City Council Meeting   3/1/2010

Music

public for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Ms. Kochis, would you call the roll, please?

Here.

Thank you all for coming tonight.

We have a lot on our agenda.

We're going to start with some awards and recognitions.

We have a very nice plaque to present tonight to our budget director and budget staff.

The Government Finance Officers Association has once again issued a Distinguished Budget Presentation Award to the City of Charlottesville for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009.

Thank you Mayor Norris and members of City Council.

I thought this would be an appropriate night to do this award given that this is the formal and big kickoff for the FY 2011 budget.

So thank you very much.

We look forward to another great budget season with all of you and another great year with the budget.

We have a couple of proclamations.

First of all,

I will read this proclamation.

Whereas multiple sclerosis, MS, is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that affects approximately 10,000 people in Virginia and 200 people in the city of Charlottesville and its surrounding counties, and whereas most people with multiple sclerosis are diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 50, but the unpredictable physical and emotional effects can be lifelong,

the progress severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted but advances in research and treatment are giving hope to those affected by the disease whereas every hour of every day someone is newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and whereas the National Multiple Sclerosis Society envisions a world free of MS

Whereas the Blue Ridge Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society provides programs and services to address the challenges of everyone affected by MS, now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby recognize March 8th to 14th, 2010 as MS Awareness Week in the City of Charlottesville and call this observance to the attention of all of our citizens.

I'd just like to thank Mayor Norris and the City Council for doing this and for taking the time to read the proclamation.

We really appreciate it.

And just remember, next week, March 8th through 14th, MS Awareness Week, wear some orange, look on our website, nmss.org, and see what you can do to support the cause.

Thank you.

Next is another proclamation, whereas literacy is crucial to our ability to understand fully what we read, and whereas reading stimulates the creative and intellectual growth of an individual, and whereas books record how philosophies are formed, literary worlds are created and our past and present endeavors connect, whereas Charlottesville is tops in the nation among book-reading households,

Whereas the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and area bookstores, libraries, educational institutions, publishers, writers, and community activists promote literacy and reading, now therefore I, Dave Norris, mayor of the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, March 17th through Sunday, March 21st, 2010 as the 16th annual Virginia Festival of the Book and encourage community members to participate fully in the wide range of available events and activities.

I'd just like to thank the city of Charlottesville and the people of Charlottesville for your continued support and for continuing to read and like to just invite everybody this 17th through the 21st of March is this year's book festival and times are hard but where else can you get such wonderful events, 154 adults and many fertility for free.

Thank you, Nancy.

This last proclamation I'm thrilled about, and you'll see why in a second.

For any of you who have young children or who have ever been a young child, you'll appreciate this.

Whereas early children's literacy is essential to our children's ability to function successfully in society, and whereas reading and music stimulates the cognitive and creative growth of a young child, and whereas PBS children's educational programming broadcast by WVPT has been transformative in how very young children are introduced to letters, words, language and respectful relationships with their families, friends and communities,

Whereas the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, WVPT, your source for PBS and more, Sesame Workshop, Public Broadcasting, and PBS Kids, the Paramount Theater, the Jefferson Madison Regional Library, and the Downtown Business Association promote literacy in children and joy in reading.

Now, therefore, I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, do hereby proclaim the Downtown Mall as Sesame Street.

In honor of Sesame Street's 40th anniversary on Saturday, March 20th, 2010, and encourage family, community families and children to participate fully in this literacy celebration.

There will be a big event happening with a very special guest on March 20th, 2010, so stay tuned for more information and come join us on Sesame Street.

And I don't know if anybody's here from WVPT.

She couldn't be here, but anyhow.

I'll take it.

You'll take it, okay.

Could I?

Hasn't everybody been in love with Maria at one point in their lives?

She writes books, too.

Thank you, Nancy.

Are there any other announcements from counselors?

I have one announcement.

The Albemarle Charlottesville NAACP is pleased to announce a scholarship offering to a graduating senior in 2010.

Students expecting to enroll full-time in college, university, or vocational school are eligible.

Students must complete a scholarship application packet and return it to the NAACP office by 5 p.m. on April 16.

Thank you.

I'd just like to follow up on Nancy Damon's comments about the book festival.

It really is a great event and so I'm going to tell you about one of the really great events that's going to be there because I've seen a preview at Nancy's house which is there's going to be a New York Times writer named Warren St. John is going to speak about a book he wrote called Outcast United which is about a refugee soccer team in suburban Georgia and it's a fascinating book.

It's a really great author and

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

A couple other quick notes.

Next week, or this, I guess, yeah.

This week, Rick?

I don't know.

This week or next week, the census workers are going to be fanning out into the community, collecting census surveys, questionnaires.

So if they come to your door, please greet them, and we all need to participate in the census.

It's very important.

Secondly, the city of Charlottesville has fixed a leak week, March 15th to 21st, and this is an effort to educate homeowners and business owners on the importance of fixing water leaks because we're all very interested in water conservation.

An average household wastes more than 10,000 gallons of water from leaks each year.

That's enough to fill a backyard swimming pool.

And so on Saturday, March 20th, a local

Ms. Fixit will be demonstrating how quick and easy it is to repair a faulty toilet flapper and we'll be handing out water conservation kits that all take place here at City Hall.

Okay, we're now going to move on to matters by the public.

As always, when you come forward, please give your name and address and keep your comments to three minutes.

My name is Estella Knott, and I live at 808 Rockland Avenue, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Belmont.

After spending the past two weeks trying to educate myself as much as possible about the history behind this noise ordinance, I've spoken to so many people to try and find out what part of the music is causing the problem for certain residents in Belmont and their issue with Bel Rio.

Obviously, folks on both sides are pretty angry about this after a year of fighting.

I understand that many folks in Belmont have been dealing with a cascade of problems mostly due to zoning and the conflicts between neighbors and how Belmont culture is developing.

It's very important to acknowledge that not only does the center of Belmont have a history of being a zone of commercial and industrial activity, it also

It is also directly adjacent to the downtown central business district of a city, an economically vibrant growing city.

Consider the fact that Belmont is in a process of developing into a very unique and culturally rich neighborhood, a natural effect of being a bridge away from a thriving downtown scene.

Live music at Bell Rio is a very small part of this larger issue.

If the conflict is so isolated, then why not focus on solving that problem before creating yet a stricter noise ordinance that will affect other current and future businesses in Belmont and the Fry Springs area.

I understand that the sound issue that folks are having with Bel Rios primarily due to the base levels of some of the shows that Jim hosts causing the windows to rattle in the houses of some nearby residents.

In talking with a police officer from our city police department, it seems that they do not have the proper sound meter

He also mentioned that they had just received a new sound meter and had just begun training officers how to use it.

It's important that if you are going to have a noise ordinance, then police should have the proper tools to enforce the current ordinance.

It seems that when you are failing to successfully and accurately enforce an existing ordinance,

It is more appropriate to fine tune your ability to enforce the existing statute than to impose a stricter law, one that is not possible to enforce due to the presence of ambient noise levels so near to the proposed decibel limit.

I strongly encourage you to talk with a sound professional before you pass a stricter ordinance so that your decision is based on accurate information given to you by people who are qualified to give you accurate data.

Think about how you're feeling about the sound ordinance for the downtown mall.

Setting such limits based on inaccurate information leads to splitting hairs and opens a Pandora's box of potential future disputes, all of which have a dampening effect on the local arts community and jeopardizes the long-term cultural vitality of the city.

Jayen just passed me this a little while ago.

Just in the past three days, here are 500 people who've signed up in opposition of this new stricter ordinance.

Hi, my name is Liz Palmer and 2958 Meacham Banks Drive, Albemarle County, and I'm here on a safety issue.

Recently, three incorrect statements have been made publicly concerning the old Ragged Mountain Dam.

These are that the lower Ragged Mountain Dam is quite safe, that the spillway is the only problem,

and that only a storm of biblical proportions could cause failure.

First, the stability of a dam is integrally related to the adequacy of the spillway.

You cannot separate the two.

If the spillway is grossly inadequate, the dam is not safe.

If the dam is overtopped in a large storm, the earthen embankment could wear away.

We do not know if the old underlying structure can stand up to the force of a full reservoir.

We have good reason to suspect that it is vulnerable.

We know that the dam was not built to design specifications.

We have a detailed report, we have many detailed reports, but we have one from an engineer as early as 1912 that gave a number of concerns and noted that there was no documentation to prove that the structure was properly moored to the underlying granite.

He recommended not filling the dam past the 45 foot mark and enlarging the spillway.

The spillway was not fixed.

The reservoir was only filled to 45 feet and kept that way until the mid 1930s when the embankment was added to the downstream side.

We now know that the embankment was not properly compacted, adding an additional risk factor.

For years now, we have operated the dam under a temporary permit.

and are required to lower the water level down to 45 feet in hurricane season.

The spillway can handle a 1.6% of the probable maximum flood.

The probable maximum flood is a biblical flood.

1.6% of that could be a Camille sized storm or the storm similar to the Piedmont storm that hovered over the Sugar Hollow in 1995.

This storm produced enormous rainfall in a short period of time causing sloughing of hillsides on the North Fork of the Mormons.

In the midst of the storm, the floodgates were open, potentially saving the dam from failure.

In response to this event, modifications were made to the Sugar Hollow Dam to handle larger flood events.

This same storm collided with another over Madison County, causing tremendous damage there.

Recently, an expert in dam construction from Schauble Engineering gave an informal but educated opinion to some of the members of council and others in the community.

He said that if the old dam proved salvageable, it would probably cost as much to repair as it would to build a new dam of similar height downstream.

Shortly after that, council approved a request for proposal to hire an engineering firm to study the old dam for possible repair.

Knowing what we know about the dam, it seems imprudent to spend public money on a study to repair it.

Thank you, Ms. Palmer.

Hi, my name is Chris Winter.

I live at 3611 Stony Point Road.

I'm here about the noise ordinance.

I'm in opposition to it.

The current noise ordinance as well.

I'm a musician.

I've been playing guitar for 30 years.

I've been growing up in Charlottesville for 49 years now.

There's a great sense of culture in this town having to do with live electric music.

There are people in this room that are part of that culture that inspired me to take up music and try to produce my own music and play music.

I think that the noise ordinance that is already on the books is not helpful.

I think that we've gotten along in Charlottesville for over 50 years with live music and when there were complaints I'm sure the police dealt with it very well.

I mean for years down in the Venable area where all the frats are.

I grew up in that area, I lived on Preston Place, I remember the parties, I remember the noise and you know we just accepted it.

We just went by, we allowed them to have their fun, we accepted it as part of the neighborhood and I'm hoping that somehow we can resolve this without increasing any noise ordinance and actually abolishing the one that's on the books now.

Like I said, for 30 years or more, we have been in Charlottesville with live music, with residences, with houses, next to these places that are playing loud music.

Never was there a noise ordinance.

I don't know why this is happening, if it's happening because we've gotten so many new people moving into Charlottesville that don't know the culture, I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's good and I think we should stop it.

And if you want to increase the noise ordinance, I believe that you're putting down a piece of Charlottesville culture

and that you're discriminating against that culture because it is a very strong part of this community and I don't think it should be messed with.

If you don't like the music, the best thing I can say, I moved down to Scottsville about 150 yards from the train tracks.

That train came through every night at a certain time and I hated

for two weeks.

How am I going to go to sleep?

It was at night.

How am I going to go to sleep?

Windows rattling, the whole building feeling like it was going to come down.

After about three weeks, I didn't even nose train anymore.

Couldn't even tell when it went by.

And I think that that's possible in this situation, that people can just ignore it if they put their mind to it.

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

Hello.

My name is Gary Cunino.

I'm a second year at UVA.

I'm the assistant arts and culture editor for the student-run newspaper, The Declaration.

I play in several student bands around Charlottesville.

We play shows at the Tea Bazaar, the Bridge PAI, The Garage, the now-defunct Is Venue, The Southern, Random Road Books, and several other houses in several different bands.

I currently play in Cunino's, The Hill and Road, named after the funeral home next to The Garage right around here, DBB Plays Cups, and St. God's.

St. God's, who I just played with recently, played the PKG student battle of the bands a week and a half ago.

I also film concerts around the Charlottesville area and do extra music documentaries.

The reason I've come downtown on two school nights recently is to say this.

The music scene in Charlottesville is extremely rich.

I came here last year, and at only 18 years old, I began to play in five different bands, just from attending UVA and meeting people.

Jan Falsini, who runs a local broken company, Michael's Music, pointed out two weeks ago that there's a clear ladder of venues that younger bands in Charlottesville can climb.

There are definitely rungs where you can go from a basement to, say, the Southern to the Jefferson, which just opened, to the Charlottesville Pavilion to, I mean, even JPJ.

Sparky's Fall is a great example of this, as a band used to play venues like Miller's and Starr Hill can now head on to Jefferson Theatre, as they will in April.

As a member of several student-run bands centered in Charlottesville, which I've all seen is exactly right, this noise ordinance sends a dangerous precedent for the greater Charlottesville area and could easily destroy this wonderful built-in system.

Soon as I heard about this noise ordinance, I immediately thought of the three shows I've played recently that have gotten shut down due to the noise ordinance, including a show in April of 2009 at The Garage, right over here.

Not quite sure who complained about that, considering the closest neighbors to that venue are the deceased residents of the Hillenwood funeral home.

I don't know if anyone in this room plays in the band and has had one of their shows shut down, but for those of you who haven't, there's a horrible feeling.

The greatest thing for a musician can be a performance, and to have this taken out of your hands and torn away from you is upsetting both to the musicians and the crowd.

If the ordinance is passed, musicians will immediately feel this in Belmont, and I can see how this can spread to the Greater Charlottesville area.

It has already been demonstrated that a 55 decibel rating is a quiet conversation.

Why aren't passing cars in the street after 11 p.m. fine for going over 55 decibels?

Why couldn't my friends living in U dorms sleep because Yuchi's performance at Scott Stadium when Bono was bellowing vertigo around 11 p.m.?

Why is this room fine every time the microphone is speaking goes over 55 decibels?

As has been said before, you can't run from noise.

Music scene cannot thrive in a 55 decibel environment nor a 60 decibel one.

Commander.

My name is Francis Fife and I live at 501 9th Street, SW.

I used to say 501 C3 and then I stopped saying that.

First thing I want to do is to thank you Mr. Mayor and members of council for demanding that a dredging study be conducted before a ragged mountain dam construction plan is adopted for execution.

Now at last the study is going to be presented.

I know you have put forth extra effort and spent a considerable amount of time to bring this about.

I'm convinced that dredging the South Fork Rivanna River Reservoir is the better alternative for many reasons.

When the residents, especially the present and future ratepayers of the city and county,

realize the disparity between the cost of dredging and the huge cost of dam building, they will be very thankful that you demanded a dredging study.

The study is actually more favorable than we had expected.

I would also like to pay tribute to the members of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Supply who will follow me in speaking.

for the extraordinary time, thought, and effort they have put forth in seeking information, examining various alternatives, and checking figures.

By the way, I'm a member of that group, but I'm not including myself in the tribute.

It is entirely a volunteer effort on their part.

and I really wish that you all knew exactly how much time and effort they have put in checking facts and going to different sources and so on.

It's been a real complete study.

Good evening, DeeDee Smith, 2652 Jefferson Park Circle and I would include Francis Fife in that tribute.

He has been an invaluable part of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan.

Tonight I would like to remind you actually that you were discouraged from sending out an RFP for the dredging study as well and we could not have hoped for a more favorable report than we have just seen.

It's been out now for a couple weeks, it's a little shocking

that there hasn't been more attention to this because this is amazing what they're finding out about the reservoir and really how feasible it most likely is that we can use it as part of our water supply.

And I'd just like to introduce you just to a couple pieces of that report tonight.

There is a public meeting on Tuesday, March 9th at 6 p.m. in city space that the consultant will put on about this.

The Citizens for Sustainable Water Plan will also have a forum on Sunday.

March 14th at 2pm.

Both of those are in city space.

And you can see the full reports.

They're hard to find on the Rivanna site.

So we've linked them on the SeavilleWater.info.

That's I-N-F-O as in information.

It's our website, you can get from the homepage, you can get right to them as well as summaries.

Tonight, Kevin is holding up, this is the graph that Rivanna, this is right off the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority's website.

This is what they sent to the regulators.

This is from the 2006

permit support document that shows a very dramatic increase in water use coupled with a very dramatic decrease in the storage at South Fork because of siltation.

And this is what they used to justify this huge dam.

Unfortunately that's not what's, unfortunately for Rivanna that's not what's happening and you've heard me talk about demand many times and what you have here is this is Rivanna's line here but this is actual.

The actual in 2009 is down by 28%.

2008 was 25%.

It's going down, down, down.

If you were to graph this, it would go down to zero.

We don't actually think that's going to happen, but it is also not going to follow.

the numbers that Rivanna is claiming.

But that's not the big news here.

The big news is in the dredge report.

What the dredging consultants found was that we have more water, quite a bit more water in that reservoir than we thought we did according to the 2002, 2001, 2002 last study.

Not only that, the reservoir is declining, silting in at a much slower rate than they thought.

This is an amazing study.

You all paid a lot of money for this, a lot more money than has been paid in the past, so you got a lot better report.

Please read it.

It is really impressive and I think you will come away with, and there's also no toxins in it.

They know that.

So I, what's that?

and much less material to dredge, they have really laid out a remarkable

You're really good at that.

I'm Keith Rosenfeld, 283 Broad Axe Road.

Looks like most of what I've been wanting to say was already said, so let me be very brief.

And first of all, let me just say that I've been here twice before to ask you to make water supply decisions based upon facts, science and engineering.

And I'm here to thank you.

I mean, this is absolutely great.

Only because of what you guys have done do we have our first glimmer of real evidence and really good hard facts.

As an UVA Environmental Science graduate, this is one of the very few documents associated with this water supply planning process that has reminded me of real science.

It's really great work by HDR from my first read and really great work by you guys.

So I know you get screamed at a lot.

I just want to say thank you.

If I have some reverb here, you can add it.

I would urge you to read the document carefully and if necessary try to find somebody who knows the technical end of this to sit down and tell you some of the things because it doesn't always float to the surface.

But it's really good information.

Now that you've begun to inject a little bit of integrity, honesty and realism into this water supply debate,

I'd like to just take a second to give you a business perspective to consider as you begin to deal with it and look at the facts.

It is a sad fact the local economy is suffering along with the national economy.

Business conditions in the last year in my personal opinion are going to be with us for the next two to five years.

We're all going to have to pay for the bad decisions we probably all made during the last 20 years.

We spent a lot of money we didn't have on things we didn't need.

And I really don't want to do that anymore.

And that's part of what this water supply debate is about.

As a Charlottesville business owner myself, I've seen two of my fellow Barracks Road store owners close in the last few months.

When I walk downtown, I see many more.

And being a hockey player and a hockey ref, I was very sad to hear the Charlottesville Ice Park news this week.

There are many reasons for a business closing, but the common element is always that costs are too high and they just can't be covered by today's sales and profit margins.

So please just think more than twice before you do anything to increase costs on our community when it's not necessary.

Under preliminary inspection, this HDR report sure makes me think twice.

And then finally, I just want to say that many people have stated that the reason we need to do the water supply is that we've got to spend the $200 million now for our grandchildren.

I say it's unethical to burden those grandchildren with even more debt than they're already going to have to choke on, especially if that debt is unnecessary.

Thanks.

I'm Lou Hart and I live at 477 Fontana Drive.

The country's immigration system is broken and we desperately need immigration reform, something like that incorporated in a resolution that will be talked about tonight.

I'm on the Virginia Governor's Board for Farm Workers.

I've been on a board for daycare head start program for farm workers' kids.

and I belong to the Hispanic community at the Church of the Incarnation.

Immigrants are making important contributions to the city, to the county and to the country.

They are productive and do good work, they buy at our stores, they pay taxes and they are active in our churches.

I hope you will support the resolution that will be talked about tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Hart.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to give my time to Jim Baldy.

Yeah.

Why not?

Go ahead.

If you're giving your time.

Hello, my name is Jim Baldy, owner of El Rio.

Here are a couple hundred more petitions, signatures if you need them.

I'm here tonight to not actually get into the details so much as to ask you to make a decision tonight.

I feel like this has been put to you for quite some time now.

We can continue to debate this.

I know the proponents of this reduced noise levels have said they're going to continue this through other means, you know, legal challenge, et cetera.

And I think if that's the case, then we should get on with this.

It's our contention that the 60 decibel limit discussed last week, I know you're trying to reach a common ground, but to me it seems arbitrary and not truly based on any scientific or sound level assessments, just an attempt to sort of cut the deck.

In addition, I believe that this addition, I don't know what the word you call it, amendment last time discussed about making it subject only to amplified noise is

Unsound, I think it's unduly discriminatory.

If noise is the issue, make noise the issue, make a level at the issue.

But that all being said, you can read these web blogs.

I never post on them, but I think a lot of us have read them.

You can look at the sort of energy in this room, and it's increasingly fractured.

We've talked about making Belmont this neighborhood community, but it's not what's happening, and it seems to be regressive in terms of consensus and support.

I know this is going to be difficult for you, but this is your job and it's been put to you for a while now and we're looking for some direction from you and I think it's time you made a decision.

Either way, so we can make our decision to go on.

That's all.

Hello.

My name is David Berzonsky.

I live at 808 Rockland.

I'm a musician and a music educator.

I work with about 200, 250 families with babies and small children in the community teaching music.

I just wanted to come up here because I've listened to a lot of the different arguments over the past few weeks.

My wife, Estella, has gotten really involved in trying to find out what's really going on.

I just wanted to underscore a few points.

One is that it seems that the debate going on in the neighborhood has become increasingly uncivil.

And I think Jim is correct to say that it is time to move forward with something.

But I would say that in studying what you're proposing it seems, it doesn't really seem enforceable in any way that is equitable.

It seems to create a situation because the ambient levels of noise in most of the neighborhoods throughout the city are so close to that 60 decibel level that you're creating a situation where there will be inevitably a situation with arbitrary enforcement.

I think there's a situation where a problem with one venue has now become a forum for collective punishment of the whole arts community and I know some people may not see it that way but I think several people have discussed the idea that you know music is a and the development of a craft of any art is a multi-layered multi-dimensional process that takes a long time and I know that the young children I work with are not

Clean and neat and quiet in the way that they proceed about learning their craft.

I know teenagers and college kids and even kids over college or professional musicians cannot always be orderly, neat, and clean in their personal expression.

But I don't think it's really in the interest of this community who has, I think, not merely a cultural and social interest, but also an economic interest in encouraging and developing our art scene to do anything that would dampen the spirit of that.

and I think it is inevitable that this particular proposal will dampen the spirit of the art scene here.

I also think it's not going to solve the problem.

I think if adult people can't learn how to be civil and work with each other in an adult way, then introducing new legalities is not going to solve that problem.

I think, you know,

It just really isn't going to work so I would just finish by saying I have a long term interest in the cultural viability of this city that I've decided to live in after traveling all over the world and I really love this town and I really want it to be really a beacon of arts, culture, the blend of our local food movements, a lot of, you know, the local community is coming together in such beautiful ways and I really do feel that it is the responsibility of this council to do what they can to try to move that process forward

with great efficacy and not to stop that process because people in one small neighborhood are not getting along.

That's one neighborhood, that's one business and the rest of the community really needs to have our art and our music.

particularly in this economy where you know a lot of people don't have a lot of money and the arts and music and a nightlife scene is one low-cost way that people of different cultures and communities can come together in a way that's social and friendly and brings a community together.

My name is Shirley Shotwell and I live on Douglas Avenue right beside the Bell Rio.

And I wish all the people that was on that list that would live beside it so you could lay away three or four nights a week until one, two in the morning and listen to that loud bass and music.

The police monitored at my driveway, which my windows are right below it, they measured at 62.

And you can still hear the bass and the drums being beat on.

And I think we need to sleep as well as they need to play, but they need to lure it.

And never once has Mr. Baldy tried to do anything for the people he knows were complaining, but he doesn't do anything.

He keeps it up.

and I, myself, I don't want to see him close his business.

I just want to be able to go to bed at night and sleep.

I have a niece that lives with me.

She gets up at five o'clock in the morning to go to her job and she don't sleep either.

And when I'm playing my TV, we hear the thump, thump, thump over top of the TV.

And I do not think this is right.

And I wish all these people that signed that petition that probably don't even live over there

Thank you, Ms. Shotwell.

Hi, my name is Jennifer Braverman.

I live at 226 Douglas Avenue and

I just want to say I had no idea when I got into this about a year ago that it was going to just grow from having trouble sleeping because of some bands, some bass and sometimes drums and sometimes some music but it's usually just the bass to kind of going on and on almost like a

like a Kafka dream here and now Pandora's Box is open and I feel like I'm the big bad wolf who you know the gentrifier who hates music or something but I'm actually just a person that moved here because after living in many places in the world I love Charlottesville and I love music and I fell in love with Belmont and it was fun and quirky and

This is where we bought a house that nobody seemed to want.

It was on the market for ages and ages and then once my son had to pull up the rugs we found out why.

It smelled like urine and it was such a bad house our realtor wouldn't even go in it.

Anyway, our family did it.

My son-in-law put up the drywall.

I planted the trees.

My son pulled up the rugs.

My husband took down the brick fireplace because it was just falling in.

We worked hard.

Our neighbors came down from Madison County and did the floors and we thought this would be home but unfortunately you can't, if you can't sleep some nights it's, you know, you can't block out that base and if you can't sleep it's not home.

And to be honest with you my husband has bought some for sale signs because, you know, if you can't sleep you can't live.

So, I'm sorry about the bass.

I know I like music and I let people play whatever they want in Bell Rio, from the Bumblebee Concerto to, you know, to John Philip Sousa.

They can play what they want, but can they just keep it inside?

I'm sorry there's 15 windows facing our street, and I'm sorry that it, I guess it's not insulated well, but you know, if they didn't have the right stove pipe, they wouldn't be able to cook.

And if they didn't have the right fire alarms, they wouldn't be able to have, you know, open their business.

So I don't want to make anybody unhappy or put them out of business and I like music but I need to sleep and I have an email from a lady who's a couple of days, actually three doors down from me that can't sleep because of the bass so we're not just hyper sensitive people.

I like that rooster, I like the trains, I like the noise of the people actually leaving restaurants, I like chitter chatter and the sounds of the city but you just can't put that bass out of your mind, it's just like when

Car pulls up beside you and they have their music in their car and they're enjoying it and you're clutching the steering wheel like this because it's going into your head and you just can't turn it out.

I want to thank the restaurants that have understood this like Moss and Bell Rio.

I'm sorry, Moss and the local have always

had an ear for what's going on and tried to work with us and they've been wonderful.

They've even said if it has to be 55, they'd be okay with 55 if that's what it takes to have neighbors sleep.

So I don't know what to say.

I want everybody to be happy.

If there's a fundraiser, I'll help.

I'll do what I can.

In fact, the restaurant business is what I spent most of my life doing, culminating and running the restaurants at the Hilton in downtown D.C.

So I know restaurants.

I know it's hard.

I've even offered to wash dishes at the local if he gets in a jam.

Because when my husband, a lawyer, offered to wash dishes at my Hilton twice, I decided to marry him.

So if I can help, I'll help.

Thank you, Ms. Braving.

That's only a lot of time.

We have time for a couple more speakers or emails that would like to speak tonight.

My name is Gloria Maria Rockhold.

I'm at 1417 Lester Drive in the city.

I'm here to talk about immigration.

Immigrants and their children comprise nearly 10% of Virginia's population.

Over 60% of U.S. born citizens are naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote.

Immigrants are a vibrant, productive and vital part of Charlottesville economy, diverse cultural fabric and changing demographics.

The integration of immigrants in a comprehensive approach to solve our immigration system is critical to ensure that our city and state continue to have strong economies.

Comprehensive immigration reform would recommit our country to being both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.

Support for federal legislation or administrative action which reforms our immigration system and includes the following, improving the economic situation of all workers in the United States, finding a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants working and living in the United States, reforming visa programs to help families together, to keep families together, protecting workers' rights and ensuring the future immigration,

is regulated and controlled in implementing smart, effective enforcement measures targeted at the worst violators of immigration and labor laws, integrating immigrants into our communities and country and respecting the due process rights of all in the United States.

Thank you.

I get to have a cookie fun.

My name is Allison Ruffner and I live at 735 Grave Street known as the pink house.

It's been kind of interesting to be able to speak sort of at the end of this because out of all the musicians I've heard tonight there's certainly nobody representing my musical genre.

I guess it just seems like that you don't run into some of the bass noises and so forth coming cluttering out of the Paramount After the Met HD broadcasts or the Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Theater out at PVCC when they do stuff.

If every single night venue were shut down it would make no difference to me and my musical genre and I'm in Charlottesville.

So I keep hearing about the musical scene, I keep saying, you're not talking about me, but you are talking about my neighborhood.

As I stated before, I don't necessarily, I don't believe that a sound ordinance for Belmont is necessarily appropriate for the entire city.

That's the purpose of zoning.

There is a difference between Belmont and the corner, and there's a difference between Belmont and the downtown mall.

I lived zoned R1, I lived zoned R1 when I lived on Douglas Avenue and that's residential and if people in residentially zoned areas are being impacted there's a problem.

I'll make a really short story.

When I was about 23, I bought a nice shiny new drum kit, even though I knew that I could never really play these things.

At the time I lived in an apartment and I went around to every single person that lived in that apartment.

And I talked to them and said, I have a drum kit.

I stink.

I want to play though.

When's a good time?

And I went through every one of them and we agreed to a good time.

And I got to play my drums.

and the neighbors kids would dance to my bad beat and it worked.

And what's upsetting to me is I hear a lot of my fellow musicians showing up now when the thread of a hammer falling shows up instead of actually doing what I did with my neighbors and I would love to do with the restaurants over there and work it out.

But I don't think that after two or three years now that that's going to happen.

And as somebody who lives next to a train

and as well aware of the difference between that and bass drums and other acoustical as well as amplified music.

I'm still going to support the 55 decibel and I think that that should stay there because this is a mixed-use neighborhood, mine is R1, and this is the oldest developed neighborhood, residential neighborhood in the city of Charlottesville.

Thank you, Ms. Rocha.

We're now going to move on to, thank you for all who spoke tonight, we're now going to move on to council member responses to matters by the public.

Hi, I'd like to just respond to the folks who spoke about immigration reform.

There was a resolution that was on the agenda and accidentally slipped off the agenda.

I'm planning to put it back on the agenda in new business, so Mr. Mayor, if you would consider that, because I think that that is something that's very important in our community, so thank you for coming.

and I know that there are lots of people in the room who do support that, so if, would it be, Mr. Mayor, would it be okay if I just ask people to stand who would like to support that?

Sure, go for it.

Okay, wow.

Thank you, okay, thanks.

And I'd also just really like to thank everybody who came out.

I think sometimes when people care passionately about issues, sometimes things can get heated, people get upset.

And I think that that's one of the prices we pay for living in a democracy.

And I really appreciate the people who are willing to come out and put themselves on the line and speak out.

Thank you, Ms. Szakos.

Miss Edwards?

Miss Edwards?

Just a couple of comments.

I do believe that the investment to study the dam is worthwhile in as much as I thought so for the dredging study and of all the things I've learned so far I'm really pleased that there weren't any toxins found and that was my major concern that there might be some carcinogen of some sort there.

And also

The discussion about the noise ordinance, it is going to be difficult because it's one of those decisions where everybody isn't going to be happy but we're going to do our best and we're just going to do our best and it seems as if instead of creating a mixed-use community, it's become a mixed-abuse community.

But it's not too late, ever, to develop relationships.

Ever.

So this is just all part of the process and all part of the journey.

Dr. Brown?

I would just echo the comments that were already made and thank you all again for coming tonight.

We will now move on to appointments to boards and commissions.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to move the following appointments to the Board of Architectural Review, Preston Koiner,

to the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority, Dan Fagan to the Chart Advisory Committee, Bruce O'Dell and Linda Seaman to the Dialogue on Race Steering Committee, Dempsey Perry to the Jefferson Area Board for Aging Advisory Council on Aging, Margaret Crawford and Frederick Schmidt to the Jefferson Area Board for Aging Board of Directors, Connie Jorgensen and Sue Lewis and to the Police Advisory Panel, Peter Jenkins.

Any discussion?

If not indicate your vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

We'll now move forward to our consent agenda, and on our consent agenda tonight are item A, minutes of December 18th, January 22nd and February 1st.

Item B is an appropriation of $60,000 Cherry Hill subdivision sidewalks contribution, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation of $1,380 public access TV registration fee, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation of $100,000 schools contribution to small capital improvements program, first of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation of $370,900 safe routes to the school grant, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation of $50,000 Royce Place subdivision improvements, first of two readings.

Item G, resolution allocating $25,000 from the housing fund to the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority for FAR, first of one reading.

Item H, a resolution endorsing rebranding of transit service.

Item A, an ordinance option for family health care coverage for city retirees.

Second, two readings.

Okay, we will take that up at the end of the agenda tonight.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion?

Please indicate your vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Okay, now we have before us the item which many of you are here tonight for.

This is an ordinance restricting nighttime noise level for restaurants and neighborhood commercial districts.

It's the second of two readings.

I will be very brief since we've been over this a few times just to basically remind you where you left this at the last meeting.

You amended the ordinance in several ways and what's before you tonight on second reading is an ordinance that would change the maximum decibel level only in the neighborhood commercial zone after 11 p.m. to 60 dBA rather than 55.

You changed to 60 last time.

Clarify that amplified sound is what you're regulating

and that you would measure the sound at the residential property line, at a residential property line.

You also ask that we send notice to the Fontaine, Maury area, JPA area, neighborhood commercial.

That was done after the meeting, notifying them of this meeting and give them your contact and anybody could contact you if they were so interested.

So that was done.

I'd be glad to answer any questions.

Can I ask a question before you?

Mr. Huja, I'm not an expert by any means in that.

I've provided some information in the past that has the different levels.

It's basically a normal conversation, it's 60 to 70.

Doubles every ten.

Can you explain the rationale behind limiting it to amplified music only?

I think it is.

The suggestion was to do that and y'all

Excuse me, I'm going to go horse here.

I got this information late today.

I've given you a copy of it of Bell Rio noise summary.

I'd asked the police chief and the police department in early January to as often as possible to nightly take readings in the neighborhood, but also particularly at Bell Rio just to start giving you facts.

and you can see there are 21 readings.

That's actual reading that was taken at the edge of the property.

Which property?

Where we would have had public access.

Thank you very much.

where I sit and having gone over there a number of different times.

Saturday night, the night, two nights before, this is in front of council, 92.6 decibels at 11 o'clock.

And how far is that line that you took it from, from the nearest residence?

Not very far.

We try to take them from the residence if the complainant will speak to us, we'll do that.

And then the total averages that are here are ones that no complaint, you're out patrolling, you stop and take a reading just to start building what's the actual decibel level that's going on.

That's right.

The ones that are listed specifically are citizen calls.

Can you give us a rough idea of the total number of noise-related complaints that you've received in the Belmont area?

Yes.

Thank you.

The current ordinance states that the

Decibels when measured at or outside the property boundary.

We don't go on to their property.

Which is what you did, which is right at the edge of the business property.

Yes, sir.

And I guess I'm just going to point out that the way the ordinances proposed to be amended states when measured at a residential property boundary.

I mean, I think there is a little bit of a distinction here between

At the residence.

We've only had one specifically taken from the residence property that I'm aware of.

Okay, thank you.

So that nine decibel difference might be something that we could use as a gauge, but it's certainly

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Could you speak to the noise meter we use and how it has to be approved by the courts?

That keeps coming up.

That'd be a good question.

We have a sound measurement log and I'm actually not the expert on this but this is the sound measurement log that we use every time we use the meter and just like radar it's calibrated before and after every use and it has to be within a certain range and it measures sound within a certain range and then otherwise it's just a matter of operating it you know once you're shown how to do it you push it and it gives you a digital reading and then we write down what the readings are and that's certified for court.

I mean they're legally... To show that they're accurate.

A number of the complaints tonight were talking about base.

I had to ask that question myself.

These meters measure noise.

They don't necessarily measure base.

The boom, boom, the feeling of base, we can't measure that.

What we're measuring is the amount of noise that's involved.

Mr. Tolbert, I want to sort of, yes, thank you very much.

I want to cut to the chase here.

So 100% of the complaints that we've gotten are from one establishment.

Well, our staff has had meetings with him.

The Economic Development Office has had a meeting with he and previous partner.

The most recent meeting we suggested that maybe there could be some more done to insulate, to try to soundproof.

Mr. Baldy explained that he'd already spent a substantial amount to do that and couldn't see investing in any more.

And beyond that, I think he's well aware of the issue.

We haven't begged him.

We've made it pretty clear we put up about $30,000 into this.

That being said, I understand we're trying to reach a common consensus.

I will say that I have reached out to Jesse at Belmont Neighborhood Association a few months ago orally and then an email to ask Neighborhood Association to come over, meet at Bell Rio, walk through what we've done, talk about some other, I guess, possibilities.

and we haven't received any response yet.

So we're open to this, but they have to come and meet us halfway, at least begin a dialogue.

And then every time we've had an issue or written notice, we've responded, we've gone to the city, we've met in the zoning offices, met with one of the city lawyers, met Ed Bell Lee on a couple of occasions to walk through options.

So I want to be clear that people may not agree with us,

But I don't think it's legitimate to say that we haven't been open and at least willing to try to work with people.

Thank you.

I also want to share that this ordinance is very limited in scope in the sense that it applies only to a very limited area of the city.

Both.

Thank you.

I guess I sort of look at an ordinance like this.

I'm glad to hear that there has been talk over the last year or so with this business and the other businesses have engaged neighbors and I think that's certainly the way that we all hope this sort of thing gets resolved.

I think though that ordinances are not punishment.

They're designed to give residents a tool so that when there is a problem that can't be dealt with that we have

something that everyone sees as a baseline so that the police know what they're enforcing, the residents know what's acceptable, so that when some crotchety resident says, you know, it's really noisy and the police come and measure it and it's only 59, it's OK.

So it's not so subjective.

And so I think that it's time for an ordinance in this neighborhood.

And I agree with Mr. Baldy that we need to have that.

I think the longer this goes on, the more it just becomes this sort of, you know,

and people taking sides and feeling like enemies.

I know that I just personally have felt kind of bad because I have spoken in favor of this in a public meeting and I'm a musician.

I played as a street musician in San Francisco for a while and have made my living as a musician and understand that musicians don't get paid nearly enough for the value that they provide to our communities and that is one of the things I love about this community.

But I think that any time there's a line between

Dr. Brown?

I got a number of people contacted me after the last meeting, a couple did specifically to be honest, and said, you know, give us a chance to work this out.

Can't the community solve this itself rather than having the city stepping in?

And I guess I say I'm just pessimistic about that happening because, you know, if the threat or the looming possibility of a stricter noise ordinance doesn't get

the business owner interested in reaching out to the neighbors, not waiting for them to come to him, but reaching out to the neighbors, I'm not sure what does.

So I actually, I do feel somewhat discouraged about the possibility that there's a way of working together to figure that out.

And that's unfortunate, because if you look at the noise issues we have with the pavilion, I mean it's still not perfect, but generally what happened was the pavilion worked hard,

to make sure they could continue to have vibrant shows and have less noise.

You know, I think a very compelling case was made today by a lot of people about how important music is to what Charlottesville is and the opportunity to give lots of people, not just young people, but lots of people to earn a living and I think we have to be very careful to not take too quick a step in the wrong direction.

I don't agree.

You know, the problem with Facebook is I got to read the Facebook page to see what everyone was being told before they sent their emails to us.

I don't agree with the point of view that says this is the first step towards a citywide noise ordinance.

You know, that's the logic that keeps Congress from passing any type of meaningful gun control.

You know, I mean, it's just not necessarily so.

and so for me this is a specific problem, a specific neighborhood and a zoning that allows us to target it and so I hope people will realize that what we want to accomplish here is limited to a neighborhood.

where some of the residents who've complained lived there long before Belmont became a musical destination.

Last time I suggested that we change this ordinance from 55 to 60 decibels and I still have concern that 60 is too low a standard and that I'd rather err on the side at this point of view of having too high a standard and

and then having to revisit it because it didn't accomplish what we wanted than to have to lower standard and result in a restaurant closing or you know that the music scene being diminished.

I'd rather have to do this in two steps than one step so I'd prefer to see us amend this today and have it either be, I guess I'd prefer to see it at 65.

I guess a question just based on some of the comments made during the

Public comment period, they must play, they must sleep.

Where is there room for mediation and will the ordinance kind of inspire some mediation?

I still think there's an opportunity to think about

installation and improving the building and maybe, you know, making some green improvements along the way.

But also, is there a way that we can use the ordinance as a tool to see whether or not it's effective, whatever we decide this evening.

In about three months, can we look at the complaints, the actual readings, and then the business

I guess I only have a thought in response to Mr. Brown's thought that I think looking at the noise levels that are here when complaints do come in

I'm not sure a 65 would deal with those complaints.

I think actually 60 was a compromise that I was willing to live with.

I read the data a little bit differently than you did, Ms. Szakos.

Just for those of you who don't have this sheet in front of you, on average, an average night at Bell Rio produces 63 decibels in the rear facing the residences, so a 65 decibel limit would not clamp down on Bell Rio.

on an average night.

However, the nights when it was so loud that the citizens were resorted to calling in the police, the average then was 67 and it ranged as high as 82.

That would fall under this.

That would be affected by this ordinance.

So to me,

the 65 sort of makes sense.

Dave, I just would add just as we look at these numbers I'm really sorry that we don't have more copies of it but I think that when we looked at that first one and saw that at the residence line it might be 10 decibels below what these readings are

Can I ask another question before you do that?

I did ask a question.

It really wasn't a rhetorical question.

I really did want an answer in terms of how do we go about being accountable for what we're doing now?

If we calculate this as 10 decibels below this is what it is at the residence line.

The Knights people have complained it was 48

55, 62, 53, and 72.

So it's bothering people at 55.

I think that on one of the charts that somebody sent me that I thought was very helpful, somebody said that 55 is like someone practicing a piano or having a conversation.

And I try to imagine trying to sleep or having my two-year-old trying to sleep at midnight

I have to get to work the next day and somebody is having a conversation in my yard or practicing the piano by my bedroom window.

And I think that's a reasonable amount of noise to be upset about in the middle of the night in a residential neighborhood.

All right, is there a second to that?

Mayors can second.

I'll second it.

I have a question.

Sure.

So in three month increments we'll get reports and I would strongly encourage Mr. Baldy to continue his efforts to reach out to the neighborhood and install more soundproofing so we don't have to revisit this in three months or six months.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

I want to say that I fully support the three month review.

I think that's great.

All I've moved is amending it to 65.

And that's what you're making clear.

So right now we're just voting on the amendment to 65 with a three month incremental review period.

All in favor of that amendment, please indicate your vote on that amendment.

Okay, the amendment passes and that will vote on the ordinance as amended.

And does this include the three month thing or not?

Yes.

Please indicate your vote.

Alright, motion passes unanimously.

D.C.

Dr. Michael F. F.

Ode to Joy Ode to Joy

A.K.A.

Music Playing

Music Playing

All right, we're going to move forward with the meeting.

The next item on our agenda tonight is a public hearing and an ordinance regarding a grant of underground utility easement to UVA across University Avenue to serve Madison Hall.

First two readings.

I don't know who's presenting.

Mr. Brown.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, this agenda item is an ordinance that's offered tonight on first reading.

It authorizes the grant of a utility easement at the request of the University of Virginia.

This easement

serves Madison Hall and will serve the purpose of upgrading the HVAC system at that facility.

It has been advertised for a public hearing in addition to the ordinance.

All right, there being no further questions, I will now open the public hearing.

Is there anybody from the public who would like to speak?

Okay, we will close the public hearing and I will entertain a motion to approve this ordinance.

So moved.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All right, it's been moved and seconded.

It's carried forward to our next meeting.

Thank you.

The next item is a public hearing and an ordinance regarding closing portion of Oak Street, first of two readings.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, this is also an ordinance that's offered tonight on first reading.

It's in response to a petition from the owner of 316, 6 and a half street southwest, Mr. Barron, who's asked that a portion of the unopened Oak Street, located adjacent to his property, be closed.

While this is a platted right-of-way, it has never been approved as a street.

The adjoining property owner, Mr. Garty, has expressed his consent to the closing.

It has also been...

I want to say it's scheduled for a public hearing now.

No, the other neighbors that have property that front on this segment of Oak Street were sent notice.

I don't know that we got any comments from them.

If you look on the back of the ordinance,

where it says Oak Street, that portion I believe from 6 and a half to 6th Street is unimproved and it's only the small portion that's highlighted in yellow that's the subject of this petition.

You'll see in the agenda memo that there are three questions that council considers on petitions of this nature involving whether the vacation of this right-of-way would impede any person's access, whether there are any public utilities located in the area, and whether there will be any adverse impact on traffic on nearby public streets.

Any other questions on this item?

If not, we'll open the public hearing.

Is there anybody from the public who would like to speak?

Is there a motion to approve the ordinance?

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

We'll carry forward to our next meeting.

You may have thought that the main item of business was the noise ordinance, but the main item of business tonight actually has to do with presentations of our city budget and our school budgets.

I say this every year.

This is the most important thing that we do as a council every year is to review and approve city budget.

and obviously a major portion or the largest portion, largest single portion of the city budget is the allocation that we make each year to our school system.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Councilpersons, and Mr. O'Connell.

Thank you for having me tonight.

Mr. Mayor, City Council, what we'd like to do

We recognize that this particular budget is more difficult for us than budgets have been in the past because of the economic climate.

in which we all find ourselves.

We had to make some very difficult decisions while focusing on our core mission that's providing a healthy environment for our young people to learn and a place in which our parents and community really enjoy sending their student.

So what I'd like to do is reflect a bit on what we've accomplished over the past years and then talk about where we are now in our budget and our budget proposal.

Over the past year, since 2006, we've seen some significant increases in almost all of our student populations.

In overall students in our K-12 grades, we've seen a 14% increase in our reading scores and a 15% increase in mathematics scores.

with our African American students or black students 19% in reading and 22% in math.

Hispanic students 19% in both the reading and mathematics area while our white students we've seen not as large of an increase but still a steady climb and that's 7% in

7% and 9% respectively reading and mathematics.

Students with disability, which can be one of our more challenging groups, we're very pleased that we've seen a steady increase in both of these academic areas, 19 and 34%.

Students who are disadvantaged and those students would be our students who are receiving free and reduced price launches, 22 and 27% increases

which are large increases not where we want to end up but certainly heading us in the right direction.

Students with limited English proficiency.

a 28% increase in reading and 31% increase in mathematics and that's alongside having a steady increase in this particular population and having a significantly larger group of students coming in not speaking English during their first year in our school system.

Early intervention.

About three years ago, the City Council received a budget from us that asked for a significant increase in our ability to funding so that we would be able to offer more intervention programs and extending our school hours for two hours in grades one through eight.

three days a week.

We were able to put that in place and we've seen some notable gains in reading achievement with our students.

In the K-3 level, we've seen the number of students who are not reading on grade level decrease from 53 to 35.

Our ultimate goal is to have that at all students on grade level by the time they get to the third grade.

Some of the programs that we've put in place that have helped to contribute to the increases and the gains that we've seen are three-year-old programs.

We're one of the only school divisions in the Commonwealth that currently offers classes for three-year-olds.

Our three-year-old program is locally funded.

We have this year three classes.

Two are funded by our general fund budget and one is funded by the Safe Schools grant.

We've structured those three-year-old programs so that our four-year-olds, when they become four-year-olds, they qualify for our preschool four-year-old class so that there's some continuity between entering school and actually reaching the kindergarten level.

We also have at the elementary school level a comprehensive focus on literacy that starts at kindergarten and continues all the way through high school.

We understand that in order to get our students to the place that they are ready for graduation at the 12th grade level that we must start early.

and that our focus on literacy has to be strong and it has to be keen.

We also have at the second through fourth grade Do the Math.

It's an intervention program that has shown great promise amongst our students and certainly helped them to make some incredible gains in the mathematics area.

We again, we are one of the few school divisions in the Commonwealth that offers a world language program at the kindergarten level.

Our program, our language that we concentrate on currently is Spanish and we teach Spanish starting at the kindergarten level.

We currently carry that through the second grade level and on next year without adding any additional staffing we will be able to expand that to the third grade level.

We also continue to receive great awards and recognitions from the state and the national level.

This year Greenbrier Elementary School was awarded the Blue Ribbon status and the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to our school division to actually give that award.

Many of our schools have received the Governor's Award for Excellence along with numerous other awards and recognitions for our schools, our faculty and our students.

Of course Minds in Motion, we heard a lot tonight about our arts community and how

Vibrant that community is and how much we value that.

Well, in our school division we value that also.

The Minds in Motion program is a fourth grade program that helps our students to overcome some of the shyness that they may have and bring them onto stage to perform individually and as a group collectively.

We make a point of recognizing that in order to get students to graduation and graduating on time, there must be a continuity from the elementary to the upper elementary, middle school and high school level.

That the programs must match, they must have a common theme throughout the school division.

We have this year for the second year a program of studies for grades that highlight courses that start in sixth grade going all the way through twelfth grade.

This particular document has been a huge hit with our families and our communities and help our families and communities to actually plan for diploma types

and the type of courses that they would like their student to be involved in at high school and that planning starts as early as the sixth grade.

It also helps our students to start thinking about career choices.

Program Too Good for Drugs also provides valuable information for our students how to make good choices as they proceed through middle and high school.

Buford has an after school program that offers an array of academics, extracurricular and sports.

We're fortunate that in this particular budget proposal we will not be recommending

any decrease in those after school programs nor athletic programs.

We also have at the middle school level a program called Career Cruisers that we help our students to take a look at career options, college opportunities, post-secondary high school opportunities so that they can start even as early as the fifth grade level

Dreaming and visioning envisioning where they want to be when they get to high school and beyond.

At the 9th grade we have a transition program, collaboration between teachers and administrators and parents and students, Buford and the high school, to plan for and to have a keen focus on what does it mean to leave middle school and go to high school.

And an effort to design the environment that's most conducive for students just entering high school.

We have a number of new clubs at the high school level and this is just a few, three of those many clubs that are there.

The Urban Design Club that was partially designed by one of our school board members, Kathy Galvin.

We have a Medical Sciences Club and you see a picture here of 54 students this year that received a white coat ceremony from the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia.

These individuals visit campus, they're exposed to medical careers, and I would assure you that that picture shows you a number of students who will be the future nurses and physicians in our community and throughout our region.

We started today, we've said for a little while that we're going to start, but today we officially started our first Mandarin Chinese virtual class at the high school.

as a pilot for this semester but will be a full course starting in the fall.

We have over 20 AP classes and dual enrollment classes at the high school and we have our new assistant principal position at the high school and reading specialists that provide additional support for our students.

We have also a walk program at the high school that recognizes and responds to the student that is referred to as our non-traditional student.

A student that needs academic or emotional support and or emotional support in order to reach the goal of graduation.

It's been a successful program and we have a 99% success rate.

It's a success rate in that program.

It's self-paced and student specific.

Our summer program, we have a host of summer enrichment academies.

We are now publishing a brochure in which our families will be able to select from week long and two week long enrichment academies for their student that deal with mathematics in a fun way, science, and other curricular activities that help to expand learning for students.

Our Algebra Prep Academy is a partnership between the school division and the University of Virginia that invites our eighth graders over to grounds and have them to matriculate during the summer in preparation for algebra the following year.

The Summer Math Academy does the same thing.

the target audience is seventh graders for this particular program.

Then our regular summer power program as well as the CHS summer school online program that we will be kicking off this summer.

When we take a look at some of the accomplishments of our high school students, we look at, there's a

a group that rates the performance of our students and let me tell you the name of that group.

The College Board has the AP Equity and Excellence rating and it looks at 10th, 11th and 12th graders and rate when they get to the 12th grade, they rate the number of students who have scored higher or better on an AP test.

We have 33% of those students scoring higher or better.

Students in Charlottesville City scoring three or higher on their AP test.

When we compare that to the performance of the state, the state has only 21% scoring three or higher on AP test.

And as we compare that to the nation, the state ranks third in the nation with 21%.

However, in Charlottesville City, we have 33%, which is well above where the state is third in the nation.

Maryland, which is first in the nation, have 25% of their students scoring three or higher on AP tests.

So you can see we're well above the state and well above what is considered the top for the nation.

In 2009 our average over a five-year period, I'm sorry, our average AP score ranged from 516 to 560 while the state's average was 498 to 516.

I will also note that the 516 during that five-year period we had only a very few students who scored 516 and the next score was in the 540s.

On time graduation, we have seen some improvement with our on time graduation rate from 74.6 to 76.5.

Not where we want to be, but we are pleased that we are moving in the right direction and we've put in a number of programs to help continue that forward movement.

We also provide an enormous amount of employee support because we know that the success of our students is impacted greatly by the support that they get, the teachers and staff members and administrators who provide services for our students.

So we offer IQ grants.

The intervention dollars that we have

A portion of that we set aside so that our teachers can put some of their creative thoughts into action.

So we allow them to apply for many grants and this year we awarded our teachers 24 mini grants in order to put in place some of the innovative teaching strategies which they have come up with.

It's been a huge success and we've seen a lot of creative programs started and sustained in our school division.

because of this grant.

We've increased the tuition reimbursement for staff.

We have a wellness program where we support our staff, the cost of fitness, health club fitness for our employees and we've seen a huge increase in fitness participation among staff members, teachers and administrators and support personnel.

We offer professional development that's differentiated.

PDE Express is a way for our employees to keep up with their professional development so that they are on track for licensure renewal.

We also help to pay for license renewal for our employees.

There's a $25 fee for that renewal every five years and we support that through our budget.

National certification is a

A credential that we encourage our employees to seek and we have several employees who, teachers who have received that certification and last year we were able to put in the budget a small supplement to say thank you and to encourage others to seek that certification.

We now have an automated substitute calling system which has pleased our teachers quite a bit because they now have more control over the substitute that will be in their classroom and they can make advance plans for that person to come into the classroom.

Improved internal communication through our teacher advisory committee team meetings and an employee newsletter.

we um...

We have a projected decrease in city funding over the past years.

Our city has been extremely supportive of the education of the young people in Charlottesville City.

And this year that support has not waned at all.

However, because of decreases all around us and decreases in real estate revenue, we are projecting that decrease in city funding of $129,000.

But when we look at that decrease in the projected support from our local funding, we have to also look at the decrease in the state funding.

In 2009, we received $21,123,301 from the state.

However, in the 10 budget, we received $19 million

an 8.78% decrease in state funding.

In the proposed 11 budget, we're going to realize an additional decrease.

So we will move from in 921 million to $17,386,332, another 9.77% decrease.

When we look at the decrease that we are facing in Charlottesville City and compare that to surrounding localities, I think we can clearly see that our decrease is proportionate to the decreases in the surrounding region.

The cuts that we have to make are as deep and as significant as we're seeing in other localities.

The total reduction

that we have overall from 9 to the 11 budget is a huge decrease of $17.69 decrease or $3.7 million decrease in our budget.

How do we deal with the shortfalls?

Well, from the current 09-10 budget

We've reduced 32.10 positions overall.

That's a 4% decrease in our workforce in our school division.

While we're decreasing the workforce, we're still

receiving increases in mandates at the state and the federal level.

We're decreasing the workforce, but our commitment and determination to continue to provide high quality instruction for our young people has not changed at all.

The reductions, you'll find that they are division-wide in the instructional area, support area and administrative area.

We have a reduced operating budget by 7%.

There are significant changes in this proposed budget.

We're proposing that we increase class sizes at Walker and Buford.

The current class size is 16.25.

We're proposing to increase that class size by .5, bringing it up to 16.75.

This proposal will, positions at Buford will cause Buford to lose 4.5 teachers However, Buford this year is recommending that for the start of the 2010-2011 school year

that they move from a traditional schedule to a combination schedule, a schedule that would have some classes as block, some classes as traditional, and some classes as four by four.

The new structure of the classes that Beaufort would like to offer and has support from the community and from staff members would require that we go back in and restructure so that we can partially offset some of the loss at Beaufort through stimulus funding, through funding some positions, a 1.5 position through stimulus dollars.

We also proposed to reduce the instructional assistant allocation to the elementary schools by one at each of the six schools and this would be in the media department and second grade.

It would be a two year reduction.

The first of the two years would be half of the total allocation in library media and second grade.

Reduce division administration and support by the elimination of one accounting technician.

Point five clerical support position.

Shift the HR coordinator duties to support Henry Avenue, which would be reduced by one instructional assistant.

And then eliminate 1.5 custodial substitute positions in the school division.

Balancing this budget was not easy.

It required a great deal of creative thinking and input from all of the stakeholders.

We've been able to balance the budget by a mix of several different areas of funding.

One time use of some funds, some stimulus funds, some permanent changes, and then some short term reductions.

We will have $554,000 in stimulus positions that will be funded through stimulus, which is one time most of the stimulus funding that we're talking about, the $554,000 will expire next year, so we will have to

Reconcile that in the 12 budget.

We also are proposing to take $300,000 out of our prep fund balance.

Our prep fund is our Piedmont Regional Special Education Program, which is a collaboration between Charlottesville City and several other regional school divisions.

Again, that's a short term fix.

$232,000 will come out of textbook funding.

We're proposing to suspend the transfer from our operating budget to the textbook fund for the 11 budget.

Again, a short term fix.

Currently, we have about a half million dollars in that fund.

So we feel like during the 11th school year we will be able to react to any needs that we have for textbooks and we're also looking at using online resources.

more in the 11th school year.

$100,000 reduction in furniture, furniture fund, tech replacement and copier, again short term.

The total short term or one-time items is $1.1 million, $1,186,000.

stimulus funding.

Last year we had several positions that we funded through stimulus money and this year we've added to that.

In the shaded area are the positions that we are adding this school year.

in the non-shaded area positions that were already in place during the 10 budget.

An assistant principal at the high school, ESL teacher, 0.5 social worker at Johnson, a division technology position, and a 0.5 math specialist position already in stimulus funding.

Stimulus and then two in stimulus and three in Title I.

This year we have one position that will, two actually 2.6 positions

that will be transferred over to stimulus funding.

And that's our talent development teachers at the elementary school level.

We have one teacher, and we spoke about that earlier, the Buford teacher.

We're offsetting the reduction in staff.

One of those offsets will be made up through having stimulus funds, special education stimulus funding take care of one teacher.

And then we have a psychologist position that we will also transfer over to special education stimulus fund, bringing us to $553,000 in stimulus funding cost currently.

What were our main areas of focus?

We wanted to preserve programs and services to our students.

That was our first priority in the development of this budget.

The cuts that we had to make were not easy.

They were difficult.

I don't think that you can ever make a cut in any service area or any position that is not felt throughout the school division and is not

is not painful, we certainly realize that in this budget.

The overall size of the 10-11 budget will be the lowest that we've had since 2006.

However, even with that, we did not cut any direct services to programs to any of the students in our school division.

Additional reductions if we should have to incur additional reductions from the state level could certainly affect us.

It is possible that that will happen.

There's a possibility that we'll have a change to our ADM from the census.

There is a proposal to change the way we count our students so that could have an effect on us.

Of course the budget amendment that is now in the General Assembly and in the House could cause our local composite index the way that's calculated to change and that would impact our budget also.

Here you have what we bring to you each year showing how

Budget is split up.

You can see the amount of the total revenue, total expenses, and where most of our funds are spent and that's in personnel services, employee benefits, personnel services, and then operating costs.

Total projected budget, $68,358,106 with a reduction of $2,060,640 or 4.04%.

Again, we have some reporting obligations to our State Department of Education and these are the areas in which we report so you can see just how our budget is split up in these major areas.

The majority of our funding goes to instruction, 73.5% to instruction with the smallest amount of our budget going into technology.

Thank you very much, Dr. Atkins.

It's a sobering presentation.

My first read on it is you've done an excellent job of trying to figure out the least painful way to reduce the budget with the least impact on our students.

So I commend you for your efforts.

I'd like to start with a comment.

You know, sitting here and thinking about what a tough year this is, I have to go back to my first year on city council where the schools were

in a crisis.

And it was a very, very tough year.

It was my first year as mayor.

And fortunately, we had the wisdom to hire you in, I guess, 2006.

And I think you've done a fabulous job.

I agree.

I just want to make it clear to anybody who's watching that this is, like you said, very painful and it's painful for me to think about every assistant teacher who won't be in a second grade classroom.

I want us to get back to where we're funding the things more fully, but I really appreciate the fact that we've been able, you've been able, to find ways to make cuts without curbing instructional programming.

and I think that that's something that other localities in the state have not been able to do this year and I really want to thank our taxpayers, people who have consistently been willing to pay the money that it takes to have a high quality education system despite a lot of challenging population in our schools and I really appreciate the fact that we live in a community where people value education and continue to support it.

I agree with you and I think one of the things that's really difficult for a superintendent is to look at the budget and to reconcile the predicament that we find ourselves in with the values of the community.

On one hand, that's very important to us and helps to drive our decision making.

On the other hand, it can be very difficult because we have limited resources and we know the values of the community and we have to respond to that.

I had a couple of questions.

You provided a wonderful presentation at the NAACP meeting about a month ago.

Can you just kind of briefly highlight some of the accomplishments with the African American graduation rate, specifically because you talked about some wonderful programs.

That's the first part, then the second part.

Yes, the NAACP meeting was very nice.

It was a pleasure to meet with them and to present.

One of the things that we talk about as an African American woman and superintendent and the mother of an African American child, what I realized more than anything else that

Educational programs have to be designed so that they meet the needs of students, not designed so that they meet the needs of an ethnicity.

We have many different cultures in our schools and our graduation rate is not where it needs to be.

So when I look at what the needs are in the school, I have to look at academic shortcomings

and instructional shortcomings and design the programs that match that.

And we have now at every level an intense focus on reading, mathematics and the core content areas

and support all the way around from the time a student enters the door in the mornings until they leave two hours beyond normal dismissal time in the afternoons.

Programs that support that student emotionally, socially and physically.

The walk program at the high school is one of those culminating programs that is an outgrowth of everything that's been happening at the elementary school.

I think the call to action always is going to be encouragement from families, from community members to our young people.

It's so important that we talk straight to our children and they have a huge amount of time to watch negative things on television and to hear negative words and negative reinforcement.

It's so important that we talk to them about the positive.

We talk to them about the value of an education, why they're coming to school.

What we expect of them when they come to school.

They need to hear family members say it.

They need to hear members and their people in the community say why they go to school and the value of going to school and what the expectations are for them when they come to school and what is it that we expect them to achieve.

It can't just be the educators who are saying that.

It has to be heard.

I just wanted to make two or three comments.

First, I was very pleased to see the indicators across the board going up.

All the children are improving in many classes and many groups, which I think is really encouraging.

I was also very impressed that you were able to maintain a three- and four-year program so that it will show in the future that there are a lot of benefits, I think, for the community.

Thank you.

And we are working on that.

You get all the credit and all the blame for what happens at schools, but I know it's a team effort.

I have Dr. Gillio who is our HR Director, Jim Henderson who is our Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services,

Ed Gillespie, Director of Finance, and I have also our school board chair, Ms. Leah Puryear, and our school board vice chair, Ms. Lozell Duggar.

Thank you very much.

Yes, I would.

Everybody hear me okay?

This budget, I need to be sure I know where I'm standing.

I don't want to step on the mayor.

This budget, I think this slide right here pretty simply says it.

No cuts in services, lower property taxes for more than half our residents.

The other half are seeing other property taxes the same.

No staff layoffs, no furloughs, none of that weird kind of stuff that a lot of people are doing.

And it supports our schools.

I don't usually do this, but I have the privilege of doing a few things different.

This headline says it all.

City looks to trim spending and taxes.

No scaling back of services.

And I think if you get those three messages, that's what this budget's all about.

We'll spend time as we go through the budget process talking about a lot of details, a lot of specifics.

There's probably interest on a lot of people's parts.

I know the council has an interest.

There are people in the community that have an interest.

I saw an ad in the paper today that's raising an interest about different ways that this budget can be sliced up if you want to look at it that way.

But we took a position when we talked to council in the fall and we stuck with it that the taxes are going to remain the same in terms of the rate.

Because most people's assessments are down, that means their taxes literally are less.

And that we're not going to cut services if we can do that.

I have to tell you, I stand here really surprised to be able to give this message.

I thought Charlottesville was going to be like others in the region and the state.

You'll start reading the headlines, if not already, about other problems.

And we can spend more time talking about why, but we're in a different place.

I don't know that we're absolutely unique of any city, but we're in a very different place from most local governments.

We're all about services.

A lot of times we've done videos in the past.

We've done lots of slides.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time.

Most people know all the services they get or the services that they take advantage of.

And it's different things for different people, but there's services that are either available when somebody has an emergency, like police and fire, services like the schools that if you have a child in school, they're really important.

If you don't, it's important for the community to be successful.

Transit, this is a fire exercise, we've got some great new pools, new parks and recreation facilities, and I like to talk about our services are A to Z, from animal control to zinnias, and everything in between, and I mean this is called a full service city and that's what this budget presents and tries to protect, whether it's young people in our schools or young people in our rec programs or young people that are involved in all kinds of things to seniors and

that are involved in different city programs.

We thought this cartoon, let's change brink of chaos to everything is wonderful.

That's in there for a reason.

I think a lot of people have been saying everything is wonderful for the last couple of years.

And I think we pretty consistently have stood there, different images, we're going to remind you of those images for three or four years that it's coming, it's coming, it's coming.

and to the City Council's wisdom, you agreed with that.

And we've done things the last three or four years that I think has positioned the city to be where we are.

The other one is the Chinese symbol of danger and opportunity.

That's crisis in Chinese, but it is that combination of danger, chaos, however you want to look at it, and opportunity.

And I'm a big believer that in this economic environment there's opportunity.

I think there's opportunity as the council starts talking to Albemarle County about some good things that we can do together.

But there's, you know, this kind of economy and what's going on I think will create an opportunity for this city if we can take advantage of it.

So this is the fiscal year 2011 budget.

We talk about FY11.

That's our bureaucratic for the budget that starts July 1 runs to June 30th of next year.

That's the city's fiscal year.

So when we talk about fiscal year, FY11, all those kinds of things that will intermingle, we're talking about when it starts July and the year after that.

This is that storm picture that we've been showing four years now Rick.

It's coming, it's coming, it's coming.

It landed a little bit.

We think it's going to get worse the next two or three years.

These are just headlines.

You're picking up the paper every day.

I'm not even sure these numbers are totally right after seeing Rose's analysis of the state budget, but the state numbers are getting worse.

We're looking at close to a million dollars, and this is sort of the best case scenario.

This is what's in the Cain budget.

If you look at worst case of what's in the House budget, what's in the Senate budget,

whatever, we can put up some big numbers.

This is harder to see but big plans, empty pockets, not a lot of good news, perilous times for Virginia Arts, libraries, culture, community agencies.

The list is endless.

I'm amazed at how many local programs are getting zero funding in the state budget.

My trustee notes state budget update on what is happening in Richmond that affects the city of Charlottesville.

The governor has announced budget amendments.

The House and Senate have released their latest budget to go to conference.

With economic changes, there are reduced revenues to operate state government and is proposing a lot of cuts.

It's likely that there are major impacts on the university as well, which affects tremendously our local economy and thus the city's future revenues.

It's likely this will lead us to some longer term restructuring of how local governments like our city are funded by the state.

Seems to me if these cuts come through it's like we're slowly bleeding as we lose state support, the service needs don't go away, and most of our residents are themselves feeling the pressure of the economic slowdown.

With 49% of the state budget return to localities, the biggest pieces for our schools.

There are a number of areas, and I won't go through all these, that are cuts, schools, transportation, libraries, police, sheriff, social services, community agencies, on and on and on.

So where does this leave us?

Seems to me there are a couple choices or a combination of choices.

The first one is pass state cuts through to city services.

The second is shift local funds from other services to restore cuts.

and the third one is raise local fees or taxes to offset the state reductions.

In fiscal year 11, we're almost at a million dollars.

I'm not sure where the schools are, but we're getting close to five million dollars of state budget reductions.

What I just read you was Governor Warner's budget amendments in 2002.

The city and the schools have been taking hits for years.

and we're focused on this year but, and I think we have some charts to show the council how much the reductions have been over the last 10 years.

It's a huge amount of money.

The picture hasn't changed, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse.

There's a pattern of passing on the cuts to local government and the hard choices have to be made by cities and counties around the state.

This year's the worst.

But that's not a new trend.

I found this cleaning house.

I was kind of surprised.

And when I read Governor Warner and I read the rest of it, it's like, this is deja vu.

We showed this last year.

This is another one of those out of this crisis comes an opportunity.

I don't know if you can see these real good.

Renew, refresh, invigorate, reorganize, re-whatever, but reinvent.

This is an opportunity for us to stop and take a hard look at what's the city all about, what's our region all about, and how do we organize, how do we spend money to do that.

I mention that because more typically, and it's happening right now, big issues start coming up when there are money problems and people start looking for opportunity.

We unfortunately are having Richmond do that right now.

Hopefully that stops.

But I think there's an opportunity for us to continue that discussion and dialogue, whether it's the city and the schools or the city and the county or all of us together.

And hopefully we can get back to a positive discussion.

Budget survey, 56 percent believe they get their money's worth for services and taxes, the best ever.

The numbers were running in the mid-forties.

That's a fairly significant change.

The last three or four years have been 45, 46 percent and it's jumped to 56 percent.

I think in council's wisdom that was the direction they gave us when we put the budget together.

Sixty-two percent, almost two-thirds, want their taxes and services held at the same level.

This is a slice.

It's a, you know, a mailed out survey.

I'm sure there are lots of people that don't fill it out, but it gives you some sense for how the community is feeling.

I should go back.

One of the priorities that was in the budget survey were the schools.

Public Safety, Public Works, Basic City Services.

So, 40% of the residential property owners will see no change in their taxes because their assessments haven't changed.

More than half will see a decrease, literal decrease in their property taxes

The tax rate remains the same.

The total city budget is less than 2010, the current year we're in, $1.7 million less, and yet there are no cuts in services.

Ideally what we've done is present a budget that no citizen is going to see a difference in any service.

I've checked that out a bunch of times to be able to honestly and candidly stand here and tell you that.

That was our goal.

I'm surprised we can do it, but I think we're doing it.

There are a few places there's some reorganizing and there's some things that might have an appearance that it changes service, but I think in those cases we're actually improving service and saving money.

The CSA and the CCF that the city and county are doing in our joint budgets is one example of that.

That saves us both money and we think we're going to get better service.

We've continued to be conservative about our budgeting.

and years we get caught, particularly when the economy was going great guns.

We got a lot of criticism about that, but I think it's paying off in down times.

We're still trying to look forward.

Next year, year after that, year after that.

Council will get multi-year trends about where we think we're headed.

You know, a trend book that's that thick, I guess, Leslie.

But lots of information to keep looking beyond this budget year because we think it's critical we look out five and ten years.

We hope we're meeting the community needs.

There are all kinds of services we provide.

Debt becomes council's job.

Are we doing the kinds of things this community wants and are we spending the public's dollars on the kind of things that we should be spending it on?

We're trying to continue quality services.

The kinds of changes we've made in the budget, we've cut it 1.7 million dollars.

The kinds of changes we've made are probably incremental all over the place.

The biggest place where there's big money

is the landfill and remediation cost and recycling and those are things we think we can provide a good service for less cost.

We believe it reflects Council's priorities.

I'll show you a couple examples as we go through this.

Even in a year where we've got financial issues because it's a down budget and no increase in taxes or fees.

This just shows the downward trend.

I'm afraid this trend is going to keep going like that.

I don't see any indication it's heading the other way.

And one of the things that we've seen with city budgets over the years is that there's a lag time.

So what you see going on in the marketplace today might take one, two, three years to hit us.

State budget cuts at the university might take one, two, three years to hit us.

So I think whoever's standing here next year, that line's going to keep going down.

I've put this chart in for the last couple years because this question always comes up.

City taxpayer supported positions, we are less than we were 10 years ago.

I'll say it one more time because people don't believe it.

The number of city employees has decreased compared to 10 years ago for taxpayer supported positions.

Where we've grown are things that are federally funded, grant funded, those kinds of things that are

Yeah, they're taxpayer supported, they're supported at the state or the federal level, and some other community would get it if Charlotte still didn't have it.

But local tax-wise, we've reduced employees.

One of the things about our budget, which is true for Rosa and the schools, or probably anybody that does this, there's, I counted it up while I was sitting up there, there are 80 people that are directly involved with the city budget.

It is clearly a team effort.

So I get to stand here every year and talk about it, but the reality is I'm a small part of that.

There's lots of people that are involved with it.

I'll just mention a couple really key people that are sitting here right now.

Aubrey Watts, Leslie Beauregard is going to come up in a minute.

There's our budget manager.

Ryan Davidson, where's Ryan?

Ryan's kind of the invisible guy that nobody sees, but he's cranking numbers all the time.

And Bernard Ray over here, our finance director, is actively involved in the budget, but he's also sort of the voice and conscience of are we looking ahead to the future?

Are we concerned about our AAA bond rating?

Those kind of big financial, big picture policy issues.

He kind of keeps us on task.

So that's kind of the budget team.

We're going to switch gears here.

And Leslie Beauregard, who's the budget manager,

Can everybody hear me?

Okay, great.

So I have the fun of taking us through some of the numbers.

So I kind of feel like I'm standing in the way here.

So this is just a pie chart showing our general fund budget revenues for fiscal year 2011 coming up.

And as you can see from the pie chart, the largest percentage is that local taxes, and that includes the real estate taxes.

It's 67%.

It's a whole bunch of sources though, but most of that, clearly half is about the real estate taxes.

The other parts, this is all the general funds.

These just support the operating portion of the budget, which are city departments and things like that that do the day-to-day stuff that you're all used to seeing.

and those charts still didn't turn out right and I'm disappointed by that but anyway what you see here is it's supposed to be 2005 actual to 2010 revised and then proposed budget is at the end so I'm sorry those didn't turn out right they looked great printed out but let's go back to the real property taxes for a minute

We are looking at, for the current fiscal year that we're in, a reduction from the original proposed budget and then a further reduction when we get into 11 of 1.6%, which is about $800,000.

So we're still, obviously this happening, the assessments went down as you all know.

So total revenue is going down.

Sales and use tax, similar story.

That third line from the

Right is the 10 original budget.

The next line going down is revised, so we know that in fiscal year 2010 we're going to see less revenue.

We're projecting slightly up from that for 11, but as you can see it still goes down from the original 10 budget by 5.56%.

That shouldn't be a surprise.

People aren't shopping as much.

We're not seeing the type of shopping that people have done before.

The snow certainly didn't help.

The big storm before Christmas didn't help.

We've had terrible months because of weather, people not wanting to go out and spend money.

That's happening all over the nation, and it's no different here in the city of Charlottesville.

Meals tax, same story.

Original budget, we're down in terms of the current fiscal year that we're in now.

For 11, we're looking slightly higher, but we're still going to be down by about 2% from the original budget fiscal year 2010.

Same story.

People aren't eating out as much.

The snow didn't help.

Maybe once we get some warm weather, that'll turn around.

Meals actually, we're seeing some positive, meals is one of the areas we're seeing some positive trends.

Same with lodging tax.

not quite as down as much 0.08% from 2010.

So in those two items, we're seeing a little bit of trend upward.

But again, we don't really know.

I mean, this is unprecedented.

We've not seen anything like this before.

As Bernard says, he's been in this business a long, long time and hasn't seen anything like this.

I didn't say how many years.

Hasn't seen anything like this before.

And don't be surprised, and this is a message for the community and city councils, we go through the budget if we have to go back to council during the budget in a couple of weeks and say we've got to bring these revenues down even further.

We did that last year at this time, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again.

State assistance.

This clearly is the biggest downward spiral, so we are down 14.5% from original budget for 10.

that next to last dot, that's our projection for this year down that much more than what we originally had budgeted.

And in the slide coming up, I'm going to show you how much stuff is out there that we don't have a clue about, that we can't even quantify right now, that we don't even know is going to happen, that could very well happen.

It could range from anywhere from half a million dollars to several million dollars impact depending on how you look at it.

This particular chart is only showing three sources.

This is constitutional officers, state aid for police protection, and state highway assistance, which is the three main sources the city government receives.

We're not talking about schools in this slide at all.

But there are many other smaller sources that we receive that could be hurt.

This doesn't even bring into effect agencies that get state funding that might come to council for funding as well.

So these are just those three main sources.

So you've got all these other scary unknowns out there like those other sources that could be affected, that could affect our budget.

These are all, these are expenditures.

Now we're looking at expenditures.

So you can see the biggest part of the pie is indeed schools.

They are 32% of our general fund operating budget.

The next part of the pie is public safety and justice.

This just kind of shows you the breakup of where things are falling.

Infrastructure and public transportation obviously is public works, the transit system.

So this just kind of gives you an idea of where things kind of sit.

And this is, again, this is the general fund operating budget portion.

These are all city operating budgets.

The largest part of the pie, as you can see, that $126 million, that is the general fund portion.

We've got other funds, though, that support operations that receive other sources of funding, such as fee-based services, grants, state and federal dollars.

The golf course is 100% funded by their user fees, for instance.

Utilities, that's 100% supported by the customers of utilities.

So these are just showing you kind of how these particular funds are split out when compared to the general fund.

But clearly the general fund is the largest portion of this.

And again, I've mentioned this before, local taxes and fees support the general fund.

The economic downturn fund, we started this last year

we're budgeting at the same amount, $2.8 million in anticipation of having some things happen during the fiscal year that we're in right now that we may not be able to predict and sure enough a lot has happened that we weren't able to predict in this current year we've used 2.3, almost 2.4 million of this account, this fund

to help supplement losses in local revenue and state revenue that have happened since July 1st, 2010.

These are things we did not know about when the council passed the budget last year.

Gary will talk a little bit later about why this is important.

This is critically important in terms of our AAA bond rating and he'll speak to that later.

Having this reserve, having this cushion to help because clearly these are unknown times.

I mean we don't see 11 being any different than 10.

We see 12 actually as being worse than the year we're in now and the year we're about to enter into.

And again, this goes back to some proactive planning that we've talked about before, trying to look towards the future, a future that we really don't have, can't really predict right now.

Education, the schools did a great job on their presentation.

Again, $40.08 million is our contribution to them.

In addition to that, they received $1.76 million for school capital improvements.

One enhanced service is on the transit system and we've included $110,000 in this budget to increase some arrival times for three routes.

In addition to this, this will include hiring two new transit drivers to accomplish this enhancement.

Also, we'll have a new aquatic center opening in 2010.

There are new revenues in place that will help offset these expenditures.

This also does put into place that Crow Pool will close once this center is open in the fall.

But the aquatic budget also keeps McIntire Wading Pool open.

And we'll talk more about this at an upcoming work session later this month.

On the capital side we've got 33.85 million in projects but keep in mind that 65% of those are exclusively state federally funded and that happens to be the 250 bypass interchange at 22.1 million.

I already mentioned the school capital projects and then here's some items that are specifically council priority initiatives including stormwater, affordable housing, parkland acquisition and new sidewalks.

And here's some of the unknowns I talked about.

And I just received today a 25 page analysis from the Virginia Municipal League kind of outlining all the possibilities that could occur if the House or Senate bills were passed or some combination of such.

And it took them a long time to put that together and I can understand why because it is extremely complicated.

Everything is affected.

I don't think they really they didn't consider not not funding anything These are things I could fit on the slide that could be impacted I mean I could have filled up five slides with just the list

of course social services, mental health programs, non-profit agencies are getting hit very hard, education libraries in the arts, regional planning commission, I think in the senates they're taking out all funding for planning district commissions, public safety of course, they're also proposing using local revenue to supplement state cuts specifically for the compensation board, I mean that's not really a new theme for the state but it's

It's just a continuation of putting a mandate on the locality and then telling us to pay for it.

Compensation boards at risk, that's part of that previous bullet, and then flexible cuts.

For those not familiar with this, for two years in a row the cities and counties had to endure these flexible cuts, which means we got to pick and choose where we wanted to have cut or we got to write the state a nice check.

Some actually did write the state of check like the city of Lynchburg.

We chose the cuts.

One of the plans includes the reinstatement of these flexible cuts and I know that that would be a $550,000 reduction to the city that we don't have in our budget right now.

Most of that in the area of the Comprehensive Services Act.

It's almost like trading a torch in a race, huh?

Well, we think the storm is brewing.

I don't know what image somebody will use next year, but maybe it's hit the shore.

But we're going to talk to you in a few minutes about snow.

So we've had another storm that's hit, a $2 million hit, it seems like.

But I think our sense is, as we conclude this year's budget,

Next year and the year after that, and as we have the work sessions with council and other public presentations, we really need to keep our eye on those future years.

So anything we spend this year, we need to be real well aware, because I think it's going to get worse.

If nothing else, our revenue sharing money from Albemarle County declines.

Half a million next year, the year after that, two million.

If everything else stays the same.

So worse in the future.

Who knows what's going to happen with the real estate market.

I must say I don't see any trends that are moving the other way.

It might be flat, might continue to decline.

We'll have to wait and see.

But it takes, it usually takes one or two years for that to show up in our taxes.

So FY12, which would be the year beyond the one we're talking about in the budget, more challenging.

and we need to continue to plan.

The five, ten year kind of planning scenarios that we've talked with council about, we need to keep a focus on that.

And here's the county revenue sharing money trend line.

It's been going like this.

It's going like that the other way.

So it's been in the news, I just thought I'd remind you that it goes, drops a lot.

We decided this afternoon that the economic downturn fund should also say state budget cut fund because I think the reality is we're going to use the state budget cuts and that reserve, that fund, whatever you want to call it, probably fairly immediately as we get into the budget process.

Leslie told you it's like a juggling act.

We don't know what's going to happen.

I don't think anybody does in Richmond.

Suddenly we're going to read in the newspaper what all the changes are and it usually takes a couple weeks.

to assess it.

So it won't surprise me if we're not about to finish the budget and we get enough information to tell council we got cuts in these areas and we have to go to this fund or we have to do other things.

And it's even possible the budget's been adopted.

I don't think that's an area of any of us.

Right, Mr. Ray?

As long as you've been around.

This is another one.

5% shift in real estate assessments.

I know communities in the country that are having 40% shifts in a year.

Northern Virginia has seen some huge shifts.

So we're awfully lucky and in our community we haven't seen more of that.

I don't think we've hit bottom yet.

I hope we made the point these reserves are critical.

Therefore things like snow and other emergencies that come along and we ought to be careful

We sell bonds May, June.

They look at all this stuff we've just talked about, particularly the reserves, particularly our UFON financial policies, those kinds of things.

And this is what, is this Moody's?

Right, this is Moody's.

I'm not going to read all this, but whoops.

Product of management, established additional rewards, financial stability of critical points to safeguard it.

This is what Moody's said we need to keep doing.

This is what our financial advisor is telling us to respond to Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which are our rating agencies.

And they're kind of the outsider that looks at city government.

We're 36 years in a row.

I'm glad to leave as city manager with the AAA intact, I must tell you.

That was one of my biggest worries.

What's going on?

Tax assessment trends.

One of the things we did as a strategy, and I think it's paid off, is these years that I'm circling, these larger increases we put into capital projects.

We're spending almost $15 million, Brian, on pools.

came when the economy was good.

We've done lots of things, capital projects wise, when the economy was going better and now that the economy's heading in another direction, we're slowing capital stuff down and most people in the community aren't going to see a difference.

They will see it in the roads, which Ms. Mueller will talk about later.

People talk about our tax rate because they try to compare us to a county that doesn't provide the A to Z services.

This is when you compare it to cities that provide A to Z services.

We have one of the lowest tax rates in the state.

And if you've been to Stanton, Stanton is a very nice community, but it doesn't provide the kind of services we provide here.

If we're at 95 cents, here's the median of all these cities.

and these are cities that have a similar demographic dires, a similar school population dires.

I think people are getting a pretty good deal in Charlottesville.

13 cents less than the statewide average.

Everything that we have given council tonight is on our website.

Rick swears it's up and working if you go there right now.

Does anybody in here have a computer?

It should link into it.

And anything we give council in the future, as soon as we give it to council, it's going up on the website.

Questions and background, anything for a work session.

We found that the people that are the most interested in the city budget, this is pretty handy.

And so we've gotten away from CDs, printing budgets, all that to an electronic kind of budget format.

Counting tonight, I think there are nine different meetings if I've done my count right.

Let's see if I did my math right.

So the next one is a work session on these topics.

First public hearing is March 15th, which is the next regularly scheduled city council meeting right here in two weeks.

Another work session on March 17th, you can see the topics

In terms of public, I think we've had good participation and good results from this of the citizen budget forum where it's really an interactive dialogue.

There's no three minute egg timer things, Mr. Mayor, right?

But its intent is for people that have an interest in the budget to be able to talk and interact with the council.

Quick presentation overview, but most of the evening is spent either one-on-one or in small groups with city councilors and talking about budget issues that are of interest to whoever shows up.

Then another work session and the second public hearing in April, April 5th, which is the first regular council meeting in April, that's the city council's proposed budget.

Changes that have been made in the budget that the staff proposed to council.

And then another work session and then final budget adoption on April 12th.

We legally have to have a city budget adopted by April 15th.

I just found this today.

I thought that pretty well.

You could put dangers of the state economy, dangers of the local economy.

I think that little footbridge with some rails breaking off of it is a pretty good analogy of what's happening.

I think the city is going to make it all the way across there.

I'm not sure about some other localities.

I don't think we've stuck our head in the sand.

That's what this is really saying.

These are strategies that some other communities have been doing.

And I do think it's a time for us, you can call it transformational, you can call it opportunity, whatever.

I think particularly with city-county relations it's a great time to sit down and talk about how can we work together to save each other money and provide our citizens good services.

And we've gotten the opportunity to do that and I think council's very wisely taken the lead in doing that.

So think about possibilities as you think about Albemarle County and how we engage them and the community in those discussions.

And we always like to end with the kids of the community.

So that's our budget kind of overview.

In the next eight meetings we'll spend a lot of time going through a lot of details.

Hopefully this is a budget that, although I was surprised to see a big ad in the newspaper today,

is a budget that won't generate a lot of controversy, but I'm sure there will be people that are standing at that microphone in two weeks that want something that's not there.

But we're glad to entertain any questions council might have out of tonight.

As usual, if you have more detailed questions as you go through the budget document, let us know and we'll research those and put them together so then the public can see them on our website.

Any questions?

We did leave you.

This will be.

It's soon to be like tomorrow.

Okay.

I'm passing out.

Any immediate questions from Council?

I just had a process question.

Last year we asked the Planning Commission to make recommendations on the capital improvement budget and last year they never actually got to City Council.

I just want to make sure we...

Absolutely.

And Bill's not here, but he was on the committee again.

We had some glitches last year, I think.

But we should have hopefully more information.

Well, the other thing you got going on is the governor's in it, the fray, and that's when the General Assembly finishes, so.

I mean, if you go back and forth, we'll see.

As Leslie mentioned today, I think you all got the DML newsletter, it is so complicated.

I mean, there's so many things that are floating around and they're

They're winners and losers depending on which side of the House or the Senate.

I mean, I think we were surprised.

And there isn't any agreement on anything.

So, it's going to be a long hard road for them.

You know, I think that

I mean, your presentation was sobering, but I actually think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and I think we need to be kind of cognizant of that as we proceed.

Because I think whether it's a House budget or a Senate budget, it's going to put the burden on the localities.

The House budget in particular, most of what they're proposing puts a burden on cities unduly.

And so you know and there's a lot of stuff being proposed but but it's going to get worse and I also think we're going to find

It's going to be very harsh on non-profits, from the arts but in particular the issues that affect the needy in the community.

and whatever gets cut there would take effect I assume in July 1st.

I mean that's when the state budget starts and so I kind of think we need to be somewhat prepared to fill gaps in what we view as being really essential services if the state drops the ball in terms of providing resources to nonprofit agencies that do a lot of good work in this community.

I mean I think

Other comments or questions?

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

And just remind you, next Wednesday, the 10th is our work session one.

Bring your notebooks.

Don't forget your notebooks.

And if you could take a quick look at the outlines, not tonight, but when you get a chance to get in the book and just be sure we're covering the topics you want to cover, or if something comes up that you start hearing from people in the community about, just let us know and we'll try to include that on the upcoming agendas.

Next item on our agenda is an update on our pedestrian bicycle plan.

Mr. Tolbert.

You're supposed to ride your bicycle in here tonight, Jim.

I'll try to run through this presentation given the hour a little faster than I might otherwise.

We were asked to put together an update for Council on really where we are with bicycle pedestrian issues and work that's been done and what any issues that might remain or might be facing us are.

We put together a working group, as you can see, represented basically all the departments that are involved, Chris Genzic from Parks and Rec, Steve Lawson, Lonnie Randall from Public Works, Brian Dailey, and then several of my staff, and Sherry Eubanks with the school bus transportation, so we can make sure we address those issues.

1997 council adopted a set of sidewalk priorities after planning commission had put them together.

It's amazing it's been that long.

I'm not going to run through every one of these, but essentially those priorities were prioritized sidewalks based on things like safety, pedestrian use, age of the user,

Cost in low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic, drainage, access to community facilities, residents' desire, completing networks, speed of movement, other sorts of issues.

And a priority list was put together.

This list has 100-plus sidewalks or did.

And as you can see, over the years, we've been doing an awful lot of these here.

You'll see a lot of completes.

You might also see this and say, all right, if this was a priority list, why is 27 done and 28 and 29 are not and 30 and 31 are?

Well, in 2001, council started putting money in the budget for neighborhood capital improvements.

And we had neighborhoods asking for specific projects that were not related to this.

And so we've got a lot of those that were done as a result of what they requested.

And so we skipped around some, but we've still been working off the basic priority list.

As you can see, we've even got as far down as 91.

We also have done 30 other sidewalks during that time, again at neighborhood requests, so there's been a lot of new sidewalks built in the community.

This River Road sidewalk is one of the test sidewalks that we've done, excuse me, not that one, but a portion of it out of asphalt.

We've also got one on Calhoun that's out of asphalt.

This map unfortunately bleeds really bad here, prints good like some of the other stuff.

But you can see if you look, basically the work that's been done has been all over the city.

These are the new sidewalks that we just went over.

But if you look at the map, you can see the purplish lines there.

The majority of the new sidewalks have been in the central and southern part of the city, to the east and then to the southern part of the city.

where we built the majority of the sidewalks.

Again, this map doesn't read well on here, but in the package you've got it.

If you look at the map, there's an incredible amount of sidewalk and we've got gaps in places, but there's an awful lot of connectivity with sidewalks throughout the city.

We do a lot of sidewalk repair.

We've just changed our process where Public Works is doing a great job taking approximately $200,000 a year and doing sidewalk repair.

And they've gone to a system now of doing, we used to do a three-year update of the needs.

They do it annually so that we stay more on top of what needs to be repaired.

And again, this is a map that shows that we've been doing that work all over the city.

It's pretty scattered throughout the community.

We started doing bike improvements about the same time, but really after our bike bed plan was adopted.

We have every street, we believe, where we can put bike lanes on the street.

We have bike lanes except for those where we might want to remove parking.

But everywhere we've got room, we have bike lanes.

We worked with our biking community in 2004.

to go out and measure and try to find additional areas where we could put bike lanes.

We finished those and then they also worked with us to have a very aggressive Share the Road campaign.

We put up several hundred Share the Road signs all over town.

And then we started requiring bike racks in our zoning ordinance and we put quite a few more on the downtown mall.

So we've done those sorts of things.

And again, these maps all of a sudden just start bleeding bad.

But we don't have a lot of bike lanes.

We need bike lanes.

This is the bicycle plan map that shows the major routes in the bike plan where we talked about building bike trails or having bike lanes or share the road signs.

Essentially what we realized in the bike ped plan is our greatest opportunities are off-road for bicycle because of our narrow streets.

But we've got some opportunities off-road and we've taken advantage of some of those.

In the last year, at one of Council's requests, we've started a program with bike preemption on some of the corridors, primarily West Main and some at Emmett Street, but by bike preemption, this allows bikes to trigger the signals.

If we had the loop detectors in the road, there's not enough metal in a bicycle, or for those that ride scooters sometimes, a scooter, to detect that it's there.

So the light will never change.

As one who rode a Vespa leaving here after some late council meetings and stopping at Preston McIntyre intersection, you could sit there all night waiting for a green light if a car didn't come up because there wasn't enough metal in it to detect.

Same thing with a bicycle.

So at these locations,

Now, we have the bike detection.

You can ride your bike up.

If it's in the middle of the lane, which we're going to put some signs up and tell people they need to move over, it will detect them.

And this has been something the bike community has been asking for for years.

We also started a lot of work on off street trails.

This was a primary focus, as I said, of the 2004 bike ped plan.

Parks and Rec actually hired a trail planner who's been pursuing grants and easements and working very hard to get those.

List of the priority trail projects that came out of the plan and again the details in your packet but there's a lot of work that's gone on and a lot of easements have been acquired and we're on the verge of really building some off-street trails and getting some things implemented that Chris has been working on for a couple of years that are about to really start popping as he does his work.

This is a map showing a lot of the easements that have been acquired.

A lot of people don't realize that the RTF Trail is mostly on good faith letters from people, that property owners have allowed them to build the trails.

And one of his missions is to go out and acquire easements so that we've got those things permanently.

And he's been working very hard to get those easements.

Council last year worked with us to create a pedestrian safety committee and funded pedestrian work.

We've updated signals and improved handicapped access.

We've been working primarily in Market, West Main, Water Street and University Avenue areas.

We have 11 audible pedestrian signals now.

We're not getting many complaints about the talking signals bothering people too much anymore.

I think we've got them at the right level.

We get a lot of contact, particularly from the blind community that's really grateful for the work that you all have done and allowed us to do with putting those in.

We've got LED crosswalks at these locations with three more to come up on the corner.

And I think these have done a lot to improve the safety of pedestrians, particularly in our high traffic areas around the downtown.

and everywhere that they're in and they, I think I'm safe still Judy, in saying they survived the snow and the snow plows so far.

So that was something we were really worried about.

And you might notice that three of these locations where we didn't have power are solar powered and they're working just fine.

Where do we go from here?

We believe we need to re-prioritize our sidewalks, and we've started a process, our sidewalk priority list, we've started a process to do that.

The community's not like it was in 1997.

Development's occurred, it's occurred in different places, and we think we need to make some changes.

So we've had a staff group that's been working to reassess the sidewalk needs city-wide and prioritize

and trying to come up with a first cycle of a five-year design and construction cycle.

We want to take that, once we've got those priorities done, our goal is in April to take them to our neighborhood groups and let them comment on them, then take them to the Planning Commission and then ultimately in June to bring them here to begin design work per that list with funding that you make available in the 11 budget.

We also are exploring the use of full-color bike lanes.

There have been a lot of requests that we look at this.

Some communities are experimenting with it.

Federal Highways is actually allowing the experiment to be conducted in some areas, particularly at intersections, to show the continuation of bike lanes across intersections to make sure that the drivers of cars know that there's a bike lane there or a bike crossing.

And we're exploring how we might do that.

We're also looking at improving the signage, things such as at those intersections with preemption saying move over and get in the middle of the lane.

One of the things that was proposed by some of our committee people is to look at, explore could we require helmet use by say under 14 year olds and that's on the list to look at.

We've been talking with ACT about a better bike safety program.

and then the pedestrian safety committee, we're talking with them and looking to expand it into a standing bike ped committee to give us advice and we've solicited input from the pedestrian safety side of the group to ask if they would like to continue on.

They were a one-time committee but to see if they'd like to continue and then add some bicycle folks to it.

And we also have under study a neat idea that was suggested to look at could we remove two lanes of travel from Preston Avenue and make it more of a bike corridor and we're taking a look at that to see what the engineering issues are and hopefully in the next couple of months be able to come back to you and show that as a prototype for something that we might do to put sort of a road diet project.

Thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

I was just wondering, one of the things, are these on yet?

One of the things that you were talking about is those LED crosswalks and one other thing I just wondered if it's in consideration on some of these things.

I noticed even just tonight when I was, I think it was tonight, driving from my house which is just

North of the bypass coming down Locust Avenue and doing the little Z thing around Martha Jefferson.

Coming on, oh shoot somebody help me, the street that's the four lane street that goes over Avon.

Is that 9th on the side?

9th.

And there's a crosswalk in the middle of it.

And there's no street light by the crosswalk.

And so I, who always stop for pedestrians and you know, a militant pedestrian myself,

I didn't see the woman standing there and she wasn't trying to cross.

It wasn't a dangerous thing but there was no way that I could see her until I was too late to really stop.

She was dressed in dark clothing and there's not a street light right by that and I was just wondering if we look at how we place street lights in relation to crosswalks around the city.

But the comment is that since we put the flashing lights on

McIntyre or Ridge, whatever it is in front of the Omni, near the Omni, not right in front.

But people are now stopping at the Unflash.

We parked over there and walked across there and for the first time, both directions, the first cars that came stopped.

So I think people develop better habits as we kind of guide behavior with things like the lights.

I think it's a very good thing.

Can you tell me how do the

Because for me, bicycling, I mean there's two places on my regular bike routes where it's like there's no car in sight and now I'm stuck in either being a scofflaw or waiting forever.

The busy streets aren't the problem.

At least for me, the busy streets, say Main Street, is not where the problem is.

The problem is, like for example, Preston Avenue.

If you're on Preston, cars are going to come activate the lights.

It's not going to take very long.

But if I'm on Rose Hill Drive, waiting to get onto Preston,

there's a much longer, I mean I could sit there for a long time waiting for a car to come.

So my answer would be I think we need to involve people who bicycle regularly in identifying if we're going to invest in these

where would be good places to make that investment because you know some of the I mean an obvious answer is well on the busy corridors well the busy corridors if they're also busy with cars there's actually not that often a need for for the signal right that's one kind of and I think that's where the with a committee that has bicyclists donated that are advising us that those things will come out so I think that's a good idea

The second thing is, a few years ago ACT came up, did a whole bunch of brainstorming and came up with a bunch of recommendations on things our community needed to do.

I didn't go through them specifically.

I know that the preemption on West Main was one of them.

But we've done

And there's some big picture creative ones that came out of that.

And one of them, and I've heard us talk a little bit about this, is trying to figure out how to aid bicyclists who are coming in on Old Lynchburg Road into the city.

which is a long hill and in the morning could be full of cars.

And one idea is to allow people to go into the park, Azalea Park, and then go up a trail not yet there and connect to Monte Vista Avenue.

Absolutely, that's the old Lynchburg road design actually has bike lane on one side

But you know that part of the improvement doesn't require the Old Lynchburg Road improvements.

Right.

I don't think it has to wait for funding and whatever.

We were doing the design work and the change work through there so we've just

I'd like to encourage us to use ACT.

Yesterday I went to the open house at the new community bikes location.

They're doing a lot of really creative things, safety classes, and they've got some people who have certifications in safety.

And we've asked Vince to join the committee and he's very excited about that.

Two or three questions or comments.

If you look at Map D and Map E, dealing with bicycles, I hope that you look at it as to see how

they can go into a lane where I see pieces of them and then they don't connect and somehow it'd be nice to have a connected network of the bike lanes so you can go from point A to point B without

And I think that will be helpful, I think.

But I think you're right, it is about time to really look at sidewalk priorities.

I think I did this 15, 20 years back.

Criteria is still, I think, pretty good, but I just need to look at sidewalks very carefully.

Another comment I had was that

Other comments?

I have two more.

One is you were talking about with the priority listing for sidewalks and doing that study to bring in neighborhood groups and I think that's wonderful.

I'd also wonder if we could have some neighborhood-based public meetings in neighborhoods that may not be represented by an active neighborhood association just to make sure that people get a chance to come even if they're not already involved in something.

because it may be sidewalks is their only issue.

I also wanted to support adding more bikers to the committee itself.

A good number of them because they could help, I think.

Kristin, that's a very good idea because I think there's a lot of neighborhoods that speak up easily and there's some who don't.

And the other question I had was, you know, some of the stuff that we'd like to do that may not be on the immediate list are not on the immediate list because they cost money and I think, you know, we're committed to spending money on bikes and sidewalks and I think this council has shown that.

But I'm just wondering what the possibility is for something like a bike license.

I know it's something that used to be done in every community.

I don't know if that's something that people just say, no, no, no.

or if it's something we could explore.

You're talking about a registration?

Yeah.