.

Engineers can read an RFP and kind of read between the lines as to what needs to be happening.

At that chamber meeting, Tom Frederick was asked, why hasn't the reservoir been dredged in 42 years?

And the answer he gave was, well, when I got here, there was a lot of infrastructure that hadn't been maintained.

That's not an answer.

That's just an observation.

The fact is, the reservoir has not been

maintained for 42 years.

Perfect timing.

I'll take it, Gander.

I know that we're going to have a full discussion later and I hope that you all will stay about the noise ordinance, but I just wanted to address a couple quick things that I think may be some misconceptions about the noise ordinance.

One is that the city does have a noise ordinance.

In residential neighborhoods, we already have an ordinance calling for a 55 decibel level limit.

And so that's been in place for years, so I don't know if everybody knows that.

So what we're doing is not the Straconian thing, it's something that already exists in residential areas.

This Belmont neighborhood, some people are saying, is a residential neighborhood, and so what we're discussing tonight is whether to apply that same residential regulation to this particular neighborhood.

So there's been some talk about possibly making it citywide, you know, I don't

That was on the thing, but I think what we've been talking about for the most part so far has been the Belmont difference in zoning.

So that's what we're talking about is the effect on residents.

The other thing is that when they measure decibel levels, it measures on property lines of residents.

It's not the noise in your club.

It's not the amount of noise that's on the patio of your club.

And so if it's a loud, kind of a full-voice conversation,

Just imagine sleeping while someone is standing right outside your door having a full voice conversation at one in the morning.

So that's the sort of noise that we really are looking at stopping in the middle of the night.

So just a little bit of clarification.

The other is that, yes, the water kit.

I got one I guess last year, the year before.

They're great.

Actually, our water bill went down.

We're going to be discussing more about the noise issues when we talk about the ordinance, but there was a lot of

What became clear was the importance of, it's evolved at this point because we did lose that sense of community and being able to talk to each other.

There was a statement about musicians and residents being able to sit down together.

We're hoping that we can bring some resolution to this.

Also,

I appreciate the education that Mrs. Fenwick provided with the kit because it really is easy to use and again just to echo that the city has done a lot to conserve water and we are in a different place than we were before.

and I don't know if you'll be able to stick around, Kevin, for after we have the conversation about the RFP, but as always, it's good hearing from you, but we have more water than we did sand in the hourglass, so we'll just have to wait to hear from you.

If there aren't any other comments from council, I'm going to proceed with the agenda.

I did fail to mention under the announcements that items 2

On the consent agenda, there's item F which relates to item 2 and 3.

Yes.

I was going to, you must have been reading my mind.

Because I was going to mention that after the consent agenda has been read, item F we will remove and address that at the city council meeting in March.

Any other comments from council?

The consent agenda

Item F has been removed.

So the first item are the minutes of January 19th.

Item B is the appropriation $11,500, the Piedmont Housing Alliance loan payoff.

This is a second of two readings.

Third item is an appropriation for $38,063 youth internship program grant.

The second of two readings, item D, an appropriation for $60,000 Cherry Hill subdivision sidewalk contribution.

The first of two readings, item E, appropriation for $1,380.

Public Access TV registration fees, first of two readings.

Item F, authorizing the purchase of land on 4th Street, is being moved to the March 1st agenda with additional information.

Item G, resolution except extension of Raymond Road into the city system, the first of one reading.

Item H, resolution appointment of acting city manager, the first of one reading.

Item I, an Ordinance, Zoning Text Amendment regarding Veterinary Clinics in Kindles and Highway Mixed Use Districts, the second of two readings.

Item J, an Ordinance Option for Family Health Care Coverage for City Retirees, the first of two readings.

and the final item on the consent agenda is item K, the ordinance on conservation easement to the nature conservancy across city-owned lands near Brandywine Grove and through Greenbrier Park, the second of two readings.

No, no, not at all.

Mark, no, April 1st?

April 15th.

April 15th.

13th.

13th, just before tax day.

Good evening.

Make sure I've got my papers realigned here so I'm talking about the right thing.

We just wanted to give you an update since we had met back in June, July when there were several issues raised about Belmont and we were asked to meet with the neighborhood and study how we could make improvements to the Belmont.

neighborhood commercial district and the residential areas around it.

And we've been doing that.

We've met with the neighborhood several times.

I think most of y'all came to the last meeting we had over at City Space.

It was very well attended.

And we've really been talking about three issues with the neighborhood since we started the process.

The first being noise, and I won't dwell on that because we've got the agenda item a little bit later to talk about noise.

The second were some zoning changes that

they ask us to take a look at to really to try to make this area more of a neighborhood commercial zone and take out some of the things that that might not be appropriate in a neighborhood commercial setting.

You initiated the study of that for the Planning Commission a couple of meetings ago.

Planning Commission has had one work session and they're having a public hearing on those changes at their March meeting and then you'll be getting that sometime hopefully in the first part of April, maybe your first meeting in April to look at.

We are

really looking at making some very minor changes and what we found as a result of studying the noise ordinance in particular was that our definitions of restaurant music hall and dance hall or music hall needed to be updated because they may be the source of one of the problems, some of the problems we have and so that's really the most substantive change that we're going to be looking at making there and again they'll be on the March Planning Commission agenda for public hearing

We also took a look at physical changes as it related to traffic and pedestrian issues.

One of the things we heard loud and clear from the neighborhood was they were concerned about the traffic that was cutting through and it was going fairly fast as it went through the commercial area.

And we presented a draft plan at the meeting at City Space that was very well received by the neighborhood that would tee up

two of the intersections, widen the sidewalks a little bit, add some bicycle racks and some lighting and crosswalks and not major changes but some that would make a pretty substantial difference we think in the way people walk through the area and that vehicles interacted with the pedestrians.

So the understandings we left the meeting was that we've got $200,000 in the draft CIP for implementation of

a part of that we don't know how much it will do until we do an actual plan but if you approve the CIP then we would get actual design going for that to get some construction documents meet again with the neighborhood to make sure everybody was on the same page and then proceed sometime hopefully in the fall on construction and making those physical changes

if you agreed.

So that's really where we are.

We've been looking at the neighborhood and again in noise zoning changes and physical changes and all three of those are progressing at this point.

I have one question.

There was one thing in the original plan in that meeting that you had in city space where some of the residents were asking about plantings and if there was going to be green

At this point, no sir.

It's just so cost prohibitive that we haven't even, and the neighborhood didn't ask for that.

One thing we are doing is we've gone ahead and we're changing out all the cobra head lights in that area to the LED lights which will change drastically the light and the color of the light and I think we'll make a vast improvement there when those go in.

But we haven't, really haven't gotten into undergrounding utilities.

It was after that meeting that I did go on a ride along with the police.

specifically to be a part of the Belmont neighborhood between midnight and 3 a.m. And I really just want to commend Officer Jones for his patience with all the questions that I had.

I must admit that I probably need to get out more because I was really struck by the level of activity in our city between midnight and 3am and the kinds of things that people probably deemed normal for the middle of the night and how some people were out at 2 in the morning like it was 2 in the afternoon

But it also gave me a different perspective of life in the neighborhood and being a resident in the neighborhood while there are other things taking place.

And I also noticed that there was even a property owner that had sustained some damage.

from people coming into the neighborhood.

And it just goes back to what was said before about our sense of community and just really building relationships and how there was something that was damaged but not even a note was left to acknowledge that there was damage to the property.

So I'm hoping that as we get through this process we'll be able to come to resolution with some things.

that as we recognize that there are issues that we'll begin to address them and with the neighbors that we did hear from

I did appreciate their perspective and I mentioned before that I don't tweet, Twitter or Face, so having just an old school email of what was going on was really helpful.

But it's also been helpful to hear from my businesses also, so we have to be able to figure out what that balance is going to be.

I might as well.

Okay.

And Mr. Jones is going to join me, or was going to join me.

Let me just, as we wait for it, or as you get started, just one thing I just want to clarify is this is a report.

and my very first line was going to be, this is the beginning of a conversation that we want to have.

And just as background, this is an item that was raised by a couple of council members and we have taken time to do some research into what other communities do in regards to neighborhood advocacy.

It's been an issue that's been discussed by some of our neighborhood folks for a long time.

It was raised by a couple of councilors and so

We decided to take a look and I'm just going to go through the issues and then Maurice is going to get up and speak to a couple of the issues and we're going to tag team a little bit here but the first item was the question of establishing a full-time neighborhood advocate position that would have some really the

the role to strengthen the voice and participation of neighborhoods in decisions that affect their lives.

And we looked at that and looked at how a number of communities do it and basically we saw three alternatives.

If that's something that the council desired to do and you wanted to add that type of position, you could either do it in the city manager's office working with our assistant city manager who is charged with working with neighborhoods and be in another position there reporting to the assistant city manager quite possibly.

You can look at putting that position in neighborhood development services and reorganizing the department or one of the other alternative was to recreate the position of city clerk possibly to provide the service.

No matter what though, we felt in looking at the other communities that basically the duties of this type position would include coordination of activities with the neighborhoods.

Things such as maintaining neighborhood contacts, keeping neighborhood websites up to date, other social networking, maybe a neighborhood newsletter, anything for informing the neighborhoods and getting them information and attendance at a large number of neighborhood meetings.

We thought that one of the goals might be to recruit and encourage volunteers to organize and serve the neighborhoods.

And again, there's many ways to do that.

This position could manage the Neighborhood Leadership Institute, which is a training mechanism for neighborhood leaders and a way to get them involved.

Service an organizer to coordinate the efforts of citizens.

And then we envisioned that as this role would grow, there'd be other things that we would find and other ways to, other duties for this person.

The goals of the program, I think that we looked at Portland as one example.

We also looked at several and information was attached on those that are in Virginia.

But if you look at Portland and James City County, they probably articulated the goals of the program better than any.

Their suggestions are to increase the number and diversity of people involved.

and who are involved in volunteering their communities and neighborhoods to strengthen neighborhood and community capacity to build identity skills, relationships, and partnerships, provide accurate information and responsive and effective services to community members, empower citizens through training, information sharing, and use of resources, and facilitate linkages between neighbors and the government.

So I think we've got some things to build on if you want to go that route, looking at what other communities have done.

Thank you, Jim.

And first I'd like to also thank Council for the honor that you've bestowed on me as Acting City Manager come April 13th.

I look forward to working closely with you and the staff and our residents to help guide Charlottesville during this very important transitional period in the history of our city.

As for improving neighborhood advocacy, I believe we've taken some pretty important steps forward in the last couple of years to help address some of the issues that we're facing in some of our neighborhoods, but more work can be done.

In a few weeks we'll be discussing how we can get the city council more involved with meetings in our community that would be neighborhood based, how our staff can be involved with those,

and what it would take to attract as many people to these meetings as possible while also making sure that they're productive meetings.

So we'll be coming back to you on that very specific issue in the next few weeks or so.

As you know, we have a number of very active neighborhood associations in our community.

They are well informed about city issues and we communicate with them on a regular basis, while other associations are rather dormant at this point.

We believe it is vitally important for those associations to be re-energized and re-engaged.

and we believe a neighborhood advocate working with the city manager's office and with other city staff and residents could help bring some of those associations back to life and they're needed here in our community.

But we also need to be very strategic in our approach to this as well and we need to look for unique ways to bring folks to the table and we certainly hope that as this discussion continues

with the City Council and with our neighborhoods, that we will find unique ways to bring people to the table and bring these associations back to life.

Some suggestions have been made to help with doing just that.

Funding for annual mailings, co-sponsoring block parties for the neighborhoods to bring people together in social settings.

and door-to-door canvassing with volunteers.

We believe that those are some of the issues or some of the ways in which we can address bringing some of these neighborhood associations back to life.

We also hope to strengthen our partnership with the Alliance of Neighborhoods.

In fact, their president, Jack Brown, will be speaking at our first class of NLI next week, so we hope the Alliance and city staff can work closely together to help communicate and connect with some of our neighborhood associations to make them stronger.

There has been some discussion about using the web to better communicate with our neighborhoods.

We've made some adjustments to our website, especially in terms of streamlining some of the responsibilities for posting on the sites.

We have a large amount of very helpful information, but it's not always easy to find on our website, so we're working on that as well.

There are plans underway to make this happen in phases over the next few months or so, so we see that as a way to reconnect with our

our neighborhood associations and provide as much information to them as possible.

And so there are a number of different ways that we think that this neighborhood advocate could help us improve our communication and interaction with the neighborhood associations.

We see this person

thinking about neighborhoods on a daily basis and making contact with them on a regular basis attending neighborhood associations and being out front on very important issues here in the city and also within our neighborhoods.

As Jim mentioned, this is the beginning of a conversation.

One of the things that we'd like to talk to you about tonight and in the coming days would be the best ways to get our neighborhood associations involved with this discussion about a neighborhood advocate or other ways that we can improve the ties between city government and the neighborhood associations.

So we'd like to solicit their ideas, contact them over the next couple of weeks or so,

and maybe go to their neighborhood association meetings and talk about what this advocate could do for them as well.

We do believe that if you created this position that the cost would be somewhere for a position with all the benefits and salaries and those sorts of things between $50,000 and $70,000.

We do have a position in neighborhood development services that we have held vacant until you have an opportunity to make a decision about this so you wouldn't have to create a position.

You would be able to move it and put it wherever you felt appropriate

for that position.

So that is there and again it would not be adding an FTE, it would be using one that already exists.

I have lots of questions but the one I just wanted to clarify from what you just said, I think Collette Hall is still here, she had the question if a

So when the position is open in NDS, what you're saying is that that doesn't necessarily have to mean that that person would work in NDS.

Right.

Yes.

Sure.

Well, we plan to, as I mentioned earlier, we plan to have this discussion tonight to kind of gauge where city council is on this issue and to see if we're heading in the right direction.

From there we will send an email out to all the neighborhood associations detailing what conversation took place this evening and finding different ways to get feedback from them and from their residents.

and so hopefully when we have that information we'll come back to council pretty soon with what we're able to compile.

I just wanted, if you could comment on, because you're not starting from the very beginning, what are some of the things that you've accomplished along the way?

Well, over the last couple of years, we've done a lot based on different neighborhoods.

I think we've been very responsive to some of the

the needs, for instance, in Fifeville, traffic calming measures that have been put into place.

We conducted a comprehensive traffic study with the folks in Neighborhood Development Services, had a very successful meeting about a month and a half ago or so, and we're moving forward with that, lighting issues in various neighborhoods, including Fifeville.

So there are a lot of little issues that we've been taking care of from a neighborhood perspective, but we believe that in order to really invigorate

a number of our neighborhood associations.

More focus needs to be put on the associations on a regular basis and on the neighborhoods on a regular basis.

And help coordinate the response as well.

Just one more comment.

This is just a report, so we're just in the beginning phase of creating this

What can people do in the meantime?

Sure.

I think there are a number of ways they can communicate with us.

They can work through their planners and neighborhood development service and touch base with them.

They can come to us in the city manager's office.

They can call me at 970-3115 or email me at mjones at charlottesville.org.

to begin discussions about whatever their issues may be.

We may not be able to answer their questions immediately, and we may not be able to immediately implement some of their needs, but we could begin the discussion.

Because I think one of the things that folks maybe at times don't understand is that it takes time to implement some of these projects.

And for instance, the traffic calming issues in Fifeville.

I have a couple of comments, but I don't know if there's other questions.

I have three comments.

One is I do think that the city is just going to continue to become denser and issues of development and noise are going to continue to grow and I think that having a position like this would be a good thing.

But having said that, I also

on this issue.

Just like all the others, I have concerns about the budget and whether there's an existing position that could be used for this or whether there's not, there's still a cost to this position.

So I think we should be cautious about moving ahead until it's really clear what the budget picture for the next year looks at.

Mr. Szakos sort of painted the bleak picture we face in the state legislature earlier.

And then finally, I think that if we do decide that we have to hold this position open

I think that we should not frame it too clearly considering that we'll be appointing a new city manager during the course of this coming year.

I want to thank you for bringing this to us today.

Over the past year, I and Mayor Norris spent a lot of time in house parties around the city talking to neighborhood leaders.

We had a couple of meetings with various neighborhood leaders to try to figure out what people were talking about needing from the city.

I think a lot of people felt really good about a lot of things in Charlottesville and yet there was this sort of pervasive sense that

you know sometimes there was just it was hard to get through hard to figure out how to communicate how to keep track of things who was really paying attention to the needs of people at the neighborhood level and so during the course of that we developed a lot of these proposals and they're just that they're proposals they're not an end product at all but I just I really am happy that there's responsiveness and that we're now getting to a point where we can bring the community in to discuss it at a broader level because this was just you know maybe you know

I also think this is an opportunity to look at the balance between advocacy and accountability

and as we move through this process, this has had the staff explore how communication can change, how accountability can change, how we can just get better at communicating with our constituents overall.

Yeah.

Can I ask just a real quick question of counsel?

At what point would you like to see us come back?

Do people agree with Dr. Brown's comment?

In response, David, to your comment, I think that I would love to see us go forward because I think that yes, the city manager should have a piece in this, but I think that it's the community that is already here that sort of is going to know what the needs are and so I think we can have the

You know, possibly the city manager implement that, I don't know, but I'd rather move forward now and start shaping it, maybe not set it in stone.

And again, I'm going to echo again the importance of accountability.

I'd be interested over the next three months, in the same way that we have a tracking sheet, if there's a way to develop a tracking sheet for staff when they're called upon or when issues come up, to see how

Right.

Thanks.

The next item on the agenda is the RFP for raising the existing Lower Ragged Mountain Dam.

Vice Mayor and Council, I want to give you a brief overview of the RFP that Council requested staff develop to engage an engineering firm to look at the feasibility of raising the existing Ragged Mountain Dam by 13 feet.

We're looking for your input to enhance this request for proposals.

I might add, I know Council's already received some comments from citizens and I'll try to

proposed some modifications as I go through it that may address some of those comments you've gotten over the last few days.

The background information is pretty basic.

It's actually gleaned from some information from Ivana based on the background, the history of the existing Ragged Mountain Dam Reservoir system that includes two dams, the Upper Ragged Mountain Dam and the Lower Ragged Mountain Dam.

I know there was a comment that council received where there was some concern about some language in the

regarding the Lower Ragged Mountain Dam.

And I want to add, suggest some additional language that may clarify that, or we can choose to delete that language.

But basically, there are no known provisions to remove water from the base of the Lower Ragged Mountain Dam.

And that is, there's just no indication

So if you look at standard dam theory, this can cause means of uplift forces that can act on the bottom part of the dam and then there exists a risk of the sliding failure along sheer plains in the base of the dam.

So I was going to suggest adding some language that we can

This means the uplift forces can act on the bottom of the dam and therefore there exists a risk of sliding... Where precisely are you?

It's in the third paragraph of the background.

Okay.

And I've added a little section to that.

Thank you for stopping me.

But I know the comment was made about there are no known provisions to remove water from the base of the dam.

I was going to add some language that this means that uplift forces could act on the bottom of the dam and then proceed with and therefore there exists a risk of sliding failure.

You could either continue with it or really, since this is kind of standard dam theory, you could even end the paragraph with there are no known provisions to remove water from the base of the Lower Ragon Mountain Dam and an engineering firm will

will also draw the same conclusion that's in the next sentence.

I know that there was special attention, we list some background information that Rivanna has available based on numerous studies they've done in the past several years.

I'm making a suggestion that we put these in chronological order where we go from the 1912 study by

I think it's various authors, it's correspondence that they collected from 1912 and 1913 and I started off with that and then you get moved to the 1978 Michael Baker study they had completed on the hydrology and hydraulics.

I've also added, it was pointed out to me in the comments that you folks received, I had admitted the feasibility study for upgrading the Ragged Mountain dams dated February 28, 2003 by Gannett Fleming

and along with that we're adding the supplemental analysis for upgrading the Ragon Mountain Dam, stated October 31st, 2003 by Gannett Fleming and along with that it also needs to be added.

The safe yield study that was completed in January 2004 by Gannett Fleming also has some valuable background information on these dams and I'm adding that as well.

In addition to that, most of these background information was actually taken from some background materials that Rivanna developed for City Council.

It was in a package that was dated May 6th through 2008.

It's kind of in a concise package and I also am adding that package as a background information as well and calling it Community Water Supply Background Materials for May 6th, 2008 City Council Work Session.

And that was prepared by Rivanna.

You also had some comments that, some concerns about the ITRT report dated 2009 and the Schnabel Letter Report dated 2008.

We can delete those and it won't have any impact.

In the scope of services, we try to make sure that the emphasis is on looking at

the feasibility of raising the existing lower rack and mountain dam by 13 feet.

But what if they can't quite get 13 feet?

We thought, well, we ought to have something that they hit all the major points from a feasibility standpoint where we added that the existing structure can be raised to any degree.

whether an increase of 13 feet could be an intermediate step to raising it above that.

You know, you just, you never know.

It could be feasible, it might not be feasible.

I also thought, right off, it needs to be emphasized, the capability of meeting the current Virginia Dam safety and pounding structure regulations is very important and that has to be a point right up front that needs to be met.

because the regulations are outlined online and the Virginia Dam Safety has certain regulations that professional engineers go by to make sure that their studies meet those requirements.

I know one of the comments Council had was, and I've added this language as number seven in part A, with no increase in height

what improvements, if any, to the dam structure slash spillway would allow the current structure to meet Virginia dam safety impounding structure regulations.

So that way, if it's not feasible to raise the dam by 13 feet and it is feasible to repair the dam, we will also have that investigated.

With no increase in height, what improvements, if any, to the dam structure slash spillway would allow the current structure to meet Virginia Dam Safety and Pounding Structures Regulation?

We also provided some guidelines into the approach for the engineers to follow.

The emphasis should obviously be on the geotechnical exploration and data report, but we want the engineers to feel

once they propose to give us their thoughts and how this would be feasible on their approach because that's really what a portion of the proposal will be weighed, which is the reason the language but not be limited to the following.

The rest of the language is somewhat boilerplate even though we do ask that they be experienced obviously

dam safety, dam engineering, and the officers have to have that experience.

Actually, the rest of the RFP is pretty boilerplate from purchasing and it's standard language that we use when we look to rate the selection of the proposal once it comes in.

Yes, the changes you made are good ones.

So this is a potentially a couple hundred thousand dollar study that we'd be asking

Proposals will not come with a price tag.

There'll be no place attached to the proposals.

Well, we do ask for cost in the proposal, but because it's professional services, we don't necessarily rate it by cost, but we figure it minimizes another step by having them give us a cost after we make the selection.

So it's a combination of what Mr. Huja said and what I said, okay?

Yes, exactly.

And currently we have a study that we're paying for to assess the feasibility of dredging the South Fork Reservoir.

Do you?

I think one thing, and I'm sitting here going, I think we owe you a list of all the studies

and the current estimated cost.

And some of them have cost shares.

One of the comments we received from Dee Dee Smith, which I agree with, is that whether it made sense to proceed with this request until we know what the previous studies we've done say, because they might have some bearing on whether we want to move forward

with whichever option we're asking people to investigate.

So I'd kind of like to see us, I know a lot of work's been going on to this, actually I made this comment last time too, but I'd like to see us not move forward until we've had results of the dredging study so we not have two studies going on out there that might in some way or another impact each other.

I think there's a limit you get into.

I don't remember the date, I'm looking at Judy or Lauren.

There's an interim report on dredging in a month?

Yes.

So if we put this out, let me suggest a different approach, it still puts it to council, if you put this out,

to see what's out there, what it would cost.

Some parts of this you're going to need absolutely in the decision process.

And then see where the dredging study is.

You can revisit everything and haven't lost time.

If we wait till that comes back or you wait till the full dredging study's back, we're into 2011.

And I think you start taking options away from city council.

I don't think you have anything to lose by going through this process except some staff time.

I actually just got a text message from him.

He'll be here at nine.

Did he text you a question?

Are you close?

Because I just wanted to know if we should wait a couple minutes if he was almost here, but he's not quite almost here.

I'm actually

In

If we get, say, four bids on this RFP, are we obliged to take one?

And it's possible to change the scope that's not as large as this.

I mean, this is anticipating you're literally going to build something on top of the dam and they've got to do all the engineering work to get to that.

There's some pieces of this like what Lauren had recommended be added about

improvements or repairs to meet the dam safety.

I think I've heard council, a number of people in the community say, we want to know that.

Do you want us to bring that back to council at a meeting to give you a report?

I think, when's the quarterly update come from Rivanna?

March?

I appreciate the changes that you made based on some of the comments that you received and I was just wondering if it's possible to integrate into the RFP language that there will be pending

Does that meet the need?

Are you looking to that being incorporated in their proposal somehow?

Unless I'm missing something pretty to the strength issues.

We may become alternatives in the overall plan, but I don't think there's any connection directly.

If I understand the direction, you want to put it right out front that

This is dependent on the dredging study?

The dredging study will also be a variable.

Right.

Maybe we should add it in D, you know, because we say that the scope of project may increase or decrease as work proceeds.

Is there anything in here that talks about it being in phase somehow?

Right, that's the scope of services, but we have the option, I think it's in the boilerplate, to detail the task as we see fit.

Okay.

I think with these changes we should proceed with RFP, at least.

Do we need to take some action?

In the next item, oh, thank you for the report.

This is an item that

As I mentioned earlier, it grew out of our discussions regarding the Belmont neighborhood back in the summer and some concerns raised by neighbors about noise in the Belmont area.

What you have before you tonight is an ordinance and an alternative ordinance.

The first ordinance deals with noise as it applies to the Belmont neighborhood through the neighborhood commercial district.

The other would apply the ordinance citywide.

That's here because I was asked to include that as an alternative and we did that for you to have for consideration.

Just as a little background, we did some research when we were asked to look at this as to what other communities do about noise and do any of them in particular do it in relationship to a neighborhood commercial district.

We were not able to find anybody that had a real neighborhood district like ours, but we did find some communities in Virginia and otherwise that regulated

nighttime noise and regulated it at 55 decibels or lower and some that regulated it higher.

Harrisonburg regulates at 55 outside the property boundary between 10 and 6 a.m. and it does the opposite.

It makes an exception for restaurants that

allows an earlier time that's 75, excuse me, it does essentially what we do.

Austin, Texas is one that I talked about the last time I was here and was challenged and we went back and did some more research and the clarity there is Austin has a strange ordinance that says in excess of 85 decibels between 10 a.m. and 2 a.m. measures the outside property line of a business.

but in talking to them there's another restriction that says there should be no audible sound at a residential property line and when I called and asked them you know why did you tell my staff person that made the call originally 55 they said we use a meter to do all this and we sort of figure anything over 55 is audible anything other than 55 is really background noise and not audible so that's it's not codified but that's what they use as a

as a measurement, they say.

But the code language says, shall not produce an audible sound beyond the property line at a residence.

Fredericksburg is another, it has 70 during nighttime hours.

Williamsburg has, at a residential property, 55 and 50 depending on whether it's indoor or outdoor sound.

So it's really across the board, but I think the points of clarity are that where it adjoins residential, people treat it differently than they do in just a regular commercial area.

I think one of the issues we have that we've discovered in all this is that our zoning ordinances, as I mentioned earlier, and the definitions of restaurant and restaurant slash dance hall, music hall,

Again, it's written in an odd way and I'm not sure where the definitions came from, but it defines a restaurant slash dance hall as a restaurant where more than one eighth of the floor area is devoted to standing or listening to music.

and so I would interpret that a restaurant, not a restaurant dance hall, is where less than one-eighth is devoted and I think that the intent was there and it appears to me in doing some research that the intent was there was room for a restaurant to have a piano bar or something of that nature but when it started getting much bigger than that the intention was not to be a nightclub or a change and I think that's what's happened and that's why we've got some of the issues at restaurants that have morphed into

to more than a restaurant, but they're still a borderline with our current ordinance.

That said, we've given you a proposal that has, for the neighborhood commercial corridor, a restriction that would restrict the westward level to no more than 55

Decibels at from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. A couple of changes that I'd like to make based on comment that we've gotten since this has been out that I'd like to suggest to you are one that we changed the in the first line of that ordinance where it says no person shall permit operate or cause any change that to amplified sound

to create a sound level emanating from a restaurant.

And the reason for that is we've had, I've had a lot of concern expressed, you've heard some tonight, our intent here is not to regulate people sitting on a patio eating and having, at a cafe and having conversation.

Yet, as it's written, it could be interpreted that that might be the case.

And the police would be at a limit trying to enforce that.

So,

The deputy city attorney and I looked at it and said, that's the way to do it.

We're talking about music.

Let's call it amplified sound and get it what the problem really is, not get it voices of people having dinner on a patio outdoors.

The other is that I think the question was raised tonight that could raise some concern.

In the last line, it says, when measured at or outside the property boundary,

and the intent was that be at the residential boundary.

So we might want to insert the word residential there when measured at or outside a residential boundary rather than the property boundary because I think that could be open to some interpretation.

I think that was a good point that was raised during the discussion before the meeting.

So I would suggest to you tonight that our staff proposal would be that you consider the alternative A, which is only neighborhood commercial, not consider the other and if you have interest in looking at that

Because I think it's a fair comment that people just found out about it, it hadn't had a chance to have general discussion in the community that we not discuss it tonight, but if you like, we'll have that conversation with the community and have it further and expand it, bring it back for you to have that opportunity if you so desire.

I think that's a valid concern that's been raised.

The Belmont issue has been vetted, it's out there, people know that it's out there, but the city wide has not had that great a notice.

Belmont and Fontaine

the little Wayside Chicken, Dirty Nellie's, Guadalajara, those little businesses right there where I might add we've never gotten a complaint and primarily student housing right around those and so and we've gone out and checked and don't hear any noise that's excessive around those that doesn't mean somebody couldn't put one in but it's the same neighborhood commercial and have you had a public hearing on the store's ordinance?

We haven't had a public hearing per se.

We did have a meeting with about 75 to 80 people advertised and met up about the Belmont specific about a month ago.

No, sir.

I'd be reluctant to adopt an ordinance in some way which is going to be affected, not even be notified, in some fashion.

But isn't there a difference there that the

Dirty Nellie's is not as close to Holmes as Bell Rio.

Yeah.

Right.

I have a question.

Is that the end?

Yes ma'am.

I've gotten some calls from folks in other neighborhoods where there are residential neighborhoods that are zoned residential and yet there are businesses not too far away from them.

that occasionally, you know, they can hear in the middle of the night.

And we already have in our ordinance, or in the city code, Section 68 of the sound ordinance, that no person shall permit operator cause any source of sound to create a sound level in a residential zone or within any residential building during the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in excess of 55 decibels.

So is that something that

we should be enforcing better in other parts of the city.

I will tell you what I've always been told the interpretation was and how the police have viewed that and previous deputy city attorney who worked extensively on noise and Craig may correct me but it says

sound noise in a residential zone.

And the interpretation has been, it was always the funny thing about it, if you lived near the university, that if you were in a residential zone, you couldn't make noise and disturb the commercial area, but the commercial areas could make noise and disturb the residential areas, because it's noise coming from the residential area, not noise coming into the residential area.

That's the way it's always been interpreted.

I agree.

It is not artfully worded, but Mr. Tolbert is correct, at least since I have been here.

The interpretation has been that the sound must emanate or originate from a residential property as opposed to a commercial property.

I think that is what has led us as

Historically it was a lot simpler when you had well-defined residential areas and well-defined commercial areas and we have in recent years moved more into a mixed-use area and the interpretation that the sound must originate in a residential zone or district led us, I think, to the two most significant amendments to the noise ordinance in past years, one of which was to apply to the downtown mall

So I think that we definitely do have other neighborhoods where this is an issue.

I don't see any reason to stop the Belmont

And I think the issue has become in the last few years that we've had successful restaurants like Mona Loco, like, well, Maya wasn't there until a year or so ago, but that have started having music on the patios and that's changed the dynamic completely and it's not

You know, when they're indoors, we never heard the complaints, but now we're getting those.

Because there are places where people have been living for a long time.

Right.

Right, the chief memo?

And so just for people who don't have this in front of them, there's a range of dates and times of complaints with decibel levels ranging from 50 to 70 basically.

But most of these readings were done at the property line of the business.

They were done at the street line if it's front and side.

Right, unless the two were the same.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

I mean just reading that, I mean there were only a couple readings that obviously were from a residential property line.

One was 60, and actually that's the only one that was labeled as a residence.

It would be nice to have more data when we're talking about trying to set a number.

But philosophically I sort of agree that basically this is one business in one neighborhood and I think it's really important that we not overreact and affect

other businesses and other neighborhoods until we've gotten really clear on what issues are there and where and not try to correct a problem with a broad brush that may, you know, I sort of agree with the comments that we have a very dynamic music scene.

I think it's important to our local economy both in terms of people being employed and towards revenue for the city and I think we need to be careful to weigh the balance between what we're going to do.

So I like the idea of trying to address this issue having gone there.

Late at night, even though I like Bel Rio and I like the music played there, I think if I lived in the houses that adjoin it, it's pretty noisy.

It can be pretty noisy, and I think having a tool for that particular issue is important.

But I'd like to keep it restricted here.

You know, I'd be tempted to see if we could not lower it quite so far, lower it to 60 or 65.

Each five decibels is basically having half as much noise.

So I want to make sure we don't overreact on this.

I agree with the sentiments David has said.

I think we don't want to kill the whole music scene in town.

It has taken us for a while and I know you enjoy it very much yourself.

Absolutely.

But at the same time we need to address the concern in Belmont which has been identified and can be dealt with

I think the public comment happened.

Actually, I think the Austin thing is very confusing.

You know, because it actually says that businesses that have sound can have up to 85 decibels until 2 in the morning.

You know, it's not really clear to me how their ordinance works.

I mean, I think we have some lines here, but I don't think we have a full picture of

And I certainly think some of the other places we reference, you know, I don't think we want to look at Harrisonburg, Virginia as a model for how the music business should be conducted in Charlottesville.

I'm supposed to bang your gavel again.

Anyway, I kind of agree.

I think we are being arbitrary.

I think to go down 20 decibel units is significant.

Actually, but is this the first reading?

So actually, yes you will, because we actually won't vote on it today.

We'll just, we'll move an ordinance

One way or another, the next time we're here, there'll be five of us and we'll actually vote on the ordinance.

I just wanted to just clarify what we've talked about in just where we are because we're talking about just alternative A

which is specific to Belmont neighborhood.

We're talking about the changes in the language.

You included amplified sound to make it clear.

Right.

It would read, no person shall permit operator calls any amplified sound to create a sound level emanating from a restaurant during the hours between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Okay.

And there was discussion about 60 as opposed to 55.

I'll second it.

Keep in mind that it is not going to be voted until the next meeting.

I also would be interested in informing the people on Fontana Avenue to see that they...

And it could be amended at that time, so it doesn't mean that the form we have it in now is where it will remain.

The second thing you can do is wait until the end of the meeting and you can speak again.

It's still short.

Like large groups of our representatives here.

The meeting's not over.

Just for that issue.

Music Playing

Dr. David B.

B.

B.

B.

Music playing...

Music by David Bowie

The End

Dave, try this, it's very good.

I hope so.

Did you form?

Yes.

Carry me if you need a little more.

Yeah, you have a little more.

Are we mic'd?

I want to resume the meeting beginning with agenda item number 8, the resolution opposing reduction in state funding for Charlottesville public schools.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards, and first I want to apologize for being late to the meeting tonight because it was postponed until Tuesday, the highlight put me in direct conflict with a work commitment that I had.

Anyhow, this is a resolution that we've asked our staff to draw up, putting the city on record, the city council on record in opposition

to a recent budget amendment introduced in the General Assembly by delegate Rob Bell.

This is the amendment will have the net effect of taking approximately $2.6 million this coming year and into the future each year out of the city schools, out of our city school allocation from the state, and redirect it to Albemarle County.

We understand the fiscal stress that Albemarle County and the County School Board finds themselves in, but we don't believe the answer is to penalize the school children of Charlottesville by making such a drastic cut in our city school budget.

This is a resolution.

I don't know if you want me to read the whole resolution, but essentially, as I said, it just puts us on record in opposition to the Bell Amendment.

We have had to expend quite a bit of time and energy and money in Richmond over the last few weeks fighting this piece of legislation.

Our strong, strong preference now and in the future is to sit down in a collaborative fashion with Albemarle County

and figure out ways that we can work together to save money, reduce duplication of services and proceed in a more collaborative fashion than to be fighting each other down in Richmond.

So we hope we can put this amendment behind us and then continue the dialogue that we've had with the county off and on for a number of years about ways that we can cooperate and save money.

So I would

I'd like to move approval of this resolution.

Thank you.

You've got two items on your agenda tonight.

One is to accept bids for lease of 4th Street Northwest land for a single room occupancy facility.

And the second is to consider lease of city-owned land at 401 4th Street Northwest for single room occupancy facility.

And that would be the first of two readings.

And I'm going to talk about them both together, and then we'll have some discussion.

And there's a process you need to go through, and I'm going

Appreciate City Attorney jumping in to help me if I get off track here as we go through because it's sort of a complicated process.

First thing I guess I might ought to say is that you had an ordinance or resolution on your agenda to acquire the property that we're talking about tonight that's been deferred till March 1st for your voting consideration of that so

We're having the first reading on ordinance to lease it, but we'll actually be owning the property that we're leasing at the time we do second reading of the ordinance to lease.

So just to make that clear, tonight the process that you're going through is it will open and announce any bids received for the lease with a brief summary of each.

The mayor will ask if there are any additional bids to be presented at the meeting and receive those, then announce the close of the bidding process.

Receive a recommendation from staff, if any, on the award of the lease and then conduct a public hearing on the proposed lease after inserting the name of the selected bidder and then conduct a first reading of the ordinance authorizing the lease.

This perspective lease has been noticed, published in the Daily Progress.

The proposed ordinance has been available for public inspection.

The option to lease and the ground lease that are referenced in the advertisement were included in your notebook.

The option to lease, just a couple of things about it, will give the successful bidder until June 30, 2011 to decide whether to enter into the ground lease.

The term of the lease would be 40 years.

The amount of rent was left blank and that's part of the proposal that's been submitted.

The ground lease authorizes a tenant to construct and operate an SRO facility.

It was very tightly written as defined in our city zoning ordinance and that the tenant would be required to comply with all local state and federal laws and conditions of a special use permit.

At the end of the lease term, the city will become the owner of all improvements made on the property

The tenant is required to begin construction within two years after the start of the ground lease and to substantially complete it two years after the start of construction.

And then the lease would require that the proposed design go to the BAR for a recommendation and then the final design come to you for approval before construction actually starts.

So at this point we would recommend

that we opened the bids that we received.

We did receive one bid.

It is from Virginia Supportive Housing and just a couple of things to run through on that with you.

I guess if that's

It is appropriate to give a summary of this proposal.

They propose to build 60 studio apartments with on-site support services, 30 for homeless individuals, 30 for low-income individuals.

Homeless clients would pay 30% of their income in rent.

Low income households would pay between $600 and $700 a month in rent.

There would be on-site support services available to all residents of the facility that would be intended to stabilize and improve their health, incomes, and housing.

The Virginia Supportive Housing has received already a special use permit to develop, manage and provide the services for the development.

In addition to the facilities, the building will contain laundry facilities, front desk, community room, staff offices, a computer room and a manager's apartment.

The front desk will be staffed 16 hours a day and resident manager will be on call in the evenings.

The building will have an extensive security system.

All Street parking and is located in close proximity to public transit and potential employment.

There will be supportive services on site to include case management, counseling and skills training and community building and there's a definition of those as you go through the proposal.

They've outlined their financing for the construction.

totaling $6.3 million with a combination of tax credit, foundations, VHDA and DHCD loans, and then the actual construction cost would be roughly $4.4 million with a balance in soft cost.

On-site support services would be financed by a combination of Medicaid reimbursement and local fundraising.

The group that's proposing this

Actually, the crossings at 4th and Preston LLC is a single-purpose entity created to own this proposed SRO facility.

VSH owns 100% of the outstanding stock of the development corporation, and they would actually be the ones doing the development.

VSH is a private, not-for-profit community development corporation that was incorporated in 1988.

They've been building housing for more than 20 years, supportive housing, and 283 housing units and 81 units currently in construction.

That's essentially the proposal that you got.

The one item I didn't mention is that they have suggested to pay

provide financial compensation to the city for the ground lease and annual payment equivalent to the annual established estimated real estate taxes as proposed on a cash flow contingent basis.

As we move forward, we'll need to discuss in the lease how we word that and how we deal with that.

If I could just interrupt just for one moment.

And that language is actually in the middle of the page on page three of that proposal.

That's what it sounds like, yes.

And again, that's something as we go forward towards the second reading, we can get into the specifics.

We have not received any unless they're here.

And then the next item is for staff to recommend an award of the lease and we would recommend that the lease be awarded to Virginia Supportive Housing according to the terms of their proposal and

I have a question.

Is this lease affected by, I know the financing of this project or the ongoing costs are dependent upon Section 8 vouchers, and is this lease affected by the ability of

What you would be doing would be giving them an option to enter into the lease and that would give them until June 30, 2011 to work out all the details and yes if they were unable to secure those vouchers or financing then they would not enter into the lease and therefore it would not exist.

Right.

The issue is before they can apply for the tax credits, they have to have control of the property, which the option to lease gives them.

If there were any other questions or comments from council, I'd like to open the public hearing.

One person did sign up.

I don't know, Gloria...

Is there anyone else here that wanted to comment on this?

That didn't get a chance to sign up?

No.

This is for housing for homeless and low income folks.

It's single room occupancy apartments.

Is no one here to speak?

I have two questions that don't hinge at all on my vote because I know how I want to vote.

It mentions something about at the end of this lease.

There's no term to this lease, right?

That's more than if they decide- Forty years.

Forty years.

Right, forty years.

No, you can certainly grant a lease or award a lease for less than 40 years.

Forty years is the maximum allowed under state law.

At the end of 40 years, assuming the law has not changed, you would need to go through this process again.

And my other question is, do we have any idea what the approximate

Help me with the math.

70,000, is that?

Eight million.

told by folks from Virginia Supportive Housing that they pay taxes on their properties currently.

The issue here is we would own the ground and it would not be taxable.

So that's why the rent is structured so it would be equivalent to what the taxes would be.

Just for clarification, you have in your notebook a draft ordinance and it's not necessary to read it.

Other business?

Join us again.

We wanted to

Talk about the process for street acceptance.

We got a number of emails about one neighborhood in particular where the streets hadn't been accepted because of this development that hadn't reached its final stages.

I can, thank you.

The way the process works now, or worked until last meeting when you actually changed the code, which will help us deal with this, is that a developer would bring in a site plan or a subdivision and it would be approved.

And they start the construction of the road, the public improvements, the drainage, those sorts of things, and they start building houses.

We would not accept that road until they finished all the houses and sometimes that may take a while and so we've had some that have sat there for a while.

You have now changed the rules where once they issue a CO and they finish the road, we can accept that and we can maintain it whether they have one or they have a dozen or twenty built.

Whenever they finish the public improvements, we can take it off their hands and we can maintain it, which is a

a real opportunity for us.

It also provides that if they walk away as we've had some do and just not do anything for a period of 90 days we can go in and pull the bond and do the work.

Or if they finish the last house and they don't finish as we've had one do for 90 days then we can go get the bond and do the work.

Currently we have

several that are in various stages of completion.

Tonight you accepted Brookwood 3, you accepted the streets there.

There's Brookwood 4, 5 and 6 are left, which is the main road through Brookwood, but they're diligently working on that.

We had the staff, after this first came up in the snow and we realized what

you know how much angst there was and how many folks were concerned.

We started going out and as best we can forcing the issue and doing punch list items, doing inspections as best we can inspect with the snow.

We've had utilities TV the lines to make sure they're all okay and we have gotten several that are very close.

Cherry Hill is going through just a couple of minor things and they'll be ready.

Village Place is almost ready.

St. Charles Court, which is where you've gotten, St. Charles Subdivision, which is where you've gotten several complaints.

We actually are doing a final inspection, we hope it's final day after tomorrow, and we'll have that one ready.

As soon as we get these to a point where they've done everything they're supposed to do,

We will bring you a resolution to accept the streets for maintenance and that will allow us then to pick up trash and to plow if there's snow.

A lot of these, or most of these, are under our old policy which says that we apply the last two inches of asphalt.

So one of the dilemmas we've got, you know, depending on when they are, if it's still in snow season we may come to you and say let's accept it

even before we get the asphalt applied and then we'll be able to maintain it.

We don't want to do that if we don't have to, but again realizing where these folks are we want to get them expedited and then we'll still have to go out when paving season starts and put down asphalt on several of them that again where they were under our old policy.

Current new policy as a developer provides all of that, but we are trying to work through them.

We're getting real close.

I think that the attention we've raised

I talked to one of the developers today and said, you know, we want to take this off your hands.

Can we work together?

And he was very enthusiastic to try to help finish and get it done.

He didn't realize that we were there and that we were perfectly willing to release his bond that he's paying interest on.

We do have one where the developer said, it's not my responsibility.

I'm not going to do anything.

And so we're going to have to use the bond to do that work to get that one done.

And that's the last resort.

We don't want to have to do that, but we don't have any choice here where the developer has said, I'm walking away.

I'm not interested in doing anything here.

And he has not done anything to help folks with the snow or anything.

So the others, again, this has raised an issue.

And most of them, most of the developers are now, if not doing all the snow removal, they are working with the homeowners association to split the cost.

And so there's been some movement there, thanks to the attention that's been raised.

I think we're getting real close to having, we'll have most all of those, I think we'll have all of them done before we have another snow season for sure.

I think this has been a good learning experience for... Are you saying we're not getting any more snow this winter?

Yeah.

I wish I could say that.

I did some research today.

We've got 85 projects under bond right now.

They range from $400 to a million six, but we've got 85 projects out there in various stages of completion.

Very few of them are subdivisions that are having this impact, but there are eight or ten of them that are like that.

and we've put up signs to make it clear on some of them that say not accepted for public maintenance just so folks understand that and in the future they're not going to, there's a temporary sign until you accept it but hopefully nobody will buy in there thinking that they're subject to being plowed.

I had a couple of items I'd like to bring up.

First of all, while everybody has an issue of music and noise on their minds, I want to bring up another related issue which has to do with drumming on the downtown mall.

I felt like last year when we revised the noise ordinance downtown, we threw the baby out with the bathwater.

I think it was a well-intentioned effort to try to moderate some of the noise downtown, but in the process we made it illegal for people to drum on the downtown mall.

and I want to see in advance of this coming summer season what we can do to once again allow drumming on the downtown mall within reason.

I mean, we're not talking about drumming until two in the morning, but I think the folks who do drum on the mall usually are done by eight or nine in the evening.

So I'd like to see if there's support among counselors for asking staff to come back with a proposal that would allow drumming on the mall within certain limitations.

I know there was a commendable effort last summer to try to, on a stopgap basis,

address this by creating what we call global music heritage nights where once a month we would allow, we waived the noise ordinance and allowed different groups to come perform downtown from 5 to 9 p.m. one night a month and again I think that was a good sort of temporary measure but I think it's pretty restrictive and we really want to allow

I would like to allow the groups to come back.

I support it.

I'd like to see if maybe staff could look at

I guess I'd like to make sure we don't overlook the issue that led to us regulating noise on the mall to begin with, which is outdoor restaurants having

noise that was loud enough adjacent to their outdoor seating that people would basically get up and leave because it was too loud.

And I think the issue with drumming is drumming is loud, even though it's not amplified, it can be quite loud, depending on where it is.

I think as long as we move forward and involve the restaurant owners in this process, you know, to make sure we come up with something that everyone's going to be happy with.

I mean, I agree.

I'd like to see it back on the Mall.

I think we need to make sure we don't just swing the pendulum back and end up with another group of people unhappy with how we try to regulate noise.

So, I don't know who that is.

Mr. Tolbert?

Mr. Jones.

And then secondly, I know Dr. Brown, you phrased this by email, and we certainly got quite a number of emails in the last couple weeks about the initiative that the Google company has come forward with regarding high speed broadband internet.

I'm not a techie, so I don't know what you call it.

And I just wanted to see if there's any update

I know there's a request for information and I'm aware that Mr. Engle from our Economic Development Department was working on that because he consulted with me on a couple of legal issues in terms of the questions involved.

As I understand it, there's a timing issue too.

There's proposals by March 31st.

It's a national

I looked through what Google was requiring in terms of a response and a lot of it had to do with what your existing infrastructure is, what your

I would like to sort of go a step further maybe ask staff to actually make an application

So, I'm training with Cody.

Thank you Madam Chair.

Very good.

If I'd like to now open up the opportunity for matters by the public.

Just a reminder you do have three minutes.

Just say your name and address when you come forward.

Greetings.

My name is Andrea Wieder.

I live at 2331 Highland Avenue in the Fry Springs neighborhood.

Almost all of you know me.

I'm reading a letter

from Peter Hedlund, who is the president of the Fry's Springs Neighborhood Association.

We're entering it into the public record and the subject is neighborhood advocacy.

I am here representing the board of the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association and would like to address this topic.

It was on tonight's agenda.

Because of the short notice given to us regarding the discussion of this issue, which is just one day, we're unable to discuss the important subject with the full neighborhood association, which meets only once a month.

Instead members of the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association board exchanged emails yesterday and today to figure out if some member could be here to attend this night's meeting and that person's me.

We are reserving our ultimate judgment on this issue until more details have been fleshed out and we've been able to discuss the pros and cons at a full meeting of the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association.

We appreciate that the City Council is considering ways to

to strengthen the relationship between the city and the neighborhoods.

However, adding another layer of bureaucracy and another salary to the city payroll is not the way to accomplish this.

A city the size of Charlottesville should not need more employees to be responsive, respectful, and efficient in its relationship with its citizens.

And indeed, our experience has often been positive in dealing with many of the Charlottesville city staff.

and with you here in City Council.

However, at other times City staff fail to return emails, drag their feet when a legitimate request is made and don't provide adequate notice about important public meetings.

It is our belief that respect, thoughtfulness and responsiveness are qualities as taxpayers that we deserve

from city government.

We also believe that these expectations should be impressed upon city staff from both you as our elected representatives and from the city manager's office.

In keeping with council's efforts to forge a more informed relationship with the community,

We request that there be at least three citizen representatives on the committee that evaluates candidates for the city manager's soon-to-be vacated office.

Please feel free to call upon the Fry Springs Neighbors Association in putting together that committee.

Thank you very much.

Members of Council, I'm James King.

I live at 2607 Jefferson Park Circle.

I'm a member of the Board of Directors of the Fry's Spring Neighborhood Association and I support completely the statement that Andrea Weider has just given you.

But I'm speaking here only for myself and I'm not consulted with them about the things I'm about to say because they're very long range.

Reaching back 35 years and reaching forward 50 years perhaps about and around the decisions that you're making about

appointing a new city manager and about maybe changing the relations with neighborhoods or neighborhood associations or citizens.

First I want to say the things that have remained the same over 35 years, which are really very important, are first the population of the city has been pretty much the same.

as the population of the county has doubled every 50 years or 35 years depending on how you look at it.

And that can probably be continued and we would like that to happen, perhaps, maybe not in the county, but we'd like to stabilize it in the city.

Second, certain people have been around for that entire time.

Mr. Huja, for example,

was there at the beginning of that period.

He was head of the Department of Community Development.

Mr. Robert Tucker of the county has been the county executive all during that time.

And although Mr. Hendricks is no longer here, I would strongly suggest that you consult privately

not just along with the public consultation that Andrea has said and we certainly do need, but that in executive session you consult with these three individuals individually on what they think the relationship between the city and the neighborhood should be and whether there should be a neighborhood advocate.

Now I agree with Ms. Edwards, I don't know whether she meant this, but there's a tremendous problem

of the relationship between advocacy and accountability because in the past the efforts by the city and the county to have staff members do advocacy has gotten things all messed up and has killed particular voluntary organizations including neighborhood associations.

I just want to instance one in the county.

If you had Mr. Tucker in there, there was a neighborhood association developing in the southern part of the county.

And it did not die only for this reason, but one reason it died was that another person, who is the same now, who was then, is Lee Catlin.

And then she had the minutes of that neighborhood association in her office.

So all the things that were being done were apparently being controlled from the office of the county executive.

This is one of the reasons why some people dropped out of that association and then died.

Another thing is that you need to make a strong distinction between advocacy and accountability.

In general, you do not want staff members to go out and prescribe to neighborhoods.

Another county executive, I'm just picking county examples just because I have had experience with

neighborhood associations and voluntary associations helped create over 20 associations in the city and the county and over 30 in the state of Virginia as a whole.

And most of them died because the single individual, they're inverted pyramids.

They're not right side up pyramids.

They're single individuals sometimes supported by one or two others.

And you know an inverted cone when it flops over all the energy spills out.

So all you have to do is make that one person tired who is picking the next president

or trying to get continuity from one administration to another rather than becoming a dictator for that person to give up and that's the end.

So if you have too much community engagement as the Portland Argon mammoth program would say or as many other places have, what you do is you have paid staff taking up the time of volunteers.

and this has killed associations here in the city and the more meetings you have and the more time you have going out supposedly trying to help them increase their voice but in fact taking up some of that 168 hours of each week the more likely you are to kill them.

The next thing is, don't conflate everything into the word neighborhood.

All the different associations, the individuals, neighborhood associations with constitutions, neighborhood associations without constitutions, they're totally different.

Treat them differently.

Ask how many persons, who do you represent if somebody comes in and claims?

That's extremely important.

So in general, I would just ask that you do look to the future very carefully and consult especially with Mr. Huja, who ran the community development department correctly, in my opinion, and the neighborhood relations, and Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Tucker.

Thank you.

I'm Peggy King from Jefferson Park Circle, also a member of the Fry's Spring Neighborhood Association and a supporter of the statement of Andrea Wader-Wade.

I'm not speaking for the association.

I, like Mr. King, have been active in neighborhood associations in the city for

for 35 years roughly, and having lived in several places in the city, been active in three, as a member of three neighborhood associations and an officer of two of them, and for 20 years or so, active in the whole Charlottesville Federation of Neighborhood Associations and helped found my own neighborhood association.

when I didn't live there.

In all those years, I've seen actually two city staff members attending their own association meeting in their own neighborhood for not as part of their job.

Two.

I think there are more than two city staffers that live in the city of Charlottesville.

And I was told many years ago that they were discouraged from belonging to their own neighborhood associations.

If you want a reasonable method of making city staff more sensitive to the culture of neighborhood associations, I would change that policy.

I don't say they should be activists and I don't say all of them should be told to belong to their own association, that they should not be discouraged.

Neighborhoods are part of the community.

People who live here live in a neighborhood and they should have the option of joining and being active in their own association if they want.

and I think this has been a terrible mistake on the part of the city and it wouldn't cost you a dime.

Whereas this position that's now being proposed would.

And it would make a lot more people much more sensitive.

I have to say I find the current report insensitive to the culture

of Neighborhood Associations.

A lot of it's raising and proposals show no understanding of how it works from the Neighborhood Associations point of view.

And that's a terrible mistake after all these years of dealing with neighborhoods that that kind of thing is present in a report like this.

My name is Jesse Fisk, I'm president of the Belmont-Carlton neighborhood association and I originally came to discuss some of the noise things and the ordinance things and then the advocacy thing really caught my eye and unlike the Fry's Springs association when I joined my first meeting consisted of me and a secretary and you know it's gotten a little bit better but only when people get really mad about something so

You know, and I went from being, you know, I'm a musician, spent a lot of my time doing it, making my money that way, so I'm not the guy that wants to shut down the city all, you know, city music scene at all, you know.

I want people to discuss things.

So, in my mind, I think an advocate would be great.

You know, I don't have a budget.

I don't have, you know, that much of an organization to speak of, aside from a Facebook page and a, you know, a paltry web page that's outdated.

So,

You know, for the neighborhood associations that are up and coming or don't exist right now because of lack of participation, somebody that could bridge the gap between

The Neighborhood Leadership Institute, for example, is a wonderful way to do that, but that is a considerable amount of time for some folks who only want to deal with a couple issues every six months.

But to have somebody that can translate the city speak and also vice versa, translate the neighborhood speak and create a larger bandwidth of information between a neighborhood and a

in this city I think would be great.

And it also saved us time.

I mean, you have a bunch, you know, 50 people show up at the last minute to talk down a proposal when it was already been discussed for six months.

You know, I'm doing the best I can.

There certainly could be, you know, a broader discussion.

Sooner would have saved a lot of people a lot of time further down the road.

So, you know, I just wanted to say I think it's a wonderful idea and it could help alleviate some of the

Some of the problems before they get to the final decision stage where it gets becomes a clumsy, you know Clumsy like oh, what can we postpone until next time just decision on the noise ordinance, you know, and for example when you brought up the 60 60 decibels for example that you know, we all the people that have been complaining about the decibel levels agreed you know that 55 was probably too low and

and that never quite has gotten you know down up the road or upstream in information so you know I think having a more fluid circuit of information would be wonderful.

and there's great ways, you know, I think one of the things that's interesting as far as an advancing communications is we don't have any fiber optic network that makes internet not just an email device but a tremendous communication device and you can live webcam, cast a neighborhood association meeting to people that have kids, people that can't leave the house on the internet without any, you know, it's not awkward, it's real and so, you know, looking forward to, you know,

getting companies to bring that kind of technology in and sort of figuring out these other ways of doing things as opposed to the status quo I think would be wonderful.

My name's Alan Katz.

I live 5745 Green Creek Road in Schuyler, but I work in Charlottesville.

I'm the music director of Cooptaville Restaurant and officially sanctioned representative for Will.

We have a very loud, raucous environment because there's a lot of kids and they have a lot of energy.

We have two outside patios, once covered and heated in the winter time and one is for outside.

One holds 50, one holds 100.

As Benny Dodd said, the train goes by, it's 110 decibels.

We've been included in this city-wide noise ordinance and we've had issues with it for the last two years.

and one thing that came up that interests me is the interpretation of where it's measured from because we've always been measured from our property line and I may be wrong but my interpretation of reading the ordinance when it was first put out was supposed to be measured from the source.

Now I like your interpretation better because that's doable for us otherwise maybe we need an exemption.

We can proceed with that issue later because it's just very loud.

My kids, I have a decibel meter and we have three of them and so they're all always there and we measure and the kids can be 90 decibels even before I put music on.

and we try and keep it quiet as possible but we need to entertain them.

There's 36 fraternities, 18 sororities, we generate a lot of business down there.

We're always busy.

I come down to the mall which is exempt and you're dead.

So we need a break.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yes, my name is Bain Miller Kelly, 805 Rockland Avenue, and I'd just like to offer a few comments on the noise ordinance.

First, I'd like to say that I very much appreciate the hard work and the dilemma that the council faces in trying to reconcile what is sort of tearing my beloved neighborhood apart.

To me, you know, the Belmont neighborhood used to be sort of a gangland.

Some stray bullets, it used to be rather dangerous and it pulled itself up by its feet and it is now this gorgeous rich tapestry that reflects the values that we value in everyone and that make life good.

I live in a community of creative, versatile, loving folks, people, pets, that I can depend on.

The heart of Belmont in my view, of course it's the people, but it is this little quad of businesses.

There's a Belmont BBQ, there's the local, there's Bel Rio, and there's La Taza.

And these are places where I meet my friends, where I met the love of my life, where I have coffee, I have dinner, I enjoy jazz, I listen to outside acoustical music.

I'm not a partier.

But these things can go into, say, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night.

And I thought that the demonstration by the gentleman today, a new engineering expert, my brother is, he teaches at UVA, but that 55 decibel, it sort of illustrated that perhaps that's not the right measure.

And when I was listening to the evidence that was presented, I just had a few thoughts I thought perhaps I might share.

I hope that this council is not rushed

to pass an ordinance simply because people are uncomfortable.

And I have faith in my neighborhood that the residents who deserve the sanctuary in their homes that they purchased, I feel that they can work also with these businesses who do truly care about them.

These folks that bought the residence, they are, you know,

They are neighborhood slash commercial zones.

But that doesn't mean that the people that thought the residential houses count any less, but we just need to foster more of a dialogue.

In my professional experience, I have seen similar noise ordinances arise.

I happen to work at the Pentagon, which means I live in Washington DC for part of the week.

DuPont Circle, Logan Avenue, they had Logan Circle had similar issues surrounding how to make a better, you know, a better neighborhood of commercial residences and residential.

Another example might be Old Town Alexandria, which used to be like Belmont and then suddenly grew and grew.

I just thought this might be some examples to think about.

Also, if you go to Norfolk or Virginia Beach, there's quite a music scene there that has grown out of what used to be a very dangerous area, but because of college and nurturing, you know, has grown into something.

I don't want to see a culture killed.

I don't want to see musicians stop playing their music.

They are vital.

My parents, I'm fourth generation Charlottesville.

My parents danced to the Kingston Trio.

My ancestors taught in the public schools.

My mother went to Venable.

And I just would hope that you all could take advantage of every resource

and not be rushed into passing an ordinance.

I want to see the businesses in Belmont protected and I think that can happen if, I'm not sure who I'm quoting, but if we can see that dialogue that was mentioned between the musician and the property owner.

If we can get them together, maybe with the third party neutral, with the mediator, that can happen.

I think with the council, I don't need to overstate things, but it's just so important to me that we can't have this heart, this beautiful heart, this music, this jazz, this acoustic guitar at summer nights, benefits for the poor, benefits for Costa Rica.

We can't have that if this 55 decibel is passed.

Hi, my name is Allison Luffner and I live at 735 Grave Street.

Two things.

I think the first one just on the water issue, as I know that's discussed.

I have to say as a city resident watching the city kind of marginally growing in the county, exploding it, it's kind of offensive to me that we're supposed to give up dollars to the county schools when we're supposed to subsidize a multimillion dollar project that really isn't for our benefit.

I'd say that that's a pretty big exchange.

On the noise issue, or the sound ordinance issue, a lot of people have talked about this tonight.

I actually live in an area, my street is zoned R1.

It is not mixed use, it is R1.

And yet, I am impacted by this.

I have been awakened by some of the events that have taken place down there.

It's been some time.

A meeting of the minds

seem to be that.

It just, we calm down one and the next one pops up and the next one pops up.

I get to go all over the world in the pursuit of music and I work when I do it in a genre which is entirely acoustical.

It is completely unamplified and for fun one night Stan decided while I was singing to take a measure of my voice and I was singing at 103 decibels.

It's an acoustical sound.

So people can make a lot of noise.