City Council Meeting   4/19/2010

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I've been waiting for you.

and Michael

The End.

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

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

Here.

We have a bit of an unusual meeting tonight in that we have no regular business to conduct tonight.

We will have a few announcements and open it up to matters by the public.

We have some items on our consent agenda, but we will then

actually leave this room and conduct a work session down in the basement conference room to talk about solid waste issues.

So there's no regular business tonight but we're happy to have all of you with us and you're all welcome to come downstairs if you like, it'll be very crowded.

Anyhow, I'm going to start with some announcements and awards and recognitions.

First of all, on a very somber note, many of you, most of you may know, we had a tragic incident this morning relating, that actually took the life of an area resident.

It occurred at the intersection of 4th Street and West Main Street involved a bicyclist and a city vehicle.

and on behalf of city council I'd like to extend our deepest condolences to the family of the bicyclist who passed away and we are also keeping the driver of the city vehicle in our thoughts and prayers.

The police department's investigation into the incident continues and we should know more in the coming days.

So I did want to acknowledge that unfortunate incident earlier today.

A couple other announcements.

We have this week a community job fair.

This is an exciting event, the 2010 Charlottesville Community Spring Job Fair, Wednesday from 10am to 3pm at the John Paul Jones Arena.

Over 70 employers will be there advertising over 1,000 vacant positions.

This job fair is free to the public.

We want to encourage anybody who may be looking for work to come down.

Admission is free, parking is free, make it as easy as possible for people to meet employers who are looking to hire here in our community.

And when you come, if you come, we encourage people to dress appropriately, wear interview clothing, come alone, do not bring children, bring your resume, at least 20 copies, and spend some time getting to know the employers.

Practice introducing yourself before you go.

We do believe this will be a great opportunity for people to find out about jobs here in our community.

I had just one announcement, actually it's a reminder to council that the Burleigh Varsity Club has invited us to their Burleigh celebration dedication past, present and future on April 30th at Burleigh Middle School from 1 to 4.

Thank you Ms. Edwards.

Any other announcements?

You may have noticed behind me the

Arbor Day flag.

Charlottesville was once again this year recognized as a Tree City USA and we will have an event on April 30th at Meadow Creek Gardens at 10 a.m. to honor this proclamation of Charlottesville as a Tree City USA.

We'll be planting some trees and showing off some areas that we have cleared of invasive vines over the last two years.

So I hope people will come and join in that celebration.

A couple of awards.

I'm pleased to announce that our city's Department of Communications received the President's Award for Excellence in Animal Welfare by the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies for their work to help promote adoption and volunteering at our local SPCA.

This award noted their work on the show Whiskers and Tails

and a public service announcement starring Academy Award winning actress Sissy Spacek encouraging adoption.

And here to receive the award is our very own Joe Rice.

This is a terrific honor for our communications department.

We're a very small department.

It's Rick Baric, myself, and David Dillahunt.

But this really just reflects the work that Suzanne Kogut and the crew over at SPCA does.

But we're very appreciative and we hope to work more with them.

Thank you.

I do want to note you see to my right, your left, sitting here tonight for the first time, our new acting city manager.

Welcome, Maurice Jones.

But as we welcome one staff member into a new position, we unfortunately have to soon say goodbye to another longtime public servant here in our community.

And I have a proclamation that acknowledges that sad fact, but talks about some of the many, many contributions that Jeannie Cox has made as our Clerk of Counsel, and we're

Very sad to see her go, but this is Jeannie's last city council meeting as our Clerk of Council.

Whereas Jeannie O. Cox has been a valued member of the Charlottesville city government as Clerk of Council for 27 years, and whereas Miss Cox has been a tireless advocate for an open, transparent government, and whereas she has been devoted to the promotion of strong civic engagement to ensure all of our residents have a voice in their government,

and whereas she has worked with many council members and mayors of all backgrounds and political affiliations and whereas Ms. Kochis has always been committed to providing timely and accurate responses to inquiries from the public and whereas she has always fostered a positive and productive relationship between councilors and city staff

and whereas Ms. Kochis has been instrumental in promoting international cooperation by personally strengthening the relationship between Charlottesville and Poggio Accaiano, our sister city in Italy, and whereas she has continued to work closely with the Sister City Commission to build connections with all of our sister cities around the globe,

and whereas Ms. Kochis played a pivotal role in the development of the Bridge Builders Memorial Program which was created to honor those in our community who have worked tirelessly to bring people together across racial and socioeconomic lines and whereas during her time with the city, Ms. Kochis has served with grace, integrity and true professionalism and whereas Ms. Kochis has served honorably as Clerk of Council and will be remembered as a dedicated public servant and dear friend to many inside and outside of city government.

Now therefore be it resolved by the Council of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia that the Council hereby expresses its sincerest appreciation to Jeannie O. Cox for her many years of dedicated service and leadership to the City of Charlottesville and wishes her well in her future endeavors.

And before I present this proclamation, I'd like to open it up to see if any of my fellow Councilors would like to share their own thoughts about

and Jeannie.

Anybody want to... Well, I'll start.

We could be here all night, but I had the interesting fortune to become mayor the first day I was on city council, and Jeannie gave me a lot of guidance, made sure I avoided making too many rookie mistakes.

She's sort of calm in the presence of a storm.

She's unflappable.

She has a great sense of humor and she's been just delightful to work with and be friends with.

Jeannie, I'm going to miss you.

Well I think I have worked with Jeannie the longest of anybody on the dais and one thing that you forgot in the proclamation Mr. Moore is that she's a great cook and I think that you should put her that in for one of these days.

I want to miss that too.

I agree with everything that's been said.

Many of you may not know the role that Jeannie plays because she really doesn't talk much in these meetings but we could not do what we do without her and we'll miss you greatly in

I wish you the very best in your retirement.

I have to come up here because somehow Rick Baric took my microphone away a long time ago.

What message is that about?

But I would like to thank you all.

It's been an interesting 27 years.

What's that?

Is there an actual proclamation?

That's right.

Okay, thank you.

I see, okay.

I think, didn't we already do this?

I think we did this a couple months ago, but I'm going to read it again.

Whereas in 1872, J.

Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for the planting of trees, and whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska.

I know I read this before, but.

Whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world.

Last year.

and whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce life-giving oxygen and provide habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper, wood for our homes, fuel for our fires and beautify our community and whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas and beautify our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim today, April 19th, 2010, as Arbor Day in the City of Charlottesville and I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day in the support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and further I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations.

It's still true.

We will now open up the meeting to matters by the public and as always when you come forward please give your name and address and keep your comments to three minutes.

The first person who has signed up to speak is Ivana Kadia.

Did I get that right?

Kadia?

Ivana Cadia, 704 Belmont Avenue.

I'm here representing a group of about 16 Belmont and Church Street neighbors who are requesting permission to paint a mandala of a sunflower in our intersection of Belmont and Church.

We have done two dry runs using poster paint.

One lasted about a month.

The second one washed away that night because it rained.

I have a minute long clip I'd love to show you guys, but you would have to kind of just squeeze together.

It's very important that you see this, and they wouldn't let me show it up on this thing.

We're watching people in very fast speed photography paintings.

We're very fast painters.

Yeah, there were kids.

Dogs painting.

Everybody gets to pitch in.

The yellow flower.

Now blue.

Yeah.

More children.

And this is online as well.

I don't know the web address, I'm sorry to say.

But I can certainly forward it to you guys.

What we like is to paint it so it remains.

And we're requesting that we be allowed to use permanent paint to paint the next mandala.

With that in mind our core group of about 16 individuals around the neighborhood is currently talking with the churches and businesses in the neighborhood and other neighbors to get even additional support but we're

and the idea has been presented to the Belmont Neighborhood Association.

However, in the past, and we plan to go to them on May 3rd and request formal support behind this project.

These mandalas have been painted over a dozen cities all over the country and they started out in Portland, Oregon.

They are a great way to make residents feel like they're part of their neighborhood.

They additionally help slow traffic without costly road work.

Jeannie Alexander actually worked with us on the last one and put some traffic tickers down to see what the impact would be.

Sadly, it rained so we couldn't get the post-painting impact.

The traffic calming for us is really, frankly, a secondary issue.

We believe this sort of placemaking project can give Charlottesville neighborhoods, especially lower income and mixed income areas, an opportunity to build a sense of pride, a sense of ownership, a sense of safety, and a sense of camaraderie.

Moreover, in light of the recent dialogue on race, which a number of our neighbors participated in, we think this is exactly the sort of public activity that can help build relationships between folks from all different walks of life where it counts in their neighborhoods.

In order to make this type of project as accessible to neighbors as possible, we're also asking that the city waive its $100 street closure fee as the cost of paint can get pretty pricey.

Thank you very much.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors and Mr. Jones.

I hope you're not offended at my remarks, but as our acting City Manager, we know that the Council

We know that the council is in the process or has engaged a company to help start the search for a future city manager.

And if you are planning to appoint a committee or not, I don't know that, but

I would like to know when the opportunity will afford itself so that the citizens like myself who wouldn't be on this committee but would like to have input into the characteristics and qualities we would be looking for in a city manager since we are the residents and the taxpayers that will be made available to us.

We'll be happy to answer that question.

Good evening.

I'm Shelly Stern.

I live at 1310 Florence Road.

Good evening.

Mr. Mayor, I appreciate your mention to the bicycle incident that took place this morning and certainly I'm very saddened as a local parent who

Bikes often with my nine year old son.

Also I'm a volunteer for the local Charlottesville community bikes and a current staff member at the Alliance for Community Choice and Transportation.

Yesterday afternoon was a great day for bicycle education as we partnered with the Charlottesville Police Department in promoting bike safety and education and had about 60 youngsters come out

to promote those types of things that we should all remember.

And some information that I heard today that maybe that is secondhand was that the person who was parked behind the city vehicle at the light described a very, very predictable situation.

And so what I'm advocating for is first to mourn this really sad incident, but also to encourage us as citizens and city council members to take further action in promoting

Safety for all users, whether they be walking, biking, using public transit, driving a city vehicle because the situation that was described by the eyewitness is one of the top five national incidents.

So if we become more predictable in the ways that we use our shared roadways, we could have possibly eliminated the awful incident that took place this morning.

Last month I was trained by the League of American Bicyclists to become a league certified instructor.

And what this meant was that I understood fully as a bicyclist and a way to educate city employees, to educate young people, to educate not only the car drivers but the bicyclists so that we become predictable in our shared roadways.

So I'd like to just share these information packets.

and it was endorsed by Mayor Norris and Police Chief Timothy Longo last year in January where one side indicates the rights and responsibilities of bicycle drivers and the rights and responsibilities of car drivers and their relationship to each other.

So I wanted to come here this evening to express

My condolences to the family of this bicycle driver and also to encourage people to look at how we can promote safer streets in Charlottesville and offer an invitation to you all to join us this Friday evening at 5 p.m. at the scene of the accident which is in front of the West Main restaurant at the intersection of 4th and West Main.

Thank you, Ms. Stern.

My name is Vince Caristo and I'm the executive director of ACT, the Alliance for Community Choice and Transportation.

And today was a really tragic day for our whole community and this morning a bicyclist was killed on West Main Street and I extend my sympathy to their family and also to the driver of the city vehicle.

Now while the details of the accident, what happened, who was at fault, if anyone, are still coming out, I think our path forward as a community is a little bit more clear.

This incident really adds a sense of urgency to all of our efforts to improve our city's infrastructure for bicycling and to educate bicyclists and drivers and raise their awareness of their rights and responsibilities on sharing the road.

So in terms of infrastructure, you know, we really can no longer drag our feet in completing and connecting our fragmented bicycling network.

Now while bicyclists can ride safely on any road in the city, almost any road, where there is no bicycle infrastructure, it makes it really difficult for inexperienced bicyclists and it sends a signal to drivers that they don't really need to expect bicyclists to be there.

Now, the plans for the new bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee are really encouraging.

It's a great step in the right direction.

And I've been working with Jeannie Alexander and Chris Genzic on looking at some new and innovative design treatments to improve our roads and intersections for bicyclists and for drivers.

But a date, so far as I know, has not been set for the first meeting, and we need to set a date for that.

And I encourage

Any of you who are interested to join the committee and work with us in figuring out what we can do, even if that includes removing some on street parking, which Jim Tolbert has told you guys is the big barrier for our on street bicycle facilities.

Now, in terms of education, as Shelly said last month, myself and Shelly and four other members of ACT and Community Bikes were trained by the League of American Bicyclists as league certified instructors.

There's something like 2800 of them in the country.

It's a small group and we're trained in training bicyclists and drivers on sharing the road.

And I would encourage you to look at what Austin, Texas did and maybe follow their lead.

This is where

Preston Tyree, the director of education that the league is from and he worked with the city to provide free education, bicyclist education for all city employees who wanted it.

And next fall, all recent LCIs are planning to bring bicyclist education to the city and the county through the Parks and Rec Department.

And I encourage you guys to invite your employees to join us and also maybe take it a step further and work with us to train all city drivers and CTS drivers.

Thank you, Mr. Kristin.

Hi, my name is Erin Frini.

I live at 1205 Wortland Street, Apartment A.

Mayor Norris and members of council, thank you for allowing me the time to speak.

I'm a third year at the University of Virginia and I'm presently here tonight representing both workers and students united and many professors, students, grad students, workers and community members who support our efforts towards a living wage at the university.

Members of Council, we are tired.

Tired of being part of university that puts profits before people.

Tired of sitting in classrooms and learning about justice and rights and histories of discrimination, only to leave that classroom and learn a very different lesson that's being taught about how we respect and treat integral members of our community.

Tired of hearing stories about

parents taking second and third jobs to support their families at the expense of spending time with their children commuting long distances to work because they can't afford to live nearby and having to make daily choices between putting gas in the car and buying important medication

I'm embarrassed to be a student at a university that pays hundreds of its employees poverty wages, who, even though it is the largest employer in the region, has refused to show the same leadership this city council has shown on the issue of living wage.

This is not the first time Workers and Students United has come before you, but it can be the last.

With your help and the dedication of incoming President Teresa Sullivan, we can do this.

Tonight, we ask for your support in the form of a resolution.

We ask that council pressure UVA and incoming President Sullivan to match the city's living wage to direct employees indexed at $11.44 an hour, which is a necessary base wage for working residents of Charlottesville to viably support themselves and their families.

We understand that you currently subsidize the poverty wages UVA pays through public housing and social services.

and we all stand to benefit from living in a community where its members can live fully and thrive.

We look forward to your leadership in this request.

There are many people here tonight who support this resolution and while we will not all speak to it, would those who have come to encourage the City Council's resolution regarding a living wage please stand now.

Good evening counselors, our new city manager, acting city manager, sorry.

My name is Wes Bellamy, 2334 Payton Drive.

I wanted to come and speak to you guys tonight about an issue that I've been hearing a little bit throughout the community as I've been going through both the subsidized housing areas and non-subsidized housing areas.

Many of the patrons of this city feel that they are

Let's just say for lack of a better term not welcomed at certain city council meetings and other functions.

So I would like to propose to many of you that we be proactive and we go to some of those same areas and we conduct some of these same very meetings in these areas.

I feel that this will be one great way for us to outreach to those patrons so that they can know that we do indeed care about them and that their issues are very very important.

Now I'd like to offer my condolences to the cyclists who was

who was killed earlier today, but I think just as important to bring, excuse me, just as important as it is to bring bicycle awareness and park awareness and things of that nature to patrons of the city, I think it is equally if not more important to bring awareness to the patrons of the city of their civil rights.

Many of them are not aware that they can come and speak before city council and that their matters will be taken care of due to a lot of the issues that have been going on for a countless amount of years here, which are neither here nor there.

What we can do now is move forward, so I'd just like to propose if we can all get together, we can set up some meetings within those areas and do something to try to change this great city so that we can indeed make it inclusive so that everyone feels welcome and that everyone's voice is heard.

Thank you, Mr. Bellamy.

That's everybody who signed up to speak.

We do have some time.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak?

Good evening.

My name is Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

I had the good fortune of having time and opportunity to participate in a

and a walk on the downtown mall that was part of Historic Preservation Week and there's an ongoing show at the Charlottesville Community Design Center about the history of the mall and about the renovation of the mall and I was very disappointed that after last year's renovation and some efforts on my part and others to ensure that the fountains would be renovated

in a timely manner.

And now it's fountain season and one of the fountains on the mall is operating and the other three are not.

And I'm not sure what the problem is, it may be something simple, it may be something easily solved, but it was very disappointing to walk down the mall and talk about the rhythms on the mall and one of the rhythms in the original design is with the fountains and the fountains were not working.

So I think that I would like to encourage the city, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and other staff who are involved with that, to expedite getting that operating.

I know a great deal of time and money was expended in putting in new equipment to make those pumps and the electronics work, and now that it's the season, they are again not functioning.

Good evening, DeeDee Smith, 2652 and I just wanted to add my citizen voice and I know I represent a lot of other citizens in thanking Jeannie Cox for her patience with us as a regular speaker.

Anybody else?

Okay.

We will now close Matters by the Public and open it up to council member responses to Matters by the Public.

I'd like to make three comments.

First, that I say I will be supporting the mandala idea in Belmont.

It is a very common practice in India and it seems to add joy to the neighborhoods, so I hope we'll waive the fee and have the mandala.

Second, I also would like to see that we do something to follow up on Mr. Kleeman's concern.

I heard the same concern, same speech, it seems like six months ago, and I would hope that in the next 30 to 60 days we will have no working.

I'm fascinated by the Mandela idea.

I've never heard of such a thing so I won't express a firm opinion but I'm really intrigued.

I like the concept of it.

Just to the citizen input and to the city manager, we actually, when we

We're entering into the contract with the firm.

We told them that that was going to be a really critical thing for us and that our requirement was that we had to have public input.

I don't think that we know what those details are, but we certainly will make a real concerted effort to get word out to people as that gets closer.

And I echo everyone's feeling about the bicycle safety and also a thing that I know some of us have been hoping for is ultimately to look to some as well.

We're always going to have on-road bicycle trails and that's something we need to deal with safety and consideration of one another and signage and various things that can help with that.

But we also want to try to figure out ways where bikes can cross Charlottesville without being on the roads, whether that's on rail lines or what we can do to that.

And I think this shows the importance of that sort of thing, especially for regular commuters.

To the living wage folks, thank you for coming.

Thank you for stepping outside of your own kind of

You're not the ones not being paid a living wage and the fact that you're willing to come out here and step up for people who aren't getting a living wage, I just thank you for that.

And I will ask that we draft a resolution and we'll discuss it hopefully at the next meeting.

Mr. Bellamy, I actually had a meeting this morning about this very issue

with city staff and we're looking at ways that we can implement that.

So that is definitely on the agenda.

So thank you for bringing it up.

I was really upset all day about the news about the bicyclist.

I'd really like to thank ACT and Community Bike for already taking steps to try to make this a safer community.

I think even those of us who've ridden bikes for a long time have a lot to learn about how to create a shared sense of expectations between drivers and bicyclists as opposed to individual strategies for bicycling.

Um...

You know, I'm very proud that the city of Charlottesville has a living wage and I'd like to see the University of Virginia have a living wage.

I have some concern about us doing it by means of a resolution and the concern I have is that, I think in the last four years, five years, Mayor Norris and I feel like I worked on this, we've developed a very good working relationship with the University of Virginia.

They've, in the last few years, they've made

They paid to allow all students, all faculty, all staff ride our city buses.

They paid to have a housing inspector in their area.

They voluntarily paid to help us remediate the landfill, they can jump to job fairs, and I'd rather see us think of other strategies, a letter, a meeting between the mayor and the new president that aren't quite as confrontative as a resolution might seem to be because I

You know, it's not like the University of Virginia is the only community locally, the only organization that's not doing a living wage.

Our county does not have a living wage.

Our county school system does not have a living wage.

The Charlottesville city school system does not have a living wage.

I think until we correct, I think we need to be careful

not to feel like it's us against the University of Virginia because we've come a long way working on these things.

So I'd like to encourage us to think of some ways of expressing our encouragement and willingness to be helpful in this process.

And I just wanted to say that

When we have role models like Wes and Erin and Vince and the eloquent words of Shelley to come forward and speak at our meetings, you are really the role models in giving other people the courage to be able to come forward and do it as well.

So I appreciate your comments this evening.

And we do want to

offer a welcoming environment in our council meetings even though this setting can be intimidating.

I really have nothing, everything I was going to say has been said so I'm going to thank all the counselors for doing my work for me and the only thing I would add is I would like to have staff look a little bit more into the example that Austin set with education for their own city employees on bicycle safety but other than that everything I was going to say has been said so we will now close out council responses to matters by the public and move on to our consent agenda

Tonight on our consent agenda we have item A is the minutes of March 31st and April 5th.

Item D is an appropriation of $76,914 police miscellaneous revenue, second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $302,000 Homeland Security grant, second of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $709,255.82 CDBG funding for FY11, second of two readings.

Item E is an appropriation of $173,915, home funding for FY11, second of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation, $8,309.84, Pride of Virginia Lodge tax refund, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation of $85,000 summer lunch program grant, first of two readings.

is an appropriation of $1,900, five programs grant, first of two readings.

Item I, an appropriation, $250,395, foster family stipends, first of two readings.

Item J, an appropriation, $14,806.66, extradition cost reimbursement, first of two readings.

Item K is a resolution authorizing cost-sharing agreement with Corps of Engineers for future stormwater improvements, first of one reading.

Item L is an ordinance granting easement across industry to UVA for telecommunications, Duck Bank, second of two readings.

and item M is an ordinance site plan requirements for special use permit applications, second of two readings.

I have just a typo in the minutes that I'd like to get.

It's the April 5th minutes on page two.

Mr. Wes Bellamy, his first name is misspelled.

Okay.

I didn't want to have the items pulled, but item D, the CDBG funding, and item E, the home funding, I'd like to get just a brief update from Mr. Tolbert regarding section 3 and how it relates to those funds.

Just the brief history.

Section 3 was a guideline founded by HUD, Housing and Urban Development, and it's actually

created in 68 as a result of the riots that took place when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

And one of the areas that specifically focused on the beginning was Watts and was a way of rebuilding the communities in a way of also providing jobs for low-income individuals.

And Section 3 hasn't been given as much attention that HUD should have provided over the past few years, but because of the stimulus money

and the emphasis on providing jobs as a result of that money.

The requirements for Section 3 have been resurrected.

And because the CDBG funding and the home funding is part of HUD funding that goes through the city, you know, HUD also is what finances our public housing sites.

We're also responsible for providing workforce development opportunities as a result of dispersing the money as well.

And so, I thought that since this was on the consent agenda, this would be an opportunity for us to think about how we can move forward

with creating some job opportunities.

As Ms. Edwards said, the basis of Section 3 is that HUD requires us to have in our contracts that the agencies that we fund will attempt to employ folks that are at 80% or lower of AMI.

We are in compliance, but that doesn't give you a lot, just being in compliance.

And the reality is it has not been an emphasis, and in the 11 years I've been here HUD has never asked us for a report until two months ago.

So it's not been an emphasis, although we've been in compliance, we've had it in the contracts,

All the monitoring visits say it's okay.

It just so happens that, as you know, we finally hired a housing planner back in January, and one of the things that she has been working on is a work program.

And we have had some conversation about how we take our CDBG money and our housing money and use it not only to provide housing assistance, but to do workforce development, to do things like we did in the mall project, where we

In our contracts we used our dollars to put extra people to work in an apprenticeship kind of situation and there are many other ways and we're developing that and hopefully in the next 30 to 45 days being able to come to council with some suggested changes in how we go about that but really focusing in on that

and Thomas Edwards, her timing, her going to the conference was really good because we believe that there's a real missed opportunity that we've had with our CDBG dollars and our housing dollars and our home dollars to use.

There's nothing that says we can't use our CHF dollars to do the same thing.

Actually, Holly and I have had several of these discussions over the past year or so.

And every time we talk, a light bulb goes off with her or with me.

And some of the things she was telling me about Section 3 really rang true with me in terms of what the Thomas Jefferson Partnership can bring to the table workforce development.

If you're not familiar, and I think I've explained this to several of you about the Area 6 Workforce Investment Board, we're the conduit for federal funding for workforce training for dislocated workers, low-income youth and adult workers, and what really interests me about this program is specifically our low-income youth and adult.

When I say youth, we have an out-of-school component, which is two-thirds of our money, and that goes up to 24 years old, so young folks can be

in this program as well as the adults.

We've always had issues enrolling the youth in this program and so I thought this would be a great connection between having a housing authority as an intake mechanism to bring more enrollees into this program as we move forward especially again those out of school youth that we've had trouble enrolling in the program and so I just wanted to let you know that we stand ready at the partnership to work with you

and bring more people into this program and hopefully get some people out of the housing authority into permanent jobs out there because they're gaining a lot of flexibility with the funding now that we can move some funding around and we're actually finalizing contracts to do OJT work, on-the-job training work.

So we can actually reimburse an employer up to 50% of an employee's wage during that training time.

the key to that's going to be the amount of the resource that's available and so I think going forward we do have some resources now but as the R.S.

stimulus money runs out that the city will need to look in FY12 about some possibility of supplementing some of this but I think it'll be very worthwhile so on that note workforce is one area but you also mentioned that they can work with some companies that maybe local residents wanted to form we stand ready to support you there too because the partnership

has entrepreneurial support programs through our Small Business Development Center, which the city supports.

Aubrey and Chris have worked with us and have been wonderful supporters with the partnership over the years for the entrepreneurial support piece as well.

So that's all I have.

I think so.

I told Holly, I think there's some training that's going to happen on the 27th, some of the residents going down, I mean some of the recipients.

I would ask the recipients of any of this funding to actually have to go down to get some of this training, Holly.

And then when they come back, everybody, economic development, workforce development, social services, needs to get around the table and say, this is what I do.

Thank you very much.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

I believe it carries.

Just as a process question, are we, we're adjourning this meeting or we're just moving?

Okay, so we are now going to relocate into the basement conference room to conduct a work session on solid waste management.

Music playing

I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting

Dr. Michael F. F.