City Council Meeting   4/5/2010

I hear a sigh of love, a sigh of peace, of peace, of peace, of peace, of peace, of peace, of peace, of peace.

I can still see, although they don't have the vibes.

or Tuesday, Wednesday, if you feel like it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm serious.

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

Here.

Here.

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

We have four tonight.

First of all, I'm pleased to announce that April is Fair Housing Month.

and marks the 42nd anniversary of the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 as amended by the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 and whereas the Fair Housing Act provides that no person should be subject to discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability or familial status in the rental, sale, financing or advertising of housing

and the Virginia Fair Housing Law also prohibits housing discrimination based on elderliness and whereas the Fair Housing Act supports equal housing opportunity throughout the United States and whereas fair housing creates healthy communities and housing discrimination harms us all whereas the City of Charlottesville supports equal housing opportunity and seeks to affirmatively further fair housing not only during Fair Housing Month in April but throughout the year

We are pleased to designate April as Fair Housing Month and here to accept is Karen Reifenberger from the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Thank you and thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of the city's Fair Housing Month resolution.

Thank you also for your support of fair housing, not just in April but throughout the year.

Some people may be wondering what does fair housing mean.

Briefly, it means that a family with children shouldn't be denied a rental opportunity because they have too many children.

It means that someone who speaks with an accent shouldn't be held to a higher standard.

It means that an African American applicant should be assessed

based on his credit status and not his racial status and it means that a person with a disability shouldn't be denied hundreds of housing units just because of a couple of steps.

So that brings to light a little bit more of what the resolution talked about and in April specifically, PHA is celebrating Fair Housing Month with an event on April 21st called Housing Opportunities for People with Disabilities

Resources, Roadblocks and Rights, and that's going to be held from 2 to 5 on April 21st in the Lane Auditorium at the Albemarle County Office Building.

We're also distributing posters throughout the region, specifically here in the City and City Hall at Charlottesville Social Services and at the Housing Authority, and it reads, now renting no kids, no blacks, no Latinos.

Discrimination is rarely this obvious, but it's just as real and just as illegal.

So throughout the year at Piedmont Housing Alliance, our goal is to raise awareness and promote compliance with fair housing laws.

And we do this with education sessions, advocating for people who believe they've been victims of housing discrimination, answering questions about fair housing compliance, and doing public awareness ad campaigns.

So we encourage everyone to look out for those ad campaigns and to spread the word about fair housing rights to friends and family in the neighborhood as well.

If someone believes that they are someone they know has been a victim of housing discrimination or has any question about that call Piedmont Housing Alliance at 817-2436.

Great, thank you very much.

Next we have a proclamation honoring an organization that is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

It's one that's an organization that's near and dear to my own heart.

This is a proclamation, I'll read it.

Whereas Madison House, the Student Volunteer Center at the University of Virginia, coordinates volunteers, develops student leaders, builds community partnerships, and promotes lifelong volunteer service,

and whereas over 3,000 UVA students commit to volunteer each academic year providing over 110,000 hours of dedicated help estimated at more than 2.2 million dollars in service to our community each year and whereas Madison House programs benefit 90 of the Charlottesville community's most important non-profit schools and community agencies supporting programs that might not otherwise exist

and whereas Madison House develops future leaders by providing 200 students the opportunity to recruit, schedule and train volunteers for their respective programs and continues to foster lifelong volunteer service through its involved alumni, developing a commitment to service that supports strong community involvement and good public citizenship,

Thank you all so much and on behalf of the students, staff, board members and community partners of Madison House, the Student Volunteer Center at the University of Virginia, I just want to thank City Council and the City of Charlottesville for really opening its doors to our students over the past 40 years from the small group of students that began in the 1969-1970 school year to our over 3,000 volunteers that serve

Today we're really grateful to have such a continued partnership with the city and its schools, hospitals, nursing homes, daycare centers, non-profits and organizations that can utilize our volunteer service and have sustainable long-term partnerships.

So we look forward to building the next 40 years and for your continued support.

The third proclamation tonight is also very

Special one.

Whereas the month of April is recognized as Child Abuse Prevention Month in the Commonwealth of Virginia and across the United States.

And whereas during fiscal year 2008-2009, 369 qualifying reports of suspected child abuse or neglect involving an estimated 375 children were investigated in the city of Charlottesville.

and whereas physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, medical neglect and emotional abuse and neglect lead to long-term outcomes for children such as developmental delay, mental and emotional disorders, antisocial and criminal behavior, childhood pregnancy, truancy and academic failure, alcohol and drug abuse and suicide and whereas the City of Charlottesville faces a continuing need to support innovative programs to prevent child abuse and to assist family members when child abuse occurs

and whereas in Charlottesville there are dedicated individuals and organizations who work daily to counter the problem of child abuse and neglect and provide parents with the assistance they need and whereas all children deserve freedom from verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect and emotional abuse and neglect

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim the month of April 2010 as Child Abuse Prevention Month in the City of Charlottesville and do call upon our citizens to observe the month with appropriate programs and activities.

I want to say thank you to all your counselors for your recognition and for your support for the work that our social workers do in this very important endeavor in our community.

And we have a few of those workers here tonight that I'd like to recognize.

And from your left, going down that way, is Leslie Kelly Jensen, who's in Clark Elementary School.

and then we have Leslie Barise who's in Johnson Elementary School and next we have Dee Dee Perry who is our intern worker in Child Protective and Foster Care Prevention Services and Ashley Sonali is next to her in working in Child Protective Services.

Also here tonight is Dana Niedley who is the manager for our social work programs and I just want to say that they all work very hard

and besides their education, their experience, their heart and soul is put into the work to strengthen our families and protect our children and thereby I believe that we're all trying to improve the quality of life for all of the citizens of the city.

Thank you very much.

Our last proclamation tonight is honoring a gentleman who has been sitting up here on this dais for 15 years now as our city manager.

Tonight is the very last meeting that Gary O'Connell will be serving our community as city manager of the city of Charlottesville.

We've had a series of goodbyes and we're certainly going to miss you, Mr. O'Connell, and we thank you once again for your valuable contributions to our community.

I have a proclamation, it's a little lengthy but it's important that I think all of you here

Some of the accomplishments that Mr. O'Connell has made in his position and some of the many reasons why we will miss his presence here.

Whereas Gary O'Connell joined the City of Charlottesville as Assistant City Manager in November of 1981 and became Deputy City Manager in 1985,

and whereas Mr. O'Connell was appointed as city manager in June of 1995 and whereas during Mr. O'Connell's 28 years of service he faithfully represented the interests of the city on many boards and authorities including the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail Authority, the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Authority, the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Emergency Communications Center, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, and the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority,

and whereas Mr. O'Connell further served the community by volunteering his time and skills to organizations such as the Jefferson Madison Regional Library Board and the Charlottesville Sister City Commission and whereas Mr. O'Connell was extremely supportive of employee development and training including the development and application of creative and innovative ways to help city staff reach its full potential

and whereas Mr. O'Connell was instrumental in establishing his sister city relationship with Pleven, Bulgaria and on his many visits there provided his professional expertise and knowledge to assist their local government and whereas during his service to the city Mr. O'Connell adhered to the highest standards of professionalism and integrity and by his example endeavored to instill those qualities in city staff and whereas Mr. O'Connell's prudent and thoughtful stewardship of the city's finances and his oversight of the city's budget enabled the city to maintain a AAA bond rating throughout his tenure as city manager

and whereas under Mr. O'Connell's leadership the city of Charlottesville truly became a world-class city and became nationally recognized by a significant number of publications as being one of the nation's most desirable communities as highlighted by Frommer's 2004 ranking of Charlottesville as the best place to live in America.

and whereas Mr. O'Connell has chosen to retire from the city of Charlottesville and to continue his career of public service as executive director of the Albemarle County Service Authority, which will enable him to continue his interest in the community, water supply and the protection of our natural environment,

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, that the City Council hereby expresses its sincerest appreciation to Gary B. O'Connell for his many years of dedicated service and leadership to the City of Charlottesville and wish him well in his future endeavors.

I had planned to say a few things at the end of the meeting, but I guess now's the time.

I knew this is what happened at this point.

I've been to a number of different retirement things and going away parties and I don't know that I felt choked up, but I do right now.

I've been in city management 35 years, 28 years for the city and the last 15 as your city manager.

And it's been an interesting ride.

I think this council and lots of other councils, we've been through a lot together.

This community's been through a lot.

But if you think back to almost 30 years ago where Charlottesville was and where it is today, I think we have come a long ways.

It's not to say we don't have further to go.

I've looked at it as a great journey, a great opportunity.

I do feel a special thanks to the councils.

I counted right at 17 council members.

for their continuing support and we've had some great times and we've had a few rocky ones and we've had some challenges that and some of those will continue.

I think any great community has issues in front of it always.

This is a community that has lots of energy and likes to talk and discuss lots of things and we'll probably get into a few of those tonight but I think it's what makes it a special place.

People really do care

and all kinds of different ways and I think that's the thing I'm going to miss the most.

We've done a lot of physical things and buildings and parks and I mean the list is endless in my career with the city but I think it's the people that make the huge difference.

Whether it's the city councils or the city staff.

I had a presentation the other day from some of the staff and I think there are literally thousands of city employees that I've had the opportunity to work for.

I'd put them up against any city staff in the country because they're superb.

My leadership team, that's the department heads, is superb and everybody here should be proud of that and I think that's the thing that I hope

that I've left as kind of that foundation in people either within city government or our outreach in the community.

We've worked hard the last 15 years to really involve people.

I was thinking back last week when I became city manager I was the point person and I went to almost every one of the meetings and we've evolved it to where there probably

50 to 75 staff people that are out in the community on a pretty regular basis in all kinds of ways.

So that's a huge shift, I think, for city government.

I probably can go on and on.

I do really want to thank people for the opportunity.

The word is bittersweet, I guess.

I'm looking forward to a new journey and that opportunity, but I look back with pride, but it

It has its moments of I guess jubilation in a lot of ways.

The being named the best place to live in America I think reinforced what the city council decided when we were in the reversion talks with Albemarle County that the city can step forward and do some things itself and make this a great place to live and I think that sort of got confirmed.

So now you all have plenty of challenges in front of you and

and we will be hearing again from Mr. O'Connell at the end of the meeting to give his valedictory, if you will.

We will now move forward to announcements.

I have a couple of announcements.

First of all, I'm very pleased to announce that we are now, or this year, opening a third farmer's market.

on Tuesday nights at Penn Park.

Starting May 4th from 3 to 7 p.m. we will have a third farmers market in addition to the existing city market downtown which opened this past weekend and is open every Saturday through November from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m.

So now we have the Penn Park farmers market on Tuesdays from 3 to 7 and the Mead Park farmers market on Wednesdays from 3 to 7.

Let's see.

We have been in competition with Albemarle County about

getting our residents to fill in and return their census forms and I am very displeased to report as of today we only have 60% of city households have returned their census forms and Albemarle County has 67% of theirs and we cannot let this stand so the statewide average is 65% so we really need to pick up our game for everybody watching at home

If you have not filled out and returned your census form, please do so.

Our pride is at stake.

Yes.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to add another business agreement with the University of Virginia relating to fire service.

And I'd like to add to new business an item about the Clerk of Council.

but I also want to issue a public apology.

I've been baking for these meetings and something came up today and I was not able to bake.

I'm really sorry.

I still value all of you coming in.

Other announcements?

Okay, we're now going to open our meeting to matters by the public and as is our custom, when you come forward, please give your name and address and keep your comments to three minutes.

I'm Dowling Smith.

I live at 810 Locust Avenue and I was going to ask you about the brownies.

I want to ask what's going on with the situation with the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, recycling, trash collection, that sort of thing.

I was really glad to see that that $20 million dollar RICO lawsuit was settled, but since that was settled I haven't heard any more about what's going on and until

or when was it, a couple days ago, I saw this article in the paper that said a portion of the reduction of the budget from last year was from like about a $250,000 that wouldn't be funding the Solid Waste Authority anymore, which really caught me by surprise.

And later on in the same article, it says that in this agreement, which I thought was a secret agreement, but I've since found out just before the meeting

that the settlement agreement was public, just like a two page agreement, so they said they'd give me a copy, but that all the conversation around it, everybody was sworn to secrecy.

But in that agreement,

They agreed that the city and county wouldn't have to fund them anymore.

And the whole thing sounds kind of strange to me.

Is the Avi Landfill site going to continue?

Is the Rutgersville site going to continue?

Two months from now I'm going to have to get a new city sticker.

Do I really want to do that or do I want to go with Time Disposal or Dixon or something?

So I just wish that we could get this back on our radar and see what's going on.

Thank you Mr. Smith.

Good evening, West Bellamy, 2334 Peyton Drive.

I wanted to speak to you guys today about an issue that I've been hearing a great deal about as I've been visiting different communities throughout Charlottesville.

I just want to read you guys a short excerpt from August 1, 2009 by Mr. Chris Eagle at a meeting that was held here.

He read, he began the presentation by reminding commission that regional economy has dramatically shifted from manufacturing jobs to service section jobs.

He said that there were four areas in which Charlottesville economy

would grow healthcare, education, hospitality, and high-tech industries.

He also suggested maintaining the three and a half percent of Charlottesville's land zone for industry so land is available if a high-tech company needs the space.

With that being said, if a high-tech company comes to Charlottesville, how many of the people who need the jobs the most here within the city do you guys think will get the opportunity to work?

In my opinion, it won't be very many of them.

Also, I'd like to read

Some short facts that I came across after doing some research.

Now we are blessed to have a large public sector presence and recognize that it insulates us from microeconomics and infatuations.

It also expands the ranks of our professional, technical, and white collar middle class jobs.

Nevertheless, we have identified several troubling issues in the greater Charlottesville region.

One of them is the blue collar middle class and employment dropping from 27% to 16% of the workforce from 1990 to 2009.

Lower wage employment and the working poor remained over 29% of the workforce from 1990 to 2009 increasing in number by nearly 8,000 residents.

Over 11,000 of our residents

Excuse me, over 11,000 of our residents traveling to work outside of the region every single day.

Also a disproportionate reliance on our public sector for job growth to the deterrent of our tax base.

I say all that to say these things.

As I'm going through many of the communities, a big problem and a big stigma within the African American community is that many of them feel they cannot receive jobs.

That is large in part due to most of the males who I speak with just being candid and being frank because they have felonies.

Now, I'm aware that this is a problem that's going on throughout the entire country.

However, as Mr. O'Connor just alluded to, if we want to, for lack of a better word, keep the title, so to speak, as one of the best cities to live in within the country, we have to remain inclusive.

Now I didn't want to come up here to

have a gripe session or anything of that nature.

I just would like to ask all of you a proposal of sorts.

If there's some way that we can bring companies whom have hired ex-felons in their past and companies who have a reputation, I'll just say, of not hiring felons and can we bring those two groups together and possibly have a meeting to inform them that many of these guys are not so bad, many of them

made mistakes maybe when they were 18, 19 years old or even if it was later.

However, they do deserve a second chance.

Even if we could bring in a few people who have felons and you know, we can show a track record of how those people are improving because honestly, I think all of you would agree that if a person who has a felon and they can't get a job and after they try and try for so long after a period of time, what do you guys think they're going to do?

They're going to revert back to doing the same things that they were before.

And frankly, this is going on very prevalently within the African American community, one in which I feel is an issue that really needs to be addressed.

Thank you very much, Mr. Brown.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street in Charlottesville.

You'll hear later an update on the water supply and Ragged Mountain dam study.

We're all aware that there's a deadline next year, a state deadline, to submit a water supply plan and the contents of that plan

are outlined in great detail in state regulations.

I understand water, Rivanna Water and Sewer has done a number of studies that support the new dam and the pipeline from Sugar Hollow.

What I don't have a good feel for is to what extent those two things may line up.

So a good question is to what extent do existing studies

or to what extent do they not line up and satisfy the state requirements.

I'd suggest a simple side by side, not long paragraphs that are dense and hard to follow, but take the regulations, take what we already know, line them up to identify where the gaps are.

But it does seem to me that even if much of the background is found to have been done,

One of the biggest questions is the current projection for water use and demand.

I'm pleased to hear that Rivanna has indicated that they will update the demand and consumption numbers, but there's clear evidence as we've heard over and over that general usage has changed.

Despite all the rain, I still make sure my showers are short.

Not quite as short as last summer, but we do want to make sure that those new numbers are reflected in the required plan.

And one more thing though about the current permit for Ragged Mountain, if after the state required plan is completed and the dredging study is done, because we can't divorce those entirely since there's water quantity involved, if Ragged Mountain is found to be a good solution, well then so be it.

But suppose we don't even have a problem.

Betty Mooney, 201 Sunset Avenue I did leave in front of you the memorandum from 2006 that did talk about when Rivanna did agree to do the state planning regulation collection of data and at that time in 2006 if you look at the second paragraph it says because of the significant work that is already completed for the urban service area the scope of work required to achieve this new state mandate will not be significant

but will update some of the data we have previously developed as required to meet the details of the new DEQ requirements.

So I guess just a little background for some people listening tonight who might not understand this but the state in 2005 wrote these requirements really because of the drought we had in 2002 and I've read the background supporting material of why this was done and

And Mark Warner, our governor at the time, really, really spearheaded this.

He really pushed this through.

Because of that drought, he realized that communities could have a problem and they did need better planning.

But he also felt that this should be a very logical, rational plan.

to come up with the very best local water supply plan that a community could have.

And that it shouldn't be overly complicated, but that it should meet the needs of the community and not burden the community with too much cost.

And that's why this plan specifically says water, a water plan for 30 to 50 years and not more.

Because the State Water Board, which is in charge of this plan, felt

that going beyond 50 would be too much of a cost burden for a community.

So I agree with Ms. Quinn, I really feel that a great deal of the confusion we've gone through is that even though in 2006 we were told that data was almost complete and would match up with the water withdrawal permit that we got, which really isn't a plan, even though it's called a plan, according to the state it's not,

I think it would really help our community come together, and I know some of these counselors are really concerned about that, if we saw that data, if we saw a side-by-side comparison of what the data is that the state requires and what we've

what our plan is for the dam and if we could see that now I think all of these special interests that each have their own little niche that they're arguing about the state did this in a way to be a plan for the whole community and I think it's right there in front of us it's not complicated.

Rivanna's already said they've got almost all of it done.

They applied for a grant in 2006 for the money to do it.

They've got millions of dollars that they've got for consultants, so I don't think the money's an issue.

I think much of the data that's there, but what's not there, we really can't make a decision to go forward as a whole community and really come together on this, I think, until we see this data.

This is the piece that's really missing to the puzzle.

I've thought about this a lot.

I think it'll end a lot of the tension in our community.

It'll bring the city and the county together.

It'll be an agreeable

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Mooney.

Good evening.

Dede Smith, 2652 Jefferson Park Circle.

I have two here in response to the report that you will hear later on about the water supply.

And my issue tonight, and I just would like you all to hopefully take note of this and think about it a little bit, is a reference in there about the ultimate decision, which I know Rivanna is hoping comes,

sometime this summer, being made by the four boards.

And I'm not quite sure how the four boards got the decision-making power, but I'd just like you to think about who the four boards are.

And the first board being Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, which have three representatives from the city and three representatives from the county, which is a combination of Board of Supervisors and county government and Albemarle County Service Authority, and then one independent representative.

We have five members of City Council.

and then we have as a third body the Board of Supervisors, six members there.

But the fourth board is the Albemarle County Service Authority.

That's six members appointed by each of those Board of Supervisors who are on the third board, which in my math calculation is doubling.

the vote basically from the county.

I too hope very much that we will ultimately come together on this, but as a city resident, and I know you all have been just heroic in defending city interests, I really have a problem with the votes having that kind of bias.

Thank you Ms. Smith.

Good evening counselors, my name is Kevin Lynch, 609 Locust Avenue.

I came to talk about water but before doing that I will remind folks and you all as well that April 18th, a couple Sundays from now is Earth Day Festival right here downtown mall at the Charlottesville Pavilion.

There'll be vendors showing all sorts of environmentally friendly products and initiatives including the city

Although I come down here often as a critic, the city does a lot of great stuff when it comes to the environment.

And that's one area where I think we can be proud of the city.

So April 18th, starting from 11 until 7, we've got music all day long.

So hope to see you all there.

Getting to the water supply, I'm also here speaking on this

quarterly update from Rivanna.

Interesting update.

I think what's missing from the update is really in some ways more interesting than what's in the update and I think it would behoove you all to think a little bit about that during Mr. Frederick's presentation.

You're going to hear a lot about the Ragon Mountain Dam.

Despite the fact that Gannett Fleming said there was no aggregate on the site and would have to be trucked in,

They were hoping that they would find gravel.

They're now realizing that's not going to happen.

Maybe they can build something out of earth.

The very detailed geological information that Gannett Fleming compiled doesn't suggest that there is clay on the site, but maybe they'll find some.

There is

A piece of that though that you all are responsible for which is the rehabilitation of the dam.

I think you instructed staff a month ago, two months ago to put an RFP out for looking in that and that's not mentioned here in any way and so maybe that would be helpful to find or to get an update from you as to what exactly is happening with that because I think what you're going to hear in May is that this dam is going to be very expensive regardless of the option and it will be necessary to look at some alternatives

You'll also note that there's some discussion on the 64 Embankment.

You note the last sentence, Volkert is also currently addressing the risk of highway spills on both existing and future reservoirs.

That's an artful phrasing for saying

They're not really going to do anything.

They're going to address it.

And the reason I say that is because in the original RFP that Volcker was given to do the embankment work, it included, in addition to just looking at it, coming up with three alternatives.

then coming up with a recommended alternative doing the design for the recommended alternative and then the funding for the recommended alternative for preventing spills on 64.

All of that got stripped out in the final version of the RFP because it was too expensive.

So in order to save costs they said, let's not do a design and a cost analysis of actually solving the spill, let's just have a memo about solving the spill.

So I think you really need to watch that because

whether we get real action or we get a memo is going to be in large part dependent on how council pushes back.

You've heard a bit about the plan, the need to do sound planning and not sort of seat of the pants planning.

Your time is up.

I'm going to read you something from 1944 from the city manager of 1944.

Thank you, Mr. Lane.

Thank you very much.

Collette Hall.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors, Collette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane, the NDRA Board President, which is the neighborhood association for North Downtown.

A resident of McGuffey Hill Condos and a board member reported at the North Downtown Neighborhood Meeting that 100 to 150 teenagers now come to McGuffey Park after dark and vandalize, use drugs, drink alcohol, and have sex.

The drugs and alcohol are apparently brought in by older teens and persons in their younger 20s.

In addition, younger teen skateboarders are dropped off by their parents at the park and left for the evening.

It appears the kids have nowhere to go and so they get into mischief.

I visited the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club who said they close at 8 p.m. on Fridays and so they can't help in the evenings.

Apparently this happens mostly on Fridays and Saturdays.

Then the police told me that the Key Rec Center has bullies and so most people, most kids avoid using it and I am not sure what time the Carver Rec Center closes.

So one of the few solutions I can think of is to put signs up in McGuffey Park, which has closed from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Lee Park's sign is closed from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., but it is not close to residences as McGuffey Park, so that's why it's just an earlier time.

This way the police have grounds to move the kids along when 10 o'clock comes.

and I do plan to send a suggestion to Mr. Harris, deputy city attorney, to check the city code if this can be done.

And also to Chief Longo and Captain Kirby, the head of the police patrol.

And I'm asking you, what can we do as a city to help our kids?

Thank you, Miss Hall.

Mr. Mayor, City Council, good evening.

I'm John False, 1503 Rugby Road.

Do you find it curious that housing discrimination on the basis of political belief or political activities is perfectly okay in this country, in the state, and in the city?

There's no prohibition.

Well, that's not what I came to talk about, but I find that very curious, so much for political freedom or the notion of it.

I came to talk about the downtown mall.

It bothers me, I worry.

The downtown mall is really one of the crown jewels of our number one city.

We have a number of storefronts closing, the parking is down, and it's not looking too good.

On the basis of this, I wonder why are we

really attracting more homeless to the downtown area.

Why is the city wanting to do this?

I know you're very concerned about the downtown mall.

Board of Architectural Review won't let a store owner put up a sign that's too big.

Do you think more homeless are really making it more desirable?

A news report said that there are homeless from all over the state applying for the single person room housing.

I talked to a fellow about a month ago from Lynchburg.

He'd come from Lynchburg and I said, why did you come here?

He says, hey, I got a good bed and good food in Charlottesville.

It's much better than living in a stairwell in Lynchburg.

I said, are you going home?

I don't think so.

Something's wrong here.

It's not making our mall better in this hard economic time.

Out in front of the parking garage tonight is a homeless fellow begging for money.

A shop owner's sign is far less offensive than that if you really want the mall to work.

And I think we do want it to work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Falz.

Good evening City Council, my name is Vince Caristo, I live at 715 Nall Street and at Councillor Brown's suggestion I just wanted to share with you guys tonight a local zine put out this spring by the Alliance for Community Choice and Transportation and Community Bikes and in here it's a collection of stories and poems and drawings that celebrate bicycling and encourage bicycling in the city and including a story by David Brown about meeting his wife on a bicycle about 30 years ago

and another story on page 8 that I'd like to read to you tonight quickly I think.

It's called Road Diets for Bicyclists.

Roads can't eat leafy greens, but for many there's a better way to trim their fat.

Across the country cities are trimming auto lanes to give bicyclists more room to ride and to slow down speeding autos.

The roads come out leaner and greener.

The battle lines for roadway space were drawn in the 1950s when standard roadway designs were created with only automobiles in mind.

Wider lanes were thought to be best since presumably they could fit more cars at faster speeds.

The average car is just six feet wide, but to this day standard travel lanes are designed to be 12 feet wide.

Why not have a little cushion?

Ever since the oil crisis of the 1970s, bicyclists have been increasingly asserting their right to share the road with automobiles.

While it's perfectly legal to bicycle in an auto travel lane, having a dedicated bicycle lane makes riding safer and more enjoyable.

Even better is when a bicycle lane is physically separated from the auto lane with a curb, as is common in the European bicycling meccas.

But bike lanes require road space, so on a road designed for autos, that space has to come either from widening the road or from the auto lanes themselves.

Since widening the road costs big bucks, most bicycle lanes were created by allocating space from existing auto or parking lanes.

That's what happened in Charlottesville in the mid-1990s when the Charlottesville Area Bicycling Association and other bicycle activists worked with the city to get our first bicycle lanes, which now total around 10 miles.

But many people would love to see more.

And since some of our bike lanes are on the thin side, most notably on West Main Street, many would also like to see some existing ones widened.

But can we possibly trim any more space from the auto lanes?

Well, in Chicago, they've done just that.

Like Charlottesville, Chicago is known for its narrow roadways.

but in the year 2000 they decided this wasn't going to hold them back from becoming a bicycling friendly city.

They committed to adding new bicycle lanes and also resolved that no bicycle lane in the city would be less than a roomy five feet wide.

Now to do this they cut a new notch in their belt and set the minimum allowable travel lane

travel and parking lane widths to a slim 10 and 7 feet respectively.

Now surprisingly to some they found this is usually plenty of room to keep cars and buses moving at high volumes as well as to accommodate parking in commercial areas.

Can we have road diets in Charlottesville is the question.

And right now the minimum travel lane width is 11 feet in the city but

I proposed the idea to the city traffic engineer.

Thank you very much, Mr. Kristin.

Good evening members of council.

Graves Street 704.

This is a recent, the recent edition of the Seville News Weekly and there is an article about the Meadow Creek Parkway and it's called the Sudden Return of Meadow Creek Parkway at Grade Interchange Baffles.

It should, of course, say sudden return of Meadow Creek Parkway at-grade intersection baffles, but I've got to say this is one of the best articles that I've seen in recent years.

And it details the city staff November 3rd letter that wrote, among other things, if city council elects not to move forward with the interchange project, city council will grant the necessary permission to complete the at-grade intersection as designed under McIntyre Road extended project.

and then Brent Sprinkle from VDOT told Seville that the city has quote supported the accurate connection for many years and it says that Mayor Norris disagreed.

It's certainly not the case, this is Mayor Norris now, that this or any recent council has ever approved an accurate intersection and that's true and I would add also that no council has ever approved an accurate intersection and

it would be great if the Seaville would just look at the documentation and then it could say instead of they said and you know they could just state the truth and I was trying to think you know so okay well Vida wrote that that city staff letter confused the Corps of Engineers and asked the city, Mayor Norris specifically, to write this other to send this other letter to the Corps of Engineers that they had written

that I suppose would unconfuse the Corps of Engineers but unfortunately was not the truth.

So I was thinking about a metaphor for this and you know it's like if the hospital calls and they said you know you discussed signing an organ donor card with us and you said a few months ago and you said well yes we did discuss that but I had conditions for that I wanted to make sure you wouldn't sell it my kidney or whatever so I you know we're still in the process and they say well

We need it now.

We're behind schedule, your kidney, and there's a guy prepped on the table here, and we've already spent the money to prep this guy as the recipient for your kidney.

You'd say, wait, whoa, I didn't agree to that.

And then they'd say, oh, well, we called your office, and one of your employees told us that it would be fine.

And then you'd say, well, just look at the record of what we said and there is no confusion here.

So I think that this whole episode shows why it's necessary to get a legal review of the entire process.

The interchange process is based on that same falsehood that Charlottesville agreed to an accurate intersection.

In fact, all the plans, you know, they say their studies are based as if there was no interchange, there would be that accurate intersection, and that's just truly not the case.

Thank you very much for the courage you've shown lately.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak?

Hi, my name is Joe Mumey, 201 Sunset Avenue.

On the water issue, you will be hearing a good bit, which I think is going to talk mainly as we've heard about the dam.

I think that the interests that support the dam continue to look at it as the one solution that should be enacted and rapidly.

What has come up though was that the city actually in 1944 faced a somewhat similar situation and I think we can learn somewhat from history.

The demand analysis was done in 1944 and at that point the results were that the city needed 5.5 million gallons per day and there was a conflict over whether to be satisfied.

Is this enough or is that enough?

And the city manager of all people

in 1944, wrote to city council and advocated common sense.

He says, as a matter of common sense, it seems quite obvious their total developed supply of 5.5 million gallons per day is ample.

Excuse me, I've got laryngitis.

Further, it would seem to us the part of good judgment not to develop beyond this capacity at the present time, because none of us are able to prognosticate the developments that may occur within the next 25 years, which may void all estimates of growth and demand, no matter how carefully they're prepared.

It does not seem wise to us to make expenditures looking toward the development of a greater capacity

Thank you, Dr. Mooney.

That's all the time we have for public comment tonight.

We'll now open it up to council member responses to matters by the public.

I'd like to comment on one of these issues.

I think Vince Christo, who spoke about bike lanes.

I totally support his idea of 10 feet travel lanes and 7 feet parking spaces.

because that works quite well in the cities.

As you know, an interstate highway, it requires 12 feet.

The speed is 65 miles.

The city's speed is 25, so you have more safety in 10 feet.

Anybody else?

Dr. Brown?

Dining asked a lot of good questions, Dining Smith, about the future of solid waste and we're having a work session on April 21st.

Is that right, Mr. Mayor?

Okay.

Well, we're having a work session soon.

to talk about the big picture issues involving solid waste.

The budget is cheaper this year for the city because the settlement did result in there being no service contribution fees for anybody and that starting July 1st saves a lot of money for the city.

Regardless of what

What happens, we're going to continue to have free curbside recycling in the city and charge a couple bucks a can for other recycling.

But the big decision in front of City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors is whether to continue the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority because right now it's losing money.

And so I think that's the big discussion point.

There will also be information about what's going on at Ivey

efforts to privatize that.

So good questions.

I was going to thank Vince Christo for coming forward.

I think you can kind of see it brought to our attention some good ideas that are emerging from the bicycling community.

And that's, I guess, all I have.

Thank you.

I wanted to make a couple of comments, also to echo comments made about Vince.

I like the road diet.

So it's good to hear from you, Stratton, but the road diet analogy is a little bit easier to follow than the whole organ kit.

So comments made by Ms. Hall, I hope this is an opportunity for

the non-profits that we do support to do some outreach at McGuffin Park because we need to find out what our kids are thinking, where they are, why they choose to hang out there and the kind of things that they would like to do and this may be an opportunity also for collaboration between our Park and WAP and the Boys and Girls Club to see if there's some synergy there to see if we can have some other kind of activities after 8 o'clock on the weekends

So I'm hoping that this will be more of an opportunity to do more.

And that's so much as what the police can do.

And if we do get the police involved, maybe more of a community policing model so we can just do some more outreach.

So Mr. Falls, this is the second time you've talked about the homeless issue, and we all need

to be reminded of that process.

And that's going to be a continuing journey.

But I think there's some other issues related to homelessness that we also need to address.

And sometime in May, I don't think a date's been set, but council will be having a work session on mental health and some of the resources and some of the barriers.

And to Mr. Bellamy, workforce development has been the council priority

Even within this budget, we will be providing funding to the Housing Authority for continued work with their workforce access program because the pilot was successful.

We've also supported the semi-youth employment program.

And Mayor Norris and I have actually been working on a committee to bring more awareness of the struggles that

Felons in our community have because that is an area that we do need to do more work on but I feel that felons are the hidden talent and often the hidden treasures in our community and we just need to give them an opportunity and so to our local businesses I would ask that you provide an opportunity for felons but also my message to the felons is that you will stay encouraged and you will stay focused and ironically enough it was a

meeting today at West Haven with our Congressman Perriello to talk about some of the larger issues that created the culture that felons are now living in.

And that's some of the race-based legislation regarding our laws, the sentencing, and even the restoration of felon rights.

So there's still a lot of work that we need to do.

And until we can

evolve our community to the point where we can attract businesses.

I think it's important for our local businesses to, again, give people an opportunity.

But to our felons who have served the time, they've been forgiven.

I want them to forgive themselves, stay focused, and do what needs to be done so they can move on to the next level in their life, regardless of what the present laws may be.

There's no greater barrier than keeping yourself back.

Comments of my own.

I too want to thank Mr. Bellamy for raising the issue of hiring of ex-felons.

And I would be delighted to do exactly what you requested, which is to try to pull some businesses together, business leaders together, who have had success in employing ex-felons and hopefully encourage and convince other business leaders to do the same.

So we'll talk after this meeting or soon to pull something like that together.

Thank you for the suggestion.

The comments, I want to thank all who spoke about the water demand.

We will be bringing this up later in the meeting, so I won't go into detail now, but I appreciate your comments.

I'd like to ask or encourage Mr. Harris, Chief Longo, to follow up promptly to Ms. Hall in the neighborhood's request for some kind of intervention to address the issues at McGuffey Park.

Thank you for bringing those to our attention.

Mr. Faults, you made an allegation, or at least an implication, I think it was an allegation, that we have out-of-towners who are applying to...

Okay.

Well, let me correct the record.

The allegation was raised that we have out-of-towners applying for apartments in the new single room occupancy facility.

Absolutely untrue.

And the reason I can say it's absolutely untrue is we don't even know if the facility is going to be built yet.

There's no application process that's underway right now.

It would probably be at least a year before they even start taking applications.

There is a condition that's tied to city funding for low income housing which requires you to be a city resident to participate in that housing program.

So nobody would be allowed to apply from Lynchburg to live in one of those units.

So I just wanted to correct that record.

Also, I think it's important to note that the whole point of that initiative is actually to reduce homelessness downtown and reduce homelessness in the city, to take people who are currently homeless in our community and provide housing that's accessible, that's affordable, and in the process actually reduce the numbers of homeless.

Can I make an additional comment?

I'd like to also comment on that.

In addition to Mr. Falte's comments, though, I have heard from numerous people who are somewhat concerned at the change in the mall.

The mall did not, three years ago, have people daily finding a spot and basically asking for money.

And so I kind of wonder to myself whether, considering how much public money the city is putting into the issue of homelessness at the moment, supporting the church on

on Market Street, giving money to Patchum for the first time, putting a lot of money into this shelter.

Is there some way we could not acknowledge that we're helping the homeless in numerous ways, but panhandling on the mall might not be one of those ways?

And is there some way we could regulate that, acknowledging that we're really trying to make life good for people who are homeless?

I'll comment on that and I'll let Mr. Brown comment as well.

This may come as a surprise to some people but I actually would fully support

restrictions on panhandling downtown.

However, I was informed early on that it's a constitutional right to panhandle as long as you don't do it aggressively, that we can't restrict it.

That's correct.

We have an ordinance on the books that governs what is called aggressive panhandling and it is an approach taken by a number of localities across the country.

It involves the manner in which people are approached and in some instances the location where people can ask for money such as within a certain distance, for example, of an ATM.

And would that apply to people who daily have a sign held out in front of them?

But I will note, we actually had a meeting, our economic development staff pulled together a meeting just last week, I believe it was, of business leaders downtown to talk about the very issues that you raised about the vacancy rates downtown, issues with the future of the downtown mall.

Came up with a lot of good ideas.

The issue of panhandling did come up, but there was a whole range of ideas that came up, and I think there's a commitment by a lot of parties to address

a range of issues to make sure that downtown stays viable and healthy and thriving.

And there are a bunch of new businesses downtown in the last couple months.

Right.

Anyhow, we will now move on.

Thank you all for speaking.

The next order of business is our consent agenda.

On our consent agenda tonight, we have minutes of March 1st, 10th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 24th, and 25th.

Item B is an appropriation of $45,730 domestic violence coordinator grant, second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $76,914 police miscellaneous revenue, first of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $302,000 Homeland Security grant, first of two readings.

Item E is an appropriation of $659,625.82 CDBG funding for FY11 first of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation of $165,915 home funding for FY11 first of two readings.

Item G is a resolution reprogramming CDBG funds from FY10 to FY11, first to one reading.

Item H is a resolution special permit for Alcove Hotel, 207 14th Street, first to one reading.

Item I is an ordinance quick-claim gas easement in Montgomery Ridge subdivision, Albemarle County to VDOT, second of two readings.

Item J is an ordinance reducing speed limit to 15 miles per hour in certain school zones, second of two readings.

And item K is an ordinance temporary relocation of Jefferson Precinct,

to 1195 Fifth Street Extended Municipal Arts Building, second of two readings.

I'd just like to point out a small typo in one of the minutes.

It's one that sort of makes it confusing.

It's the minutes of the March 15th meeting on page three, the second to the last line.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

That's it.

If there's not any further discussion please indicate your vote.

I believe the motion carries.

I can't see the board from here, but I believe the motion carries.

Now we have a public hearing on City Council's proposed FY11 budget.

As I believe most of you know, over the last couple of months, City Council has been engaged in a review of the proposed budget from our City Manager.

and the city staff.

We've had a series of work sessions, community forum, we've received an extensive amount of community input from budget surveys, emails, forum participation, public hearings, etc.

And now is the

A final chance that the public has to offer its formal input.

We will not be actually approving the budget until next Monday, so there's still a week left in which you have time to contact Council with your thoughts.

The budget that's before us

Tonight is a budget that's been slightly modified from the original proposal.

Actually, we've got a memo that we put on your desk earlier this evening that I'm going to ask Ms. Beauregard to come forward and just

walk through if that's okay with you.

Please, thank you.

So it's real clear what changes both in the operating budget and then you made some changes in the capital improvements budget and then that's what would be taking the public hearing is the proposed budget plus these changes that have been made.

And there are extra copies up here.

I had to revise the memo and I apologize for that.

Okay, so quickly I'll just go through these changes.

On the general fund to revenues and expenditures, we did address some revenues.

After the state budget was finalized, we realized that we were going to get a little bit more than we had projected.

So that meant on the revenue side that we would receive an additional $211,448 in state aid for place protection.

$251,477 for reimbursement to constitutional officers.

On local revenue, we increased parking garage revenues by $50,000 and we increased BPOL by $111,075.

There was also a big cut on the state side.

The state reinstituted the flex cuts option.

It's not really an option.

It's a mandate, but they do give you an option of where you want to cut.

I projected that at $624,000 that we would be losing.

We don't know where that's going to come out of right now.

We just need to make sure we account for it as we adopt the budget tonight.

Oh, excuse me, next week.

So the bottom line did not change on the revenues for the general fund.

On the expenditure side, you made a few changes.

We had proposed as part of the budget some transit improvements, enhancements to several routes.

That was at $110,000.

You actually removed that funding out of the transit fund and reserved it as part of your council priority initiatives and that funding will be determined, the use will be determined after the transit summit this summer.

In addition, you funded two additional outside agencies, Potsham at $10,000 and Foothill Child Advocacy Center at $25,000.

You also increased the police department over time dedicated to internet crimes against children investigations in the amount of $10,000.

Again, the bottom line on the general fund did not change.

It's still $140.7 million total general fund budget.

There were several changes made to the capital budget.

U.S. staff to remove the $200,000 for fiscal year 11 and 12 that we had proposed to go towards mall renovations at the Omni.

We created and funded a bicycle infrastructure account.

Basically we moved $50,000 from citywide traffic improvements into that account and all that does is account for the work that's already being done for bicycle infrastructure and places it in a dedicated account.

On affordable housing we increased FY11 by $200,000 and that used the funds that you would save from not doing the Omni renovations.

You also at a later time dedicate $200,000 in CDBG funds to go towards affordable housing so in grand scheme of things you'll have $1.4 million for that effort.

The CDBG's capital budget also didn't change the bottom line.

As the mayor pointed out, this is the first of two readings on the budget.

Our final reading will be next Monday.

It's the Business Professional License Tax.

Any other questions before we open the public hearing?

Thank you.

We have several people to sign up to speak during public hearing.

And again, when you come forward, please state your name and address and keep your comments to three minutes.

Good evening, I'm Jean Chase, 223 Old Lynchburg Road, and I'm here to speak on behalf of the president of the Fry's Spring Neighborhood Association, Peter Hedlund.

To the Charlottesville City Council, this is on the Old Lynchburg Road project.

Cars still speed on Old Lynchburg Road.

Pedestrians still walk up and down Old Lynchburg Road without sidewalks.

After a heavy rain polluted storm water still flows unabated into Morse Creek.

These are all reasons that the safety sidewalks and drainage project on Old Lynchburg Road must stay on track.

The city manager has been quoted as saying that quote, there's an impression in the community that this project is just going to start, end quote.

We think that's an accurate assessment.

There was an expectation set by the city that this was a project with two distinct phases and that one phase would lead to the next.

The first phase is design.

This was supposed to have been completed last summer.

Now we are told by city staff that it won't be completed until next January.

The second phase is construction.

Your decision as a council to allocate money is what decides this phase.

As you weigh your priorities for Charlottesville, we ask you to consider the long overdue benefits this project would bring.

One, safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Now that the plans for the redesign of Azalea Park are nearing completion, it seems especially important to allow for safe access to the city park.

Two, abatement of the environmental catastrophe that occurs each time it rains and the oily and sediment-filled runoff flows down into Moore's Creek.

Three,

Peace of mind for area citizens that live and or drive along Old Lynchburg Road.

4.

Satisfaction and validation to the many citizens who in good faith attended multiple planning meetings at the behest of the city to make this project a reality.

By delaying the funding for this project, you are telling them that they have wasted their time.

Finally, I think Peter Hedlund

President of the Fry's Spring Neighborhood Association.

Finally, I think some thought needs to be given to the way capital improvement projects are conceived.

It does the community a disservice to have so much time separating the design and construction phases of projects.

By the time construction begins on this project, there will have been turnover in the affected part of the neighborhood and undoubtedly a need to bring those new residents up to speed and get their buy-in on the project.

This will be costly and time consuming.

The JPA bridge replacement project is an example of the costs associated with project delays.

I would urge you to put money back

in the upcoming budget so that the project's construction phase won't be delayed.

This project was overdue five years ago.

Thank you, Miss Chase.

Good evening, my name is George Veller, 714 Rugby Road, and I'm the Vice President of Piedmont Council of the Arts, known as PCA, which is the designated arts agency of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

We exist to sustain the arts as an essential part of the high quality of life in our area.

We want to thank the city for its financial support

and to stress how important this support is to fulfilling our mission.

The funds we receive from the city make up nearly 25% of our annual budget.

We request that you recommend to maintain this level of funding for PCA as outlined in the proposed budget.

The thriving arts community in Central Virginia is a major contributor to our region's attraction to tourists and permanent residents.

PCA services focus heavily on promoting artists and arts organization.

And via our website and other communication vehicles, we provide visitors and residents with up-to-date information on the numerous cultural opportunities available in our community.

For example, our online arts calendar is the go-to web resource for arts events listing over 500 events per month.

Also on our website, we list a directory that includes hundreds of local artists with links to their own websites.

PCA coordinates workshops for artists and community members.

For example, we recently launched a series of free seminars presented by the Virginia Bar Association on navigating the legal processes for arts related issues, such as business formation, contracts and copyright law.

We annually publish a community arts handbook, a compilation of arts opportunities for K to 12 school groups to take advantage of during the year.

Our creative conversation series brings arts organizations and community groups together to develop strategies for strengthening the arts in our region, attract new audiences to make Charlottesville an arts destination.

One of PCA's most recognizable activities is the Rising Star Award celebration.

while high school juniors and seniors selected by their teachers receive public recognition for their outstanding talent and promise in the arts.

This year, one major PCA initiative is the Arts Access Project, which aims to make cultural activities more accessible to low-income citizens.

There is no doubt that having an inviting, vibrant and well publicized arts environment in our region enhances the local economy in many ways.

Stressing cultural tourism creates economic value when visitors spend a day or a weekend here

to attend cultural events.

They book rooms in our hotels, dine in our restaurants, and shop in our stores.

The success in recruiting people to move here for jobs is also enhanced by our growing arts environments.

To conclude, the work of Piedmont Council of the Arts benefits our entire cultural sector and thus our diverse community.

City and county funding provides us with the ability

to serve our many members and the recipients of our services.

We thank you very much for your continued support, which is vital to our mission.

Thank you, Dr. Beller.

Good evening again.

I'm more on the process than the particular budget.

Mr. Collins is a very highly competent individual.

We have an award-winning budget department.

I'm sure they've done a very good job.

My problem is I'm still having trouble really understanding what's going on with the budget.

I don't have the time to sit down and analyze the budget.

I'm certainly qualified to do it, but you all have had meetings, you've had questionnaires in the utility envelopes, you've done a lot of things, but then still I'm surprised when I found out $250,000 of the budget reduction came from not funding the

the Solid Waste Authority.

I read in the paper 10 years ago, well in the last 10 years our budget has doubled and that's roughly non-compounded 10%, compound is maybe what, 7%?

What was the rate of inflation?

I don't know.

Why did it go up so much?

Well, you know, health insurance premiums have certainly gone up a whole bunch.

I'd kind of like to understand, you know, sort of the

How we got here from where we were and where we're going, I'm afraid I agree more with Mr. O'Connell than I do with Mayor Norris about the future of the economy.

Even though the stock market is playing with $11,000, I don't think that has anything to do with the healthy economy.

I think we have some really bad times ahead of us in the next couple of years.

I think the more people in this community that understand what's going on with the budget, the better off we're going to be.

I believe when I was watching on TV last time, Mr. O'Connell said that there were four people who came and spoke about the budget.

And out of a town of, what, 47,000 people, that's not real good.

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Colette Hall 101, Robertson Lane.

First of all, I want to say thank you to Mr O'Connell.

I am going to miss your concern and my personal concern that we keep a triple A bond rating.

I think it is one of the things we should applaud him the most for.

It keeps our city on a stable fiscal footing regarding how we're seen and viewed by financial institutions.

It's imperative.

Second of all, I don't have any prepared remarks tonight because what have I not said about the budget?

I've spoken to, I probably have spoken for five to six different councils minimum I don't know, I've lost track on the budget and I say this and I'll say it again the most important thing you do all year long is the city budget because all your future decisions or the majority of your future decisions are predicated on the funding you have available

and I thank God, I don't mean that lightly, that by law you must have a balanced budget in this municipality and unfortunately we see the federal government which is now trillions of dollars in deficit and they can print money and they can borrow from foreign countries

We don't do that.

We can't do that.

So it behooves us as taxpayers, you as elected officials and the city staff and city manager to get us on the most even keel that's possible.

Unfortunately, and this is the reality that frightens me perhaps more than anything, the number of people who pay taxes is decreasing at a dramatic rate.

A lot of that is now due to the unemployment.

People are losing jobs all over the country.

It's not their fault.

I talk to people in different places in Charlottesville and they say, I want to work.

I really want to work.

I can't find a job.

My heart breaks for them.

So those people last year were paying taxes.

This year they might need help.

My church, Holy Comfort, a Catholic church, has a large social ministry outreach.

I'm making this number up.

Last year we might have provided 50 families with food, now we provide 150.

So as you make allocations for every single thing in this budget, please remember that the number of taxpayers are decreasing.

More and more people are asking for funds

Where's the priority?

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on the city budget?

Good evening, I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

I was looking through the capital improvement program and the budget and in last year's budget there's an item associated with capital improvement for transportation projects that indicate when these projects are completed there'll be an operations maintenance cost of over $11,000 per lane mile.

That was in last year's budget.

I didn't see that in this year's budget.

But there is clearly a linkage between capital decisions that are made in this budget and future operating costs.

So I think it would be great if in the budget that's clearly specified that those things happen.

So I did a little economic analysis.

Maybe I took too many economics classes in graduate school.

But

At the discussion last council meeting, it was that there was a fairly large amount of money being expended on transportation projects, Meadow Creek Parkway and the interchange, etc.

But not all of those dollars are city dollars.

So I looked at what the number of city dollars actually being expended on McIntyre Road extended.

It was just under $300,000 was the number that VDOT provided.

and when I did the present value of the maintenance costs at 11,000 something dollars per lane mile and the number of lane miles in that project, it comes out to be a number greater than that.

So the share of costs that the city's paying on capital costs is relatively small but the future expenditures the city's going to have to take out of its budget to maintain those projects is relatively large.

So if my calculation is to carry through, I mean it's based on the current

Long term real discount rate published by the White House as of 2009 of 2.7% discount rate.

It comes to between $400,000 and $500,000 in present value whereas the capital cost is under $300,000.

So my feeling is that

that there needs to be a clear statement when we talk about our problems are in the future budgets that if we're going to be building roads that we're going to be having to spend huge amounts of additional dollars on, I think we need to do some planning and perhaps time scheduling of those expenditures so that we can actually afford to pay the maintenance.

Maintenance has not been something that's been easy in the city lately.

We've had many discussions about maintenance of sewage systems, water lines,

and other infrastructure.

So adding significantly to those infrastructure maintenance costs is not a trivial portion of the future budgets.

So I would recommend that the budgets do this linkage.

It's very simple calculations to do.

Figure out what the annual costs these capital projects will add to the budget and what years that would be anticipated being added and I think that will provide a lot more information to decision makers about whether to make these expenditures or when to time them.

Thank you, Mr. Kramer.

Joe Mooney, 201 Sunset Avenue.

I'd like to speak to counsel asking that you give serious consideration to putting funding into the upcoming budget for the old Lynchburg Road project.

Ms. Chase has read Peter Hedlund's letter and I think that

In reading the letter myself when I first saw it a few days ago, I thought that it was so succinct, it was so direct, and it was so meaningful that all I can do is just look at it again and I don't think it's redundant to go over the letter because we have the personal experience

He begins, cars still speed on Old Lynchburg Road.

They do.

There are some crazy drivers that test themselves on those curves.

Pedestrians still walk up and down Old Lynchburg Road without sidewalks.

The only reason I've decided that I walk up and down Old Lynchburg Road out towards Elliott Park is to prove to myself that I'm still young enough to get out of the way of disaster.

And I've made it each time so far, and I hope to continue to do it.

But it is a really hazardous thing to do.

I won't ride my bicycle on Old Lynchburg Road anymore, I used to.

After heavy rain, polluted storm water still flows unabated into Morris Creek.

You have to see it to believe it.

So if you haven't been down there after heavy rain, take a look.

Pierre summarized it with safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Now that Azalea Park is going to be nearing completion with the redevelopment, there are going to be more and more people trying to get there.

He uses the term abatement of the environmental catastrophe.

I think that's what it is.

When you look at it, you see it is a catastrophe.

Peace of mind for area citizens, Ms. Chase can certainly speak to that.

And then the last part I think is most meaningful, and you can't put money on this, but satisfaction and validation.

to the many citizens who in good faith attended multiple planning meetings at the behest of the city.

You know, we really got a lot of requests to come out and come to planning meetings and participate, and people did.

There were 30, 40 people, not all of them from the area, who would come out to meetings.

By delaying the funding for this project, you're telling them that they've wasted their time.

Now, that may not be an objective fact, but it's a feeling that people have.

The disappointment that after all of this effort, that it looks like the project is being put off.

I think that part of it is, oh wow, phew, Biscuit Run is gone.

We don't have to worry about that, so we really don't have to worry so much about Old Lynchburg Road anymore.

And I hope you won't fall into that trap.

Thank you, Dr. Mooney.

Dee Dee Smith.

I am also a proud resident of Fry's Spring.

Thank you to Ms. Chase and Mr. Mooney for their concerns.

I echo them.

But I'm here tonight, and I hope this is a budget question, and I apologize if it isn't, but actually Downing Smith

said much of what I was concerned about and I really appreciated Dr. Brown's explanation for the $250,000.

But there's just a factor that I don't know if it'll play into either your budget or the revenue that you expect to get out of your budget.

But this is this change, this

renewal of contract or, and I don't really, I admit I don't know a lot about it, but those of us who do have annual stickers and we've always used the city, I'm a very well informed person and I didn't know I had choices as to who would take my trash until this whole debacle this year and I don't think I'm unusual in that now we're being courted by outside trash companies and what they're telling us is that we will give you

You're one trash can.

You don't have to buy it.

We'll give it to you.

You don't have to sort anything.

And we're going to guarantee you it's going to be recycled.

Those are three things we don't have now.

And I'll tell you, I've never minded, recycled for decades, never really minded sorting until I knew there was an alternative.

And it's starting to drive me a little crazy.

It's so messy.

You know, these red things in my trash can and it's all outside.

And I'm thinking,

Oh my God, there are alternatives.

I only say that I'm not saying I'm typical, but I don't think I'm unusual either in thinking that there is an alternative out there and I would hope that you don't get yourself into a situation where you're not bringing in the revenue that you expect to, but I would also hope that as you come to June, and I don't know what your options are at this point, but that you will consider other options that do satisfy those things that I think other city residents want.

Okay, thank you.

We will now close the public hearing.

And actually, I would like to give counselors an opportunity if you have any immediate feedback on the comments we just heard before we actually move forward with a vote.

Any counselors like to respond?

Peter Kleeman, I think his point is good, except that he should know that a great deal of operational money for highways does come from the state, and we get that every year.

Secondly, every time a capital budget is proposed, operational impacts of that are asked of the city departments, so they do consider those things as considerations.

So that was my comment to Peter.

and it is a good point.

Second, again, I also want to second Dr. Beller's comments about art.

I think it is a worthy mix for our community, the rich community in many ways, so we ought to continue to support that.

I'd just like to

To reiterate the need to keep an eye on the ball of places where we have asked for public input in neighborhoods and they've expressed opinions and how we follow up on that.

I think that the folks down at Old Lynchburg Road have some really valid concerns about that.

Also, just wanted to give my personal feeling about how impressed I am with the recent work of the Piedmont Council of the Arts.

It's really grown a lot in the last few years and I'm really pleased with that.

and also I'd like to echo Mr. Smith that we do need more public participation in budgets and I have long talked about having various meetings out in the community and to me it seems like next year that might be a place to start that process because we don't have the televised bid and it's not as complicated to move around.

And if you have any ideas about how we can make the budget fun and exciting, let us know.

And I agree with Ms. Hall, it's important for us to keep our AAA bond rating and I also believe that it's going to get tougher every year to determine

The priorities are that we're all going to have some really difficult decisions to make over the next couple of years to decide which services are most appropriate, which are necessary.

I just had a couple comments.

There actually is a chart, correct me if I'm wrong Ms. Beauregard, but I believe there is a chart in the budget which looks 10 years back, shows different cost categories and how they've increased.

On the web.

On the website, okay.

And maybe next year we can highlight that more so they address it.

It's a very legitimate question about, you know, why is it the city budget has increased, where has it increased, etc.

So thank you.

I have long been and continue to be a strong supporter of the old Lynchburg Road project.

I want to reiterate once again, despite an unfortunate email that went out from City Hall, the project is not on hold.

The question that you raise, which I think is a very legitimate question, is when can we expect to see construction start?

The pre-development phase is going to continue through this coming fiscal year so it doesn't really make sense to put construction dollars in this coming year's budget.

The real question is going to be what happens when we're here this time next year when the residents have been expecting construction to start at a certain point when all this design and development phase is concluded and

and then they may be hit by a two or three year delay between design development and actual construction.

I think that's a very legitimate concern.

I certainly hope that between now and next year when we're sitting here approving next year's budget that we can find a way to front load that money to get that project done.

That's my personal opinion.

We haven't had that conversation yet on council, but I appreciate you bringing that forward.

I want to see the project done just as much as you do.

And then Mr. Kleeman, I don't know if your question, you said last year's budget did reflect sort of ongoing operating and maintenance costs.

I'm not sure if that's true.

Okay, thank you all very much.

We're now going to move forward to an ordinance on the annual tax levy.

We just have in front of you a first reading on an ordinance to establish the tax levy.

for real property at 95 cents per 100, which is the same tax rate, and $4.20 per 100 for the personal property tax rate.

I won't go through the ordinance, but you've got the ordinance in front of you with five different sections that relate to the various taxes, but they're all the same as the current year.

It's been moved and seconded.

It will carry forward to our next meeting.

Thank you very much.

We now have an annual budget appropriation for FY11, first of two readings.

This is the actual appropriation ordinance.

It's multiple pages.

It totals $140,751,728.

It's the general fund revenues and expenditures

I think we've said enough tonight.

We'll be glad to answer any questions.

But this is in front of you for first reading.

So moved.

Is there a second?

All right, it's moved and seconded.

Carry forward to our next meeting.

Thank you very much.

and again I want to publicly thank Ms. Beauregard and your staff, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Watts, Mr. Ray, all y'all for your outstanding work once again and I know it's a labor of love.

Maybe not at this point in the process.

Thank you for clarifying.

Is this one of yours, Mr. Brown?

Section with Thompson Road.

The purpose of the easement is for an underground telecommunications duck bank for piping conduit, electrical and related facilities.

Included with the ordinance is the standard deed that we use in this type of situation with the university.

It is scheduled for a public hearing in the first reading of the ordinance tonight.

There being none, I will now open the public hearing.

Nobody has signed up to speak.

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

I will now close the public hearing.

Is there a motion to approve this ordinance?

Is there a second?

All right, it's been moved and seconded.

Carry forward to our next meeting.

Thank you very much, Mr. Brown.

Next, we have Mr. Tom Frederick, Executive Director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority here to present our quarterly update on water supply and ragged mountain dam study.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight.

This is a progress update on various studies related to water supply.

Tonight we are not here to talk about conclusions with these studies.

As the memorandum that summarized indicated, all the studies that are

identified here are still a work in progress at this point in time.

But it does give you an outline of where each one stands at the present time and what we are now anticipating to be in completion dates.

In the order listed in the report, the first one is the preliminary design for a new Ragged Mountain Dam.

We're expecting preliminary design cost estimates in May.

They're still being worked on at this point and there's no conclusions.

Over the last three months our engineering consultants continue to perform core drilling to establish further geotechnical information and improve their knowledge of underground characteristics.

There has been a significant finding in the last three months and that is that there may be enough soil to build an earthen dam from the material on site as opposed to a concrete dam which was

The earlier concept for how to build a new dam on the site, we did ask that our panel of three renowned experts in dam construction review that suggestion from our consulting engineer.

They did suggest that it did clear the hurdle of meriting further analysis.

So now we're going to be looking at preliminary design cost estimates that will be for a concrete dam as well as an earthen dam and we'll be able to compare the two.

We've also had some conversation about how to present some information that may be useful to your decision making if you're interested in exploring phasing options.

As I indicated in the memo, we don't have the details of that worked out, so this is a great opportunity if you have any suggestions or if you are interested in exploring that option further.

The next item, the next study that is in the summary report is on the dredging feasibility for the South Fork Reservoir.

As many of you know, or perhaps all of you know, there was a public meeting on March 9th at City Space, and our consultant HDR presented its findings on physical characteristics of the reservoir, including where wetlands are, including

what we call the bathymetric survey or basically the shape of the reservoir, if you will, how much volume of sediment and volume of water.

They also looked at sediment analysis, took some samples and tested them in a lab and also did a pre-dredge survey, which is looking for are there any obstacles or barriers to dredging.

They found the sediment is non-hazardous, which is consistent with other studies we've seen in the past.

So that was not a surprise, but it's good news

They found that the farthest upper reaches, the sediment tends to be more sand as you come further down.

It tends to be finer particles.

That also was not surprising since the heavier particles tend to settle out first.

Most folks, although the beneficial use study by HDR has not been completed yet, just based on what folks have said in the past, there tend to be more beneficial use of sand.

so that could be significant in that way and that'll be further analyzed.

40 acres of fringe wetlands were identified and actually mapped in the report and our consultant is recommending that buffer zones be set up, meaning no dredge zones basically, to protect the wetlands since they are environmentally sensitive areas.

They also, through the bathymetric survey, there were a number of things that were determined

Any bathymetric survey is an estimate.

You basically take data at known points.

You can't sample every single point in a reservoir economically.

So you sample a particular grid and then there's some estimates done between the, or interpolation done between the specific points.

HDR made a couple of conclusions that I've identified here that I thought were noteworthy.

The total storage volume in the reservoir today is about 10% higher than what was reported in 2002.

Also, HDR calculated the total volume of the original reservoir and compared it to previous estimates and actually determined that their computations of the original volume are 6% less than what had previously been reported.

These statistics, while they're very interesting in and of themselves, will begin to make more sense as they complete the rest of the study.

and you begin to relate how that relates to methods and cost.

The methods and cost is the work that they're doing right now.

Just as a pointer again, they will do a desktop analysis which is underway on how to process the sediment once it's removed.

They will only do two sites, two land sites in more detail.

They'll screen out the others and that is based on a budget limitation that was set.

that you previously have discussed and also the Rivanna board has agreed to.

We expect another public meeting in late May and a final report in June.

The next project discussed here is the I-64 embankment, which is actually a part of the idea of expanding the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

Volkert Engineering, who does a lot of work with FDOT,

is currently taking geotechnical information.

We did a lot of geotechnical work in the embankment to understand what it's consistent of because we want a solution that's grounded in science.

It's got to be safe, but it's also got to be economical.

We expect them to come up with some recommendations for design based on that geotechnical information.

By May, we will then need to seek the concurrence

Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

The feds are involved since it's an interstate highway.

Unfortunately, we can't establish a timetable on their concurrence.

That's something that we will do our very best to negotiate as quickly as possible.

Volcker is also addressing risk analysis with respect to highway spills.

We're also, the staff is working on what

The mayor once called the pros and cons of the three pipelines referring to the James River Pipeline, the South Fork to Ragged Mountain Pipeline and the Sugar Hollow Pipeline.

This will be a qualitative only summary because it is limited to readily available information and there's no money budgeted for further consulting studies.

The last section in here is not about any particular study but just trying to provide you information on some upcoming

processes that we anticipate.

This is certainly no prescription as to how you come about making a decision.

This is just guidance based on how this has occurred in the past here.

And it does suggest that once all these different studies are completed, which looks like June timeframe, there's an anticipation that there'll be discussions.

This board perhaps will be involved along with other boards.

At the end of the day, the decision is made to direct the Rivanna staff, comes from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors.

From past experience in looking at how the board deliberates these kinds of decisions, we anticipate that the City Council will have an opportunity to be directly involved, as will the county boards, in helping guide what decisions are made by the community.

We do, simply for information that you need to know,

We apprise you of the upcoming August date when the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Board is expecting this community to make a decision how they intend to approach final design from the standpoint of safety of the existing ragged mountain structure.

The Soil and Water Conservation Board is not in the business of telling you how to develop a water supply.

Thank you very much, Mr. Frederick.

You mentioned this is the time to talk about the idea of phasing in the new dam.

And I know that we're still waiting for the report about the old dam and all that, but in the event that we are looking at a new dam,

I'm no engineer.

It just seems to me, and I talked to one of the engineers that's working on this, the idea of building a dam for not quite the worst case scenario that is built in such a way that can be added onto later.

I think that that's something I'm very interested in looking at.

And I don't know, my mental image is sort of like building it with Lego bumps on top so you can put something that won't slide off.

But yeah, that's my very amateurish kind

Okay.

One thing that can be helpful is if you have targets, specific targets that you'd like to see, right, right, feeder volume.

Other questions or comments?

I have a few.

First of all, I want to address this issue of the demand projections in order to meet the requirements of the state mandated water supply plan which were

required to submit by November of 2011.

Given the fact that we're looking at an August 2010 deadline, if you will, for addressing the dam safety issue and how that's tied into our overall water supply and how all of us want to see a resolution, hopefully this calendar year, hopefully this summer,

of our water supply planning effort, planning strategy.

Well, the first thing I'll say on that is that we have based

We're a small organization.

We have a small staff.

We've been asked to perform a lot of additional studies over the last number of months.

We've not come back and asked for more staff, and we've got a bunch of people working very hard.

We've prioritized our work based on what our board of directors has identified as the priorities, and as I mentioned earlier, to a great extent,

The Rivanna Board of Directors has in turn looked at elected officials like yourselves in obtaining that guidance over time.

We're focused right now on the studies that were asked through what I'm calling here the four boards process that happened then.

It's taxing to continue to add more studies without saying, okay, what can give?

What can slow down?

We've also, in recent weeks, we've taken a look at some of the issues involved in the, I'm going to call it a second plan, which is a plan that the state legislature is asking all communities to submit.

If there is interest in this community in demand projections, settling a lot of, I guess, a lot of the discussion and debate that's going on in this community

We do see this as probably something that's more intense than what may have been done in past years, just because the dynamics of the questions are different right now.

And in thinking about this question, it probably entails hiring a consultant.

I don't really think, if you pursue that route, I don't think that a new demand study can be done by summer.

I think it extends and delays the decisions on this process.

What I can say to you is

We've gotten very, very clear instructions through the state regulatory agencies as we've gone back and asked.

And we read ourselves what the state plan legislative criteria and regulatory criteria is compared to the process we went through in 2004-2006, which is a federal Clean Water Act.

There are a lot of parallels in terms of the mechanics, but they're two very different laws and they apply to two very different situations.

It's still clear to us that decisions that need to be made, decisions that address dam safety, you have the authority to make without asking for information to be advanced from the separate law and the separate act.

If the plan were the same plan that was adopted in 2006 most of the work is done but the context

of the discussion in the public is very different now and we're trying to work with our board, trying to work with the council and trying to work with others to answer

things in the current context, not in the context of four years ago.

And as you know, context can make a very big difference in approaches.

Just out of curiosity, in your professional opinion, do the demand projections that I believe are based on 2001 data

I'm going to put forecasting in a much broader context, if you don't mind.

Forecasting is at best trying to

use historical data to project a crystal ball.

Nobody's crystal ball has 2024 site, nobody.

So you do the best you can to project based off of your historical data.

If trends, if historical trends continue like they have in the past, you have a very good projection.

If trends change, it depends on what point in time you begin to notice trends change and that means

you have the ability of hindsight to look at data to see trends change.

The demand projections that were done in 2003 that used data from 2001, the consultant chose not to consider the 2002 data because they felt like that was an anomaly because there was a severe drought.

That's probably not an unreasonable decision in that particular date and context.

But you can redo projections in 2010

and in 2015-16 people will be asking the same questions about 2010 projections that folks today are probably asking about 2003 because it's not a perfect science.

I hear in some public comment, I hear people say let's get all the data, let's get all the facts.

The word data and the word facts really don't apply to future forecasts.

We don't have the data until it's historical.

So we do the best you can to make projections.

Statisticians say that if you're doing long-term projections, that is 50 years, you should be looking at long-term data and long-term trends, not short-term.

Some of the comments that I hear from some, perhaps they have reasons for their comments or they don't, but suggest that we use trends for the last two or three years to figure out what's going to happen in 50 years.

Anyone who's invested money in financial markets understands there's ups and downs, there's swings.

When people advise someone who's 20 years old on retirement, they're going to look at the performance of the stock market over the last 80, 90 years and say, here's the average trend, this is what you get in for.

They're not going to look at the last two years.

You wouldn't get in the stock market if you looked at the last two years and thought that was the trend forever.

That's just the nature of forecasting.

In terms of history, there was a reduction in water usage in 2002 compared to historical.

Most communities that go through a very, very severe drought as this community did will experience that cycle.

I've seen some communities where it rebounds.

It did rebound here.

We had another peak in 2006.

Demand in 2006 was higher than in 2003.

In fact, I recall in the

Discussions we were having in 2006, some people were coming to me and saying, I don't think this demand study from 2003 predicted enough water because the county right now, not talking about the city, but the county at that point in time was growing at a rate of about 2% a year.

And the 50 year historical projections were based on 0.8% per year.

And there were people that were afraid that the 2003 demand projections weren't enough.

The context now is different and it's changed.

because water use has declined somewhat since 2006.

The big question mark is, is it going to continue to flatline as some people suggest?

Are we in a cycle that's going to turn around and maybe go back up again?

And what might that look like?

And the more

Can you just answer the specific question about percentage-wise, what is the gap?

Would another kind of related question be given the fact that

The database to actually look at trends actually resides with the retail agencies which is the city of Charlottesville and the Albemarle County Service Authority and we have limited information on that database to work off of.

I do know in the summer months that we can look at the global numbers that we see every day which is how much water do we treat and pump into the system and we can see by how many days it's been since the last rain

We can, to some degree, guess what kind of trends we're going to see in demand.

If it hasn't rained for a week, we're going to see demand going up.

If it rains, we see demand immediately come down.

That suggests that outdoor water use is a part of the equation.

There have been some indications that perhaps with the economy slower right now that that's slowed some water use, the extent to which that's true.

It's really hard to determine unless you have access to

the retail data and see what's going on in commercial and institutional trends and if those are where the changes are if it's in residential.

I'd like to ask maybe Ms. Hildebrand, are you in a position to answer the question about what actual usage is now compared to what it was projected to be eight years ago at this point?

No.

Mr. O'Connell, do you know the number?

I believe it's about 25, 28 percent less.

I don't know if anybody in this room can verify that.

28 percent less.

which to me is a rather significant gap and we're not talking a few percentage points we're talking about a substantial difference in usage versus projected demand and I guess for me personally I'm not comfortable supporting a long-term water supply strategy based on numbers that are

that far off from actual usage.

I fully understand and appreciate the argument you're making that you don't want to make long-term projections based on one or two years or three years of data but I think we have the benefit now of eight or nine years of hindsight and seeing trends and seeing new technologies emerge, new policies come into place, new programs come into place that will affect long-term

Trains that weren't in place eight or nine years ago.

One thing that I'm thinking about in that context is that I understand when you're talking about needing to deal with an unsafe dam and having a plan if that's what we need to do.

I think that the phasing is one way to deal with that is to say we can go ahead if we need a new dam because of safety issues we can go ahead and start that process without knowing the

the high end of what the demand might be which would then give us time to do a more complete demand analysis which I think we would probably, I too would feel a need to do before we came up with that 50 year projection for our need.

The other thing that I'm looking at is can we, since we know that the original line was here and that currently we're here, even using your old demand analysis, can we just reset the base so it goes like this for the moment?

I think the question comes down to what do you want the demand analysis to tell you and do you want it to be something that you pre-guide or do you want it to be something that will answer and stand up to questions that different individuals may pose from different perspectives.

I think if someone wanted to, say, do the math and say, take the line that, the line of best fit that was done 50 years ago,

and started at the lower point and let it go up, you can do the math and do the calculations yourself.

Whether that's the best demand analysis that you can come up with, that's where the questions are.

I'm not going to debate numbers.

Which hat are you wearing now?

Probably my new hat.

probably the hat of a community water supply.

How's that?

I just want to put a quick context to it.

Those of you that went to the Charlottesville Tomorrow display, one of the things that they pointed out is we've been at the water supply issue for 40 years.

We originally were to build a new reservoir based upon the demand prior to 2002 drought.

And

I don't know what all the answers are in terms of forecasting or calculations for future demand or this point in time, but I guess I wanted to put a context.

If you look at what the state is saying for a 50-year water supply plan, we're 40 years into the plan already, and we haven't built anything.

I don't think that's... No, that's... What do you mean we're... That's when the South Fork was built.

That's when future planning

was put into place to lead to the purchase of reservoir land, which has never been constructed, which was based upon demand calculations at that time.

I think that's what you have to look at is you do, I don't know the answers to all the numbers and I think that's something to look at and how you go about doing that, but you also have to not forget the context of all these numbers are based upon a really dry year where we have a drought.

Absent that, and if you can predict that, absent that the numbers are extremely different.

And that's the corridor as you do this planning.

The experts are going to have to look at the specific numbers in the data, but just trying to put a historical context to it and where we are and what's happened and where we're trying to head.

I think that's a valid point.

I don't think anybody's arguing that we can afford or that we're even allowed to ignore the safe yield.

The question is, is there a better, cheaper way to achieve the safe yield?

And I think that's the point of all the studies.

Right.

Is to try to lead the switch.

While I'm standing here, Ms. Hildebrand is here to talk about the other study, too.

Well I was going to say you know I think since we're having more of a general discussion at this point we've gotten away from questions I think.

You know, there are two aspects to this issue and one is consumption based on what we now see and what people are doing and I do think we've made a lot of efforts to try to decrease consumption.

I think there's a lot of things that hopefully the state will end up allowing us to do and initiatives we can take that currently we actually can't do.

But recently there was a meeting that

Sustainability Committee had a meeting to talk about adaptation to climate change.

What things as a community can we do or should we do knowing that climate change is coming and certain amount of change is inevitable.

And what was brought up by Jack Marshall of the ASAP group in his breakout session.

and was discussed a little bit in the breakout session that I was in was what happens to Charlottesville's population figures if the sea level rises in tidewater?

You know, what do, you know, can we anticipate more growth in this area than we otherwise would?

And I think that's a fair question.

I think, you know, I mean, are people going to remain in tidewater or are people going to look to be moving elsewhere?

and you know I don't really appreciate Betty Seidner laughing out loud here as if this is not a real question.

I think that by the year 2025 sea levels will rise in tidewater and you know Betty Seidner may not believe in climate change but I bet she does.

Betty Mooney.

But it is a fact.

It was brought up in the discussion by a local person who is very concerned about population pressure in this area and I think it's something

There's a corollary in that same discussion too and that is that there's been some discussion in the local climate change among the steering committee.

They've looked at some information that meteorologists are coming out with as to what the impacts may be if there's global warming.

And for the mid-Atlantic region, which is where Virginia is,

Just one comment about projections.

I've done a fair number of projections over the years, and I would say that you can get any prediction you want.

or whatever method you use but to get a good projection you really do need long term data.

Did you have something you wanted to?

So I guess the question before council tonight is

Do we want, can we afford to wait until next November of 2011 to get better numbers on demand?

Or do we want to try and expedite that and have it inform the very, very weighty decision we're going to make this, hopefully this summer, about putting a plan in place for our long-term water supply?

and I think I've made it clear where I tend to err on that question.

I'm not sure that I'm at the point of wanting to spend a lot of money on an extra consultant.

I feel like there are things that we can do that are a little less budget heavy that can achieve the same result.

Because I agree with you that I don't want to move forward in construction until we have that data, but I have a suspicion that if we start in August, the ground isn't going to be broken for a little while.

Yeah, I don't know.

What is the

You offered a few moments ago a specific calculation you'd like to see done.

That's an easy one.

That can be done by staff.

But I assume that that's something that you're expecting to have to do anyway

There's some, there's certain guidelines that the state has offered in the regulation that certainly has to be followed.

They require that you use methods adopted by the American Water Works Association or they use as another example the American Society of Civil Engineers.

You know, we've been doing a number of studies for which we ended up paying in the city.

And I will say I'm not really keen on doing another study and paying for it.

I understand.

I don't think city councils should redraw the line on the map if that's what's being suggested here in terms of what our demand is, that we should ourselves set it.

I think I'd like to be guided by statistician in some fashion.

I think if that's something we want to consider, I think we should spend the money on it.

I'm not sure if I support it, but I think it's better to spend the money than to

or do it with the county together.

Or we'll wear both hats.

To me, the question in front of counsel is, do you feel like you need to have the professional demand analysis done by a consulting firm

in a studied way, and I don't know how long this takes, in order to make a decision sometime in the summer.

Because the majority of council says- I think we're still discussing that.

Well, I think we're required to do this analysis anyway.

but what we're hearing from Mr. Frederick is that if we were going to expedite it, it's not something that Rivanna has the ability to do by this summer.

I just wanted to follow up on the comments you made about the level of work that staff is involved with now.

Our water supply journey has been

Unusual.

And so I know that staff has been taking on other responsibilities in the effort to gather information.

And is it because of that that getting this information would be difficult?

Not a judgment call, but my feeling based on the recent public discussion about what a demand analysis should achieve is that it requires to get what people seem to be asking for.

It's going to require a professional expertise that Rivanna doesn't have, whether we have the staff or not, unless we hire somebody who has his special expertise.

But organizations like ours who are not going to be using that expertise

Regularly long term, it's probably cheaper to get a consultant to do the study when you need it.

There is administrative work associated with managing consulting contracts and that's one of the things that has been continuously added to our plate.

We're not slowing down in other areas of our operation.

For example, we've got a lot of problems pertaining to rehabilitation of sewer infrastructure and that's not slowing down, that's actually speeding up.

So we've got this

You might call it perfect storm developing or is it a long-term trend?

I also believe that the information that we are seeking is part of the water supply journey.

We're in the season where I think we need this kind of information.

And I'm also kind of feeling like we've come this far.

If we find that we need to

to do the consultant to get the study.

We're already here.

I feel like I've invested a lot of time already.

And if this would be another part of the puzzle that we would have in place to make some consistent decisions, because we will have to, at some point, come to an end in this journey, whether or not everybody agrees on all sides, they can't argue with facts.

And so I guess I'm hearing what everybody else is thinking, but I wouldn't have an issue with

Any other thoughts?

I was struck by the use of the word facts in light of what Mr. Frederick said earlier about the future projections are never going to be something we can all agree on, I think, because they don't exist yet.

But I don't disagree with your conclusion.

I feel like we need to come to a decision.

I actually have some other questions about other pieces of your report, but I would like to see us move forward and if your staff doesn't have the expertise to do the kind of demand analysis that the state is requiring and that our community needs,

I would like to see if that means going outside to find somebody.

I can't imagine it being nearly the scope or level of work that has gone into all of these other studies or most of these other studies and we're talking about

I imagine fairly standard kind of data crunching, much different beast than studying a dam design or something.

Just to get a consultant whose opinion you might like, this is not the way to go I think.

I want to fact, as fact, you're right Ms.

Sake, it's not a, it's not as factual, you know, whenever you're projecting, making projections, it's based in some part on conjecture.

But I'm not asking for a, I'm not saying let's get a study that's going to show X. I want it in terms of

what the level of demands can be.

This is not ours alone.

It is something which you need to share with them.

Well, yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, Rivanna is sitting on a substantial amount of reserves right now.

That to me is one logical place to go.

I'm less worried about, at this point, the mechanics of figuring out who's going to chip in and how much.

I just want to get it done.

In principle I absolutely want to see a study conducted.

I am very concerned about the cost and I don't want the city to be just shoveling out money for study after study when nobody else is participating and then have to either argue the results or even not argue the results but just have to shoulder the bill.

We have other things we could be using our money for

I'm not concerned about the winning part, which is whether it would be any useful to us in terms of the joint system we have for city and county.

If you develop a number, a very good one, I'm not sure how it will be received.

I must say also, I wasn't prepared to come here today to set another study.

I am, I am.

That's true.

Admittedly.

Because I think it's critical information and if we don't get started now, it's going to be too late to inform a very important decision that needs to be based on the best possible information.

So can we come back with some idea on exactly what would be contained in the study, how much it would cost, when it could be done,

Maybe the two members of our Council are members of our Board of Trustees already.

Okay, two other quick questions.

On the pros and cons piece on the three pipelines, there's a question that's sort of been hanging out there about

that I really feel needs to get resolved which has to do with the legal status of the current easements for the Sugar Hollow Pipeline and whether or not those easements would have to be renegotiated if that pipeline were to be replaced or extensively repaired.

One of the arguments that's been made about

that's actually helped convince me to support this new pipeline is that there'd be substantially fewer easements required, most likely, than would be required to be renegotiated or settled in the current pipeline.

There's a counter argument being made that because those easements are already in place, that we wouldn't have to renegotiate them.

and so I feel like we need to get that issue resolved and that should be a simple, I would think it's a pretty simple straightforward question to be answered and I think that needs to be reflected in the pros and cons piece and then also just the information that Rivanna already has in house about the

the condition, the physical condition of the sugar hollow pipeline and why and again what is the argument that convinced Rivanna and others that that pipeline would need to be either replaced or extensively repaired and expensively repaired because again that's one of the things that compelled me to support, has compelled me to support the new pipeline but I think we need to

demonstrate that in a clear way.

Any other questions for Mr. Frederick?

I think we've taken a lot of your time this evening.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Proposals were received March the 23rd, staff is evaluating the proposals.

We anticipate, I'm so sorry, it's the raising, looking at the feasibility of raising the existing dam 13 feet.

Proposals went out and we received proposals the 23rd of March.

Yes, it is.

Thank you very much.

Next item on our agenda is an ordinance regarding site plan requirements for special use permit applications, a first of two readings.

At the January 12th Planning Commission meeting, Mr. Huja expressed concern about one of our special use permits because at that time we had recommendations from the BAR which added additional conditions onto that but we did not have visuals at that point in time.

the applicant of course was required to do that and to do a site plan as part of that application but the timing of that was a concern and he also recalled another situation where proffers were put forth that had physical changes to the exterior of a site and those weren't available when they came forward at that point in time and so

That concern was raised again at the January 19th City Council meeting and you all initiated study of site plan requirements with special use permits.

And we went forth with that study and determined that the code does cover the requirement for a site plan

in both the cases of a special use permit, which you all did initiate, and in the case of a rezoning, which is not initiated at this time but was also a concern.

The timing is what

came under concern because at the time it came forward for review those visuals weren't available because they had just been conditioned and the timing of the process allowed those to come forward and at that point in time the council decided to move in favor of both of those applications but there was some concern about that.

Some suggestions we have in that

In that regard, the code covers what we need in order to get that material.

In those situations, there may have been an opportunity to defer or to deny the application if there were some concerns with the materials that were present.

additional materials that are needed in order to review an application, that option is always present and it can be asked of the applicant to consider that as well as the council or the commission, depending on where we are at that point in time.

But, as I noted, the code does cover that those are required, but since the study was initiated, we have a list of housekeeping items we keep on code issues and we work through those the best we can and since that one was initiated,

We had received some concern that our ordinance currently requires for all special use permits that there be a site plan done and there are some cases that we've had where a site plan may not be necessary due to no external changes to the site and if you all recall there's been a couple of daycares that have come forward that are in-home

daycares where there haven't been any external changes but they have had more than the number of children by right and so there are some impacts that that do occur in those cases.

We've also had a couple of dance hall requests where establishments have moved into existing buildings and not had exterior changes and those may have been opportunities to not require a full-blown site plan and in this case since the code specifically says we have to have it, we have to have it.

So what we brought forward to you all at this point in time is a change to the ordinance that would allow for a bit of flexibility concerning requirement for a site plan with a special use permit application.

This does not take away

the ability of the commission or the council to require a site plan if through deliberation it's determined that there is exterior changes that are needed to a site and that's the concern that came up originally is that the applicant submitted their application, they weren't projecting to do anything outside of the buildings

and then through the deliberation process it was determined that was going to be needed to address the impacts.

So what we're asking, bringing forward is just a little bit of flexibility in that code section.

It would refer to the site plan requirements section.

We had a public hearing last month.

We had a couple members of the public who did attend that and supported the flexibility and in fact asked us if there were other opportunities to

Two comments.

First of all, I do not oppose any of the suggestions that have been made by the staff and planning commission because I think they will be helpful

but so what changes are proposed especially when you're not making exterior changes there's no reason to have a site plan and make them go through the very wrong ones that said this doesn't address any of my concerns which I raised on those two dates and I understand the staff is saying that they could have required a site plan but they didn't

By the time it comes to planning, we should have said because it's too late.

It's just in my mind, I'll wait to see and see if you do require site plans or whether there's a need for it because at least two or three cases I'm aware of, it would have been great help.

Not only help to me, but it is also to the citizens who have to look at the plans and think about what is going to happen and have no way to figuring out without a plan what is going to happen.

So if the staff thinks there is a provision in the court already to require that, I'd like to see that it be required by the staff a number of times to be able to plan a commission on city council.

Well, I mean, it sounds like a fix to that is to allow for additional time in order for them to produce whatever material that may be.

However, we're on a time clock.

When applications come in, we do have a limitation in the time to bring them forward.

In all of these cases, well the cases specifically the one on Preston and the one on Hinton, it was a condition of the approval that the site plans be brought forward and staff took those through the administrative process.

Yeah, it didn't help anybody except the staff.

It didn't help the citizens, it didn't help the commissioner, it didn't help the city council.

My request was that if there is a provision in the law that we can require a site plan, that we do require, we know that there are going to be external changes in the site plans.

Correct.

And I understand that.

If an applicant comes forward with an application that requires external changes, they right off the bat have said, we're going to do this and it's going to require a change, then yes, the site plan is going to be included in the packet at the first meeting.

The two examples that we've been working with here have been cases where the applicant said, I'm not

I'm not changing anything to the outside, I'm just changing the use.

So, you know, I don't have any need for that and as it went through the deliberation process working through the public hearing, working through planning commission and council, it was determined that there were impacts that were on both of those sites.

that external changes were going to be necessary to address.

Every time I observe children's views, I've seen impacts outside, besides what the African says.

Correct.

Is this partly an administrative issue where once staff receives a site plan in cases like you've described that there's a lag time between that and when those site plans become public?

When it comes in the office, it's public.

It goes to staff.

Right.

So is there a way to expedite, from the moment you receive the site plan, to make sure it's available to counsel, to commissioners, to the public?

Right, well, let's take the case of Hinton Avenue because that might ground us a little bit here.

They wanted to change from single family to restaurant use and establish a restaurant there.

Through that deliberation discussion, they weren't going to do anything external, had proposed absolutely nothing, just entered the existing dwelling as a restaurant.

Through deliberation, it was determined that screening

outdoor screening landscaping was going to need to be required.

Their requirements for that in the zoning classification that they were posing and so the approval was conditioned on a site plan being brought forward that met the

ordinance requirements.

The timing of that became where it had gone through planning commission, gone through the public hearing and had come forward to council with that condition.

At that time there's definitely the option to defer if it was felt that that visual was needed and maybe now after the fact it's

determined that perhaps that could have been beneficial during the discussion.

I think at one point during the public hearing you mentioned the alternative possibility of being able to do kind of a sketch of a site as an option for people doing something like this which I think might get to this because I think what Mr. Huja is saying is that sometimes like

in a case where like a restaurant was it would be really helpful to be able to look and know how far the house is from the from the house next door or from the you know just not necessarily the science stuff and the engineering and the expense that goes into a real site pin but kind of a you know reasonably close to scale picture and I think that you know I really am glad that you're looking at eliminating the

the need to do a site plan in certain circumstances because as one of the people who gets them I mean they're huge and so it's paper and paper and paper and all of us get copies of it and we put it in our recycling you know it's just we look at it but then if nothing changes there's really not a whole lot to look at and it also does you know cause a lot of expense to often very small businesses.

Well already is policy and it's denoted in the code sections that you can require visual depictions I mean it's broad and then it comes in more specific to site plan and it's in both the rezoning and

and in the special use permit sections.

And based on this discussion that we've had the last couple of months, we've added in that we'll provide additional depictions of what we have with topography and larger vicinity

From city maps that you have.

Right, and even in those applications where there weren't external changes, there were plats included in the packet, because in most cases they were single-family dwellings, so they didn't necessarily have site plans.

But in the case of Preston, we did have an existing site plan, so that was a part of the packet.

So, again, part of my problem may be the history.

Excuse me for that part.

For all site plans, especially for maintenance, there was a change of views.

Site plans were required because invariably there was an impact outside, except for situations like daycare facilities.

In those cases, we had complaints about neighbors saying they were putting playgrounds.

I would think that this ordinance requires some sort of graphic representation as Kristin mentioned.

Dr. Brown?

I think my concern when we talked about this the last time we talked about it was that we empower the Planning Commission to review things and make recommendations to us.

They spend a lot of time doing this, a lot more time than we do as city councilors.

And I thought it was important that we express our concern, we have it go through the Planning Commission and then

they let us know what they thought.

Well, you know, we can do that.

But, you know, they didn't choose to move forward with the requirement.

And they endorsed what's before us here.

And so, you know, I'm very leery of

asking this group of people we appoint to do a tremendous amount of work and then us coming back and not collaborating with them in terms of how they go about doing their work.

It's not just the Planning Commission.

It's also the citizens who look at the plans.

If you want them to look at the plans,

And it sounds like administratively you've made some changes to try to address this very subject.

So I'm comfortable with, I agree with Dr. Brown, I think

I appreciate the review, the consideration the Planning Commission gave, the staff has given it.

I think we'll be able to get better visualizations because of the administrative changes they've made.

Well, also, if we get in a situation like this again, which is entirely possible, we have those applications that will make sure in the staff report that it's specifically clear that, you know,

Council has many options here.

Okay.

I'll move the ordinance.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Alright, it's been moved and seconded.

Carry forward to our next meeting.

Thank you very much, Ms. Creasy.

The final item on our regular business agenda tonight, Mr. O'Connell had asked for a few minutes to give a retrospective and maybe a little bit of prospective presentation on the state of the city.

And I'm going to let you take it away.

I believe you have a PowerPoint presentation.

I have a couple quick comments in the air.

So I got a PowerPoint.

I'll make it quick.

I was trying to think of an analogy of watching the time.

I have a book here that we as a staff have been working on.

I'm sorry.

It has, I believe, 52 policy issues.

54, of which water is just one.

Well, it's really what I was trying to do.

I'm going to ask you to read and give us the preference.

and then we're putting it on the city computer network so all our managers will have access to it and it's every issue and I think we've tried to be pretty thorough with this that we think is going to be coming up in front of the council in the next year and it's a lot of them and as you've heard tonight there are a lot of very major issues

that are all coming together over the next year.

We also put together some background information that I think all of you have gotten in pieces as you came onto the council that could be useful to a new city manager, to the executive recruiting firm, or whoever.

But all of that is on your little thumb drive.

So I wanted to leave that as background.

I guess to some extent it's a gift.

To some extent it's my knowledge about city issues.

It's my departure to leave it in place and to move on.

So from a city standpoint, we've tried to work the last six or eight weeks to look at what issues could be closed out.

You've had a couple and I think a few of the fire agreements are actually going to come up at the end of the agenda.

of things that we either try to put into place or have teed up for the next 6 or 12 months.

I don't know if you have any questions about that.

It's a lot of information but I think in lots of ways you've seen pieces of it but this gets it all in one place.

The second thing I wanted to do is I've had the opportunity as many of you know to

I talked to a lot of different places both in our country and had the opportunity to travel to talk a little bit about what makes a great city and I wanted to share a few minutes of that with the council and I guess whoever's watching in the community at 10 till 10 quickly to be a reminder of what a great place Charlottesville has been to be a reminder I think for how lucky we are to live here

and be a reminder to me to some extent of the opportunity that y'all have given me for the last 15 years to sit in this place, to be a part of city government, to be a part of what I hope has been an effort to try to make a positive difference in our residents' lives.

And I think that's what the city staff has been trying to do pretty hard.

So I wanted to take a few minutes and quickly go through that.

Some of them will just be, it's almost a photo essay from my perspective.

A little commentary at the end.

I'm not going to get too prospective about where you're going in the future.

I think you know what the issues are.

But I wanted to use this as an opportunity to share with council and the community just a few quick thoughts.

Are you all going to stay up here?

Can you turn that so I can sit here?

That's what I need to do.

I think several of you know I've through the years had the opportunity, we've used interns, we've used class projects, we've used city staff and I've gotten really interested in this topic of what makes a city great, how does a leadership move it forward and I want to share with you for a couple minutes what I see has happened in Charlottesville.

I've only highlighted a couple things I probably could have put

a whole bunch more issues into this.

I wanted to start with greatness.

Jim Collins has written a bestseller about greatness and he's also started looking at what he calls the social sector, but really local governments around the country, cities.

and his conclusions.

It's not a function of circumstance.

It's largely a manner of conscious choice and discipline.

And I start here because I think that's what city councils have been trying to do.

We have our debates.

We have our arguments.

The community gets involved in a lot of different things.

But I think we're all here trying to make this a great place for all our residents.

And I think that's been a special opportunity for me to be a part of a community that actually aspires to that.

There are not many communities that even aspire to it much less or successful in it.

I'm just going to touch on a couple tonight.

I start with our downtown because nationally and internationally I think it's gotten great recognition and it is always a work in progress and you know what that progress is.

So with all the successes there's still more to do.

I think councils have had visions for the future.

I want to talk about that a minute.

Arts and entertainment as I think a major thrust that's happened the last

10 to 15 years is making a significant difference in our economy, some neighborhood improvements and then building what I like to call a world-class city.

These are some things to consider.

I guess the challenge of being prospective.

I'm not going to be prescriptive, but I think it's important to start a little bit philosophically of looking to our future, that we think about what do we want our community to look like.

And we were just through talking about where do we want it to be in 50 years.

That's a pretty big challenge.

but I think that's one to continue to put in front of us.

Where do we really want Charlottesville to be the next 25 or 50 years and what do we do today to help get us there?

It's always important to start from our strengths.

I think you intuitively know that.

You know that from talking to lots of people in the community just having lived here.

Lots of communities don't get this lesson.

They don't start from their strengths and we've got many of them.

Looking at our people,

our special place and our special history.

Clearly many opportunities.

One of the things I've concluded in watching this city over the last 28 years is there's been great vision, there's been courage at certain times, and there's been risk taking I think to get us to where we are.

You know the stories of the leadership.

I'm always fascinated by one city councilor was the vote for the downtown mall 30 something years ago.

Pretty courageous event and he's proud of that.

You can be a catalyst for action, the community can be.

I think that's the great thing about Charlottesville.

There are plenty of places it comes from, a lot of communities it doesn't exist at all.

You can look around Virginia and see that.

I think we have created an environment to thrive.

Your challenge for the future is how do we add to that?

And I leave it with always think possibility.

Things can be better.

And I think that's the challenge that we've tried to take on as a city staff.

I'm particularly fond of this.

I had the opportunity to be in Athens, Georgia, not Athens, Greece.

But this is the Athenian pledge.

And if you look at this piece right here,

I think this speaks for where a lot of us have tried to be.

Thus in these ways we will transmit this city, not only not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.

And I think that's the challenge to all of us, whether it's the city manager now, the city manager coming in, or a city councilor.

How do we make things better than when we came?

And hopefully I have done my small part with that.

These are the images that other places in the country would love to have.

I mean that special nature we have between the urban community and a rural community and how special that is.

And I think it raises bigger issues for the city and county than

and maybe we've been talking in terms of planning and development and how do we work together to try to keep this special community and the boundary gets lost.

I'm learning rapidly very few people know where the boundary really exists.

That's been the case for a long time and I think it's even more the case as the city-county opportunities come forward to this council.

I found it kind of ironic their 15 year cycles on major city-county relations.

The revenue sharing agreement was 30 years ago, reversion discussions were 15, and now the 15 year cycle is in front of the city council and I think there's great opportunity with that.

We're currently a great place to live, to work, I like to add, to play, to learn, and to visit.

But it takes continuing work.

And I think the challenge is that it be for all of our residents, regardless of their place in life.

And we have those discussions at every council meeting, and I think that's the continuing challenge.

We have a special history in Charlottesville.

I don't need to go through that, but it sets the stage for lots of things.

The deeper somebody digs, the more we learn that some of those lessons of the past we can repeat in the future.

We've heard those in lots of different ways from roads to other community issues as time goes on.

We're clearly the home of Mr. Jefferson.

are very much a university community.

Again, a leadership change at the university which I think creates promise opportunity for the city with university and city relations and at the end of the evening we'll be announcing a new fire agreement with the university in that special place.

I stuck a picture of the rural area in here because I think a lot of residents take advantage of that, enjoy that as well as city parks, city activities are more urban oriented.

But this is a special part for me and I guess this is the image I want to, as I walk away, kind of leave in my head.

It's what, when I go around the community and I see these kind of pictures, this is what I really feel good about that's here in this community and that's going to go on for a long time, that memory.

You know the history of the downtown.

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

I did want to show this one slide.

If you think it was tough doing the bricks, imagine in 1973 when the streets were literally torn up, storefront to storefront.

And Mr. Huja remembers those days.

Pretty dramatic transformation of our special urban space.

It's one of the few in the country.

But it's going to continue to take more work.

and you've got your own memories or shots.

Some of these can be with lots of people.

I was down here last weekend like a lot of you probably were and there were an unbelievable amount of people downtown enjoying and enjoying the outdoors.

Another thing we try to do is help beautify the community.

These are just entrances which you're going to see bloom in the next couple weeks.

But this is a program that started 25 or 30 years ago and continues to be enhanced.

Downtown redevelopment projects.

I put this in here.

This is the first redevelopment project I was involved in as city manager 15 years ago.

We sold a piece of city property at market value to create the Ice Park.

You know the success of outdoor cafes.

I think that's what makes it unique.

Makes it one of the special outdoor places in the country.

I am a coffee hound, so I had to put the coffee in there, Mr. Mayor.

Downtown restaurants, I actually had to take out two or three.

This is an evolving continuing thing from less expensive to pretty high end, but a big variety.

We did a count 20 something years ago, there were 16 restaurants downtown.

I think there were over 55 getting closer to 60.

Pretty dramatic change.

This is another huge change, I think.

Mixed-use downtown housing.

I could have expanded this and showed a lot of other areas of the city, but a new concept that gets talked about in other cities that actually exist in Charlottesville, a variety of downtown housing.

Again, I could have taken a lot of other pictures.

These are some of the newer developments, but you know what surrounds our downtown, the city market, and it started up this past weekend.

Court Square, pretty special place historically.

I mean, how many places in the country have had three former presidents that practiced law in that courthouse?

And that little courthouse exists in Almar County.

And I think this has been a big one, and this is one of those that's a continuing challenge of the future.

How do you connect the downtown to the university and the West Main Street corridor?

There's some more projects that I think are going to be underway.

There's the university development at the far end that may begin to portray what West Main Street might look like for the future, but my crystal ball would be that's the next place that you're going to see some opportunity as the economy improves.

There's also what I call across the tracks.

I say that in a positive way as downtown is extended.

Lots of new development, new opportunity, and I think there's even more housing opportunity.

And the full range of income that we'll see probably over the next five or ten years that surround the downtown, and there's a lot of big tracts of land still that surround the downtown.

Special entertainment like Live Arts, the Paramount,

The recent renovation of the Jefferson Theater and a brand new, pretty good sized entertainment venue.

The East End.

This used to be a spaghetti of roads, if you go back to that picture of downtown.

With the pavilion, with the transit center, I think life opportunity downtown.

And this is one I pretty rarely expressed opinions at city council meetings.

I did express great concern if not opposition to this wall.

But when I heard

John Grissom talk about the only place in the world where he can write a book and not think about being censored was in the United States and the word free.

It really rung a bell with me.

And as I think you all see, anybody that visits this community takes somebody to that wall now.

So risk-taking kind of thing had its level of controversy.

I think it's now an attraction for the downtown and people use it in all kinds of ways.

The street musicians

This is the good side.

Sometimes we deal with the noisy side.

This was a story that was in one of the local weeklies.

I thought it was a pretty good predictor of the future.

Have we really gone from street music to national level acts?

And Charlottesville is on the entertainment world.

Maybe not as an Austin, but our name starts getting thrown around with other places like that.

and obviously with the pavilion we've had great events Fridays after five.

I won't take credit for Dave Matthews but we have those kind of acts events that exist in Charlottesville.

This is I think the first public-private venture that I can recall downtown in a significant way of the city about this building to bring the Discovery Museum to bring kids downtown and it's been extremely successful as you know.

and all kinds of festivals, whether it's the book, film festival, First Night Virginia, all kinds of others.

McGuffey Art Center, this is the school building picture here in 1914 and we all know it's an art center now.

And I'm hopeful in the next year that we will see the same kind of grandeur that's at McGoffee School and a renovation occur at Jefferson School, which I'm hopeful will become a real bridge for the community to bring our community together.

Arden Place has been a fun one.

It had its moments of challenge.

I've got the picture in there of the whale.

The whale's not in such great shape right now, but this is like little half-inch strips.

It was, I think, one of the most incredible building projects I've ever seen.

And neighborhood improvements.

This picture right here, I think, in my mind, one of the most significant things that's happened in the last 15 years, and we, not me, we, a lot of people, have been involved in seeing our neighborhoods improve in all kinds of different ways.

And in more ways than not, safe places for people to live.

We've provided more housing of all different types.

Unfortunately, that has driven, in some cases, the price of housing up, but there's more housing opportunity than Charlottesville than ever before.

And affordable housing continues to be an issue, but I think, in my mind, the most dramatic thing that's changed in our community have been the neighborhoods.

And a couple of these shots were intersections that I stood in that used to have drug dealers in the middle of them.

I'm pretty loud outcry from the particular neighborhoods.

Let's talk about building a world class city.

I want to quickly tell the story about how the world class came about.

I periodically do employee forums.

I did a large number of them early in my tenure and I was talking about raising the bar and trying to be an excellent organization.

However you look at it, when the session was over, one of the employees said to me, and this is true, you mean like being world class, and that just stuck, because that's always something to aspire to.

When I took the job as city manager, we were using a term of being Virginia's number one city.

I don't think anybody aspired to be national level, much less world class, but I think we've come a long ways, and we've got a long ways to go.

Jefferson would be proud.

This was maybe one of my prouder moments.

I was kind of surprised with how Charlottesville reacted to this.

But it is an opportunity for us to build.

We clearly are a great place and have gotten recognized in lots of different ways.

So what makes a great city?

I think we do have passion.

I think we have community values.

I think we in many ways are the best at lots of things and we do touch lots of people's lives.

It may be better than any other community.

I don't know about the planet, but in lots of ways.

And I think this is a challenge for Council for the future.

What best drives our resources, our time, our money,

Community brand I guess I would say community priority and I'm going back to Mr. Jim Collins.

The passion best at and looking at our resources I think are the challenges for the future.

It's a good one.

The one thing I feel the most proud of is this city is in a great place to head into the future even with the economy like it is.

That's a footprint in the sand.

I think 2010 brings opportunity for the city and county to find a very good, strong way, long term, to work together.

I can't predict what that is.

So I want to thank all the Charlottesville residents that have given me this opportunity.

Quite honestly, it is a special one of a lifetime.

Not many city managers get it.

But I got it and I respect it and I appreciate it.

and it's been a great journey.

I don't know if you all saw this wall but I couldn't resist this.

The Registrar's Office has some artists and they took advantage of the free expression wall to try to draw a sketch.

Well, thank you, Mr. O'Connell.

It's always good to take a big picture view of where we are and where we might be, and I appreciate you taking this opportunity to lead that kind of a discussion.

We certainly wish you the best.

I know you're still going to be around, so we will look to your continued leadership in the community.

Would you like for me to respond to what I've been responding?

There is absolutely no way possible.

No, I use this as an opportunity.

There's seven or eight things, and I've talked to council about a couple of these, that I want to stay involved in.

I think Jefferson Schools may be the primary one, but be involved in the community, but in a respectful way.

I think it's time for me to step out, to step away from city government.

The only issue you're going to hear me talk about is water and probably sewer, because I think we're in that together.

for the near term and probably the long term.

But there's some community things I want to try to do, but it's going to be more in the background.

You know, I'm passionate about sister cities, and we're waiting to hear from a grant about that.

But there are a couple others that are those kind of things.

But it's time for me to move on.