City Council Meeting   6/21/2010

Thank you very much.

Dr. Brown.

Ms. Edwards.

Here.

Mr. Huja.

Yes.

I would note that Dr. Brown is not able to join us tonight and I would also note that I hope you'll bear with us there is a concert next door as you know and we're going to try to move this meeting along so that we can finish up our business so that you can go and enjoy the concert and so that we don't get drowned out as the night goes on.

I'm going to start with a couple of announcements in the form of recognitions.

First of all,

We are very pleased to announce the City of Charlottesville has once again received the highest rating from both the Standard and Poor's Rating Services and Moody's Investor Services of AAA from both of these services, which reflects an independent and unbiased assessment of the creditworthiness of debt obligation in the public financial market.

The higher the rating, the stronger the borrowing power and the lower the interest rates available to municipalities.

So Ms. Hall, I know you'll be very pleased to know that once again,

We have received our AAA bond ratings.

Sure, I just wanted to take a moment to thank Bernard Ray, our Director of Finance, Aubrey Watts, our COO, CFO, Leslie Beauregard, our Budget Director,

and of course our former city manager Kerry O'Connell for their hard work in continuing this AAA bond rating.

We also want to announce an award that the city recently received, specifically our public works department.

And this is an award I'm very proud of, because a few years ago, back in 2006, the city launched an effort to significantly expand our curbside recycling program.

And this year, last month, the Virginia Recycling Association presented the city of Charlottesville with its Outstanding Municipality Recycling Award at its annual conference.

This award was based on outstanding improvements that the city made to our curbside recycling program in adding new materials for curbside recycling.

From 2006 to 2009, the city had a 65% increase in curbside recycling tonnage versus a 17% decrease in curbside trash tonnage.

These program enhancements were made at no additional cost to city taxpayers.

We want to thank our public works director, Judy Mueller, and her staff for their leadership in making this happen.

Ms. Mueller, would you like to come forward?

In all honesty, it's a city council that continues to push us and say, you're doing good, but we know you can do more.

And that's kind of what we've been trying to do since 2006.

And we're very pleased that our numbers came out so well.

As many of you may know, in some of the other parts of the state, they're actually cutting back on recycling and cutting back on some of the things that they're doing.

So we're very happy to say that we're still moving forward.

Thank you, Ms. Mueller.

A few announcements.

First, the City of Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department is participating in the summer food service program this year, starting June 21st and running through July 30th.

Through this program, meals are provided to children without charge, requirement application criteria

All activities are the same regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.

Meals are provided at South First Street and West Haven Community Centers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1215.

Again, that's June 21st through June 30th.

As a reminder, City Hall is closed July 5th.

There's no CTS service, normal trash.

There will be normal trash and recycling service.

There's no city council meeting July 6th.

That's our summer break.

We can customarily take one meeting off each summer and that meeting this year will be July 6th.

I want to make a very special announcement that our independence

Concert with the Charlottesville Municipal Band is happening Saturday July 3rd at 3 o'clock at the Charlottesville Pavilion.

The event is free to the public.

It's a patriotic musical salute to our country.

There will be free flags distributed at the concert.

We encourage all citizens to come downtown.

and participate in this very special occasion.

And I want to thank Rick Berrick and our communications staff for being integral to the planning of that event.

And then lastly, as a reminder, this is the last week to complete the city manager search survey.

This is a survey that we've put online on our city webpage at charleshill.org to solicit citizen input into the criteria that you would like to see us use in selecting our next city manager.

Any other announcements from other

This would have been for the July 5th meeting, but since we're not having a July 5th meeting, just wanted to call everyone's attention to the fact that on July 12th, which is a Monday, a gospel choir from Besançon, our sister city in France, is coming to perform at the Paramount.

There'll be a little ceremony at noon that day, and they're singing at 7 o'clock with an American gospel choir, too, from Charlottesville and Stanton.

So I urge you all to come.

Just have a reminder for parents, every child should have come home with a reading list for the summer.

So if at any point over the summer, if your child says, I don't have enough to do, it really means they don't have enough to read.

Thank you Ms. Edwards.

We are now going to open the meeting to matters by the public and as is our custom when you come forward please state your name and address and please keep your comments to three minutes.

Hi, I'm Suzy Hoffman.

I live at 1203 Augusta Street, Charlottesville.

I am here to present a petition signed by over 50 residents of the neighbors near the 1147 Rose Hill Drive Special Use Permit Request.

My name is Tom Bowe.

I'm at 1211 Augusta Street.

And I am going to present you with the City Council vision statement.

and I'd like to read from there, it says, a regional network of connector roads helps to ensure that residential neighborhood streets remain safe and are not overburdened with cut-through traffic.

Our concern is that this driveway that we'll be entering onto Amherst Street, which is a neighborhood street and our primary street, will not only, will encourage cut-throughs because exiting this driveway, they will have to either turn left toward Rose Hill Drive

are taking right turn through our neighborhood.

Those of us who live there know what a dangerous intersection that is.

There's lots of content I could go into that I don't have time to give you.

But it is, suffice it to say, not a good idea for many, many reasons.

We're not represented by an attorney.

We are a neighborhood.

I've collected signatures that have just been presented to you.

We have not had one single person think that this is a good idea.

and we ask that City Council move to protect this neighborhood.

This is a diverse neighborhood.

It's a neighborhood of lots of children.

There are four bus stops that would be in the line of fire, so to speak, with this cut through that would be created down Amherst over to Rugby Avenue.

Don't know what else to say, but I really feel that that's City Council's responsibility.

Thank you Mr. Brough.

Hello.

My name is Michelle Pike.

I live at 2124 Sundown Place here in Charlottesville.

I own an eco-consulting company in Charlottesville called Green Irene, and I also work as an architect here in Charlottesville.

And I'm here today with a group of Charlottesville business owners who support energy efficiency and clean energy.

And I'd just like to say a few words about how energy efficiency and clean energy benefit local businesses in Charlottesville.

Briefly, the benefits fall into three categories.

First, using less energy saves us money and improves the business's bottom line.

Second, employing energy efficiencies and clean energy and then letting our customers know what we're doing is good PR.

And thirdly, certain strategies such as providing operable windows and things like that provide a more comfortable and healthier environment in addition to their energy efficiencies.

And increased comfort translates into higher employee satisfaction, fewer sick days, and increased productivity.

I recently attended a business breakfast here in Charlottesville and what I want you to know about that is that breakfast was very well attended.

There were at least 30 businesses in attendance.

Business owners not only showed up but were actively asking questions about their own efforts in employing energy efficiency in their businesses.

So what we would ask from you is to come out publicly with a strong statement in support of clean energy action at the national level.

We need to work together from the local level up in order to put pressure on our senators who have the power to pass an energy and climate bill this year.

We welcome the opportunity to work with you on this.

On the local level, please keep Charlottesville businesses in mind.

Any and all incentive programs are appreciated and will be well received.

Given the current status of this issue in Congress, we need action at all levels to get our Senator's attention.

This is an opportunity for Charlottesville to lead among Virginia localities.

Thank you, Ms. Pike.

My name is Norman Dill.

I have businesses at 1141 Emmett Street and 2109 India Road.

And Michelle expressed most of what I wanted to say, but I just want to emphasize that especially that this is an opportunity for the country as a whole to

approach a more clean energy environment, so to speak.

And I'd just like to say that my general sense, being part of the business community, is that people are very interested in it right now.

And I think we could, it's an opportunity to be a leader in the nation as we are in so many other ways to lead in this area of clean energy.

Thank you, Mr. Dole.

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

We are here talking to the community about delay, delay in building a new dam.

The city is delaying in holding things up, or a citizen's group is delaying just for the sake of delay, or if we don't move now, we're going to lose out on something good, and so on.

Well, what has the delay, what effect has that delay had on the community?

First, the delay in a headlong rush to build a new dam has resulted in a closer look at the water demand and supply projections that prompted the dam in the first place.

Figures that have been shown to be fatally flawed.

Citizens for a sustainable water supply plan have published water demand and supply projections that nobody has repudiated.

Nobody in the county, nobody in the city.

not the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, not the Albemarle County Service Authority.

Nobody.

With dredging and the repair of the spillway at Ragged Mountain, these figures indicate this community has more than enough water for present and future growth.

Second, the closer look that some are calling delay at the community water plan has resulted in the estimated cost of dredging.

to drop from $227 million now to the latest, possibly under $20 million, and we do have an unsolicited bid from a local dredging contractor for under $5 million.

This situation is worth the delay in itself.

Third, the citizen input has brought the discussion deep into the national recession.

That means that no matter what the council decides to do, it will be cheaper, especially dredging and spillway repair.

Lastly, this citizen input has resulted in the complete redesign of a new dam.

Since the start of this process, almost eight years ago, the vision and design of the dam has been as a concrete structure.

Suddenly, about two months ago, this changed dramatically.

Now we are talking about an earthen dam and are being told that this dam is preferable to a concrete dam.

If we had rushed into the construction of a concrete dam last year or the year before, as we have been urged to do, this community would now have a second rate dam and would have wasted

hundreds of millions of dollars.

Thank goodness for the delay.

We have prevented the proponents of building a new dam from making a costly blunder.

Not with their money, but with our money.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fenneman.

Good morning everybody, Mooney of the city of Charlottesville and I just do all want to thank you all very personally for having approved the dredging study.

Because when the last council voted to go forward with the water plan in 2006, they did so understanding after the public meetings were held that dredging was going to cost 140 million.

That was the estimate from Ganna Fleming that people were given and that was the basis of the decision.

And before that in 2003, Gannett Fleming had estimated dredging cost 40 million.

Well, it's very interesting that now with a new company, HDR, we're back to 40 million or under for dredging.

And we feel from our study that's not confirmed, all this is our study, that it can be done for much less, much, much less than that.

And I don't think any of us are saying that we might not need a dam someday.

We don't really know without a new demand analysis that the state has asked us for.

We need to have that to estimate more appropriately our water needs.

but what we do know is that if we start with dredging we'll get a lot of water for many decades and that'll buy us the time to see what's going to happen whereas if we build the dam what we end up with is a huge dam and an enormous hole

that makes us build a pipeline for which cost we don't know.

So when you think about the dam, you have to add in the cost of that pipeline because you've committed yourself to the pipeline, the new pipeline, once you build the huge dam.

So that's got to be one whole cost, whereas with dredging,

It can be very incremental.

You can do it in what's called small bites.

Five acres of land.

Blue Ridge Stand does this all over Virginia and West Virginia.

They dredge ponds, reservoirs, lakes.

You could take it out over time, keep up with the demand you needed once you saw over time what that was working out to be.

It gives you so much more flexibility and right now in this economy where there's so much uncertainty and so many people wondering how am I going to just pay my mortgage or maybe they don't have a mortgage, they don't have a home, they can't pay their rent.

So any kind of fees that are added on right now really hurt those people.

So we can now dredge with the money Rivanna has.

We wouldn't need to raise any rates.

We wouldn't need to borrow money.

They've got enough money to start dredging to give us decades of water.

And then if we see we need a dam, or if the county sees they need a dam, then you can work with that.

But right now, thanks to the city council, we don't have a huge hole in the ground that didn't work in the first place because it was fractured rock and we would have had to fill it back up again really fast.

We didn't do that, thank goodness.

The public needs to know that.

There's been no stalling.

There's been considered decision making by this body of leaders, which I so much appreciate, and that you're still waiting to see.

But on the other hand, we've got a warning letter from the DEQ about our sewer system.

and you also are ahead on that.

You've been working on our sewer system whereas other, the county and Rivanna are far behind.

Their letters are much more threatening than the one you received.

We're just digesting all of the information in here but I want to applaud you again because I feel our public works and you all have made, you're ahead of the game.

You've still got a warning letter.

There's still a lot to do.

The CIP of Rivanna is years behind and hundreds of millions of dollars

We're going to have to put in to repair all this.

So please do that first.

This is mandatory.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ms. Mooney.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Co-op Hall 101, Robertson Lane.

At the last City Council meeting, two items were omitted from the agenda with background found on the City website.

This meeting, two items are omitted.

Consent agenda letter Q, the Burley School signs, and item 5, the report on the new transit center.

Perhaps these two items are to be stricken from the agenda.

Two weeks ago I inquired from Ms. Barshfield why items were absent and she explained she hadn't received them.

It is not her fault.

I am sure staff knows the deadline for submission for the website.

It is disconcerting to the citizen taxpayers when items are not available to be read and, if necessary, questioned.

Regarding item 2, Urban Land Institute, I would like to recommend this be pushed back until at least FY 2012 rather than the spring of 2011 due to the unstable economy and the demands on the city budget.

Regarding item 4, award of contract to transfer station, I say yes to granting Vanderlyn the contract.

Regarding item 5, new transit station report, I for one would like an opportunity to tour the facility and hope the invitation is included in tonight's report.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Councillors

My name is Peter Hedlund.

I live at 204 Todd Avenue and I'm here to talk about that beautiful, gigantic schematic that's on the wall behind you guys.

I was very happy to see that the Old Lynchburg Road project was on tonight's agenda.

This is something that folks in the Fry's Spring neighborhood have been advocating for a long time, especially the people who live along Old Lynchburg Road and have had to deal with the

various issues that come up with the current state of the road and I just want to sort of review what some of those issues are.

There's the issue of safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

I emailed some folks today to let them know I was coming to speak on this and was told that a seven-year-old boy was hit on old Lynchburg Road just on Friday.

I guess he's okay, I don't have the details, but this just speaks to the issue of safety on that currently sidewalk-less road.

Also, you recently approved the final plans for Azalea Park which we're really happy about in the Fry's Spring neighborhood and that of course is at the one end of this project and it would be nice to have a safe way for pedestrians and bicyclists to get to that park.

There's an environmental aspect to the project also.

You may have seen some pictures that Jill Goldsmith sent out a couple weeks ago when we had a really heavy rainfall and a lot of sediment was washed down into the road.

That just ends up going right into Morris Creek because there's no sort of drainage system in place right now.

And that's part of what this project would do would be to prevent sort of those environmental issues with the runoff into the stream.

Peace of mind for the people who live along that road, for the people who travel along that road.

That's something that's very important.

And finally, and this is something that I don't think a lot of people think about, but just the fact that to give satisfaction and validation to the citizens who have been involved for many years in the planning of this project.

There are several meetings very well organized by the city with the

company that developed these plans, very well attended and to have involved the citizens in that process and then just keep putting off the project, putting off the project is depressing to the folks who participated in it, drives cynicism.

Thank you Mr. Hedman.

D.D.

Good evening, Dee Dee Smith, 2652 Jefferson Park Circle.

You all should be proud of yourselves, Mayor Norris, yourself particularly, for approving and paying for that dredging study because the information is an affirmation that what we have said all along is in fact true that

Dredging is feasible that it was not going to cost 142 million and certainly wasn't going to cost 225 million.

But I'm here tonight, it is not surprising that it was spun differently after the second phase of the dredging study came out and I'm here to refute just one piece of information and that was that dredging won't work because

It only gives you 13% as much water as building a new dam.

Well, what Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority fails to tell you is how much water you lose by building that dam.

And it is a billion gallons of water.

And that is what I have on this very simple chart.

And these are Rivanna's numbers.

They're not mine.

That, in the community water plan, the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir is

is planned to go down to 200 million gallons total usable storage.

And I'm talking usable.

They talk usable.

I'm talking usable.

If we dredge, we now know in phase two of the dredging, we get 1,200 million gallons.

That's 1.2 billion gallons.

We will lose that billion gallons of water if we do not dredge and maintain that reservoir, for which we will have to then make it up.

of the 1.7 billion in Tom Frederick's latest report on dredging.

He says we gain 1.7 billion at Ragon Mountain.

One billion of that is the loss of South Fork.

And I think that's important.

We also lose the 340 million gallons usable at South Fork.

We lose the direct link to that, which is the only sure way we can use it in a drought.

That takes us down to 350 million gallons.

And that is in fact all that we gain by building that dam over restoring the resources we have is 13% more water.

And as we now have told you so many times, and I think you believe us,

is that that is way beyond, I mean we certainly don't need even as much water as we're going to gain by dredging the South Fork which is an important piece of information that you of course are getting and applaud you for because by proving that in fact our demand has not only gone down dramatically but will continue to do so just through conservation and technology

It gives us lots of options for cutting off Mormon's River, for not taking that.

In which case, I think everybody can win.

We've always said, everybody can win in this.

But we need to get all of the information and you all, as I say, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Smith.

That's the last person who signed on to speak.

I'm Ruth Boralski, I live at 1206 Augusta Street, and I'm here to talk about the building to be put up on the corner of Amherst and Rose Hill Drive.

We have been given permission to talk about the special use permit, but each time we try to bring up the subjects that to us are more important, we're told that this is not the appropriate format in which to bring it up.

The first problem is the traffic, which both Susie and Tom talked about.

all the extra traffic that will get spilled onto a residential street if the exit to the garage is built on Amherst Street.

Okay, the point being this project has remained in blueprint stage for at least two, perhaps three years.

We think inadequate information, although legally appropriate information I'm sure, was given to the neighborhood and what we are trying to say is it's not too late to change the project.

We would like you to look at it and say yes, it's possible for us to talk about the garage exit design without being told everything is too late.

because there still aren't any tenants for the project.

There's not been a shovel put in the ground and it's not too late to save the neighborhood.

Amherst Street

is already overcrowded at peak business at rush hour times.

There are lots of school buses and city buses both stopping there.

The left turn is already difficult and to add increased traffic going from Amherst onto Rose Hill is going to be a problem and it's going to be a problem for our neighborhood where we have many, many more people cutting through to avoid the left turns at both ends.

Thank you very much.

Just real quick, Dave.

I know you're getting emails about what's happening in Belmont with the noise going on over there.

And what you're hearing tonight from the concert going on are the bass notes.

You hear the bass notes.

The bass notes are what reverberate through everything.

It filters out the higher notes and just get the bass notes.

So thank you for letting me mention that.

That concludes Matters by the Public.

We'll now open it up to council member responses to Matters by the Public.

Our Fire Chief.

I would like to make one or two comments.

First, the two people who spoke about energy efficiency.

I know that the Council supports that effort and I can't speak for all of them but I think I am pretty certain that the Council is very supportive of that and I am also.

I was going to say the same thing but I was going to add that I would like our Acting City Manager just to review the public process that went into place through the Planning Commission and how it comes to be a part of the consent agenda because it sounds like there's room for improvement in making sure that the information is

available to the neighborhood, but we did provide a process and I wanted him to explain that.

Actually, I do have one other thing.

Is there a way for us to explain what the Burleigh School historic sign is without removing it from the consent agenda if people didn't get prior notice of that?

There's a group called the Burley Varsity Club that they are working towards

putting up two signs that would honor two of the coaches that coached at Burley when it was a high school, when it was the African American high school here in Charlottesville.

And those signs would go up at the two athletic fields over there to honor those folks.

May I just add to that?

Our Historic Resource Task Force is also putting up a sign on Burley School to commemorate that it used to be African-American high school at one time.

That's right.

And to Councilor Edwards' point about the, there was a public hearing that was associated with the Planning Commission.

There was a sign that was put up at the location a week before and there were also two ads that were in the newspaper announcing the public hearing for the Planning Commission as well.

The only thing I'd like to add to that is how we've been able to hear from a lot of the neighbors from that part of the community.

There is a position open on the Planning Commission so I would encourage you all to really consider

I want to talk to the process point that Ms. Hall raised which I think is a very important and legitimate one.

This is the second meeting in a row where we've had a couple of items that ended up on the agenda without having background materials available.

I don't think that's a good precedent and so I hope

and I'll take my share of the blame for

not making sure that we had all the information available.

But I do think you raise a legitimate point in the future.

And those items can be placed on Friday afternoons on the website.

There's nothing that keeps us from doing that, to be honest with you.

And the practice in the past has not been to go back and add it to the agenda.

I think that's important.

And I'm sorry Miss Pike, I don't believe Miss Pike is here any longer, but I wanted to sort of reiterate Mr. Huja's point that this is a city council that's very committed to promoting clean energy both at the local and the national level.

We have taken stands previously on national federal clean energy legislation

and if there's a letter or something that this business group would like to see us endorse, I'm sure we would be happy to take a look at that.

And also, she talked about local incentives.

We do have the new local energy alliance program, LEAP, which is getting underway as we speak, which is going to have one of the boldest energy efficiency

funding initiatives for both residential and commercial property owners, not only here in Virginia, but in the country.

So we are definitely taking action in that regard.

I would like to hear from staff.

This is regarding the comments that were made about dredging.

Now that we have the second phase of the report, I concur with those who found it to be a very promising document.

I haven't finished reading through it myself.

There's a lot of good material there, but I would like to see a recommendation from staff or a proposal from staff that we can consider on what the next steps would be if we decide to move forward with dredging so that we don't end up

You know, waiting another year.

If these conclusions about the viability of dredging, I hate to say this, but really do hold water, then I think the time is right to start looking into it and then move past the

the sort of study phase and look at what it would take to actually start dredging the reservoir.

I'm simply asking for, I'm not saying tonight we should decide to move forward to judge the reservoir.

I'm simply wondering what that, I don't want to have this report set on a shelf for a year.

I'd like to see that sort of thought process continue.

But you're right, I don't want to take any action on the long-term water supply because we've been consistent in saying we want the best information

and I don't want to muddy the water, so enough with the metaphor.

Alright, thank you all, thank you for coming to speak tonight and we'll now move on with the rest of our agenda.

We have a number of items on our consent agenda tonight.

Item A is the minutes of June 7th.

Item B is an appropriation of $1,999,244 new fire trucks and related equipment purchases, second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $77,100, reprogramming of CDBG and home funds, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation of $40,727, Piedmont Workforce Network, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Youth Employment Program, first of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation of $10,000, Metro Planners Conference, first of two readings.

Item F, a resolution, one million dollar street repaving, first to one reading.

Item G, a resolution, renewal of CACVB, Charles F. Albemarle Convention Visitor Bill leases of Transit Center Space, first to one reading.

Item H, a resolution, acquisition of land for Greenbelt Trails, first to one reading.

Item I, a resolution, recommendation for special use permit 1111 Wellford Street, first to one reading.

Item J, a resolution, recommendation for special use permit 1147 Rose Hill Drive, first to one reading.

Item K, an Ordinance Homeowner Tax Relief Grant Program, second of two readings.

Item L, an Ordinance Update to the Residential Zoning Matrix, second of two readings.

Item M, an Ordinance Petition to Rezone Property Located at 834 Prospect Avenue, second of two readings.

Item N, an Ordinance Expansion of Permit Parking Zone 7, or 9th Street SW and Forest Hills Avenue Permit Parking, second of two readings.

Item O is an Ordinance Street Wall Adjustment for West Main Street, second of two readings.

Item P is an ordinance zoning change for neighborhood commercial and restaurants and music halls, first of two readings.

Item Q, a resolution, Burley School historic signs, $1,000, first of one reading.

Item R, resolution, amendments to zoning ordinance to address percentages of mixed use development, first of one reading.

And I believe item J, we've had a request for item J, a resolution regarding recommendation for special use permit 1147 Rose Hill Drive to be pulled for further discussion.

Are there any other items?

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

And the motion carries.

We will now move to report and resolution on Urban Land Institute, TAP, which I believe is Technical Assistance Project,

Thank you Mr. Mayor and Council.

We've been approached by the Richmond chapter of the Urban Land Institute to see if we had any interest in doing a technical assistance program in Charlottesville and we've had a great deal of conversation with them about this.

The technical assistance program is a program where

ULI will come in with experts in planning, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and economics and will look at an area and make suggestions about the future development of the area.

And the way they do it is they come in on one day, they do a lot of study, they do a lot of pre-research, come in and do a lot of study, they look at the area, they

they go pigeonhole themselves for a while then they come back and make a report to the community that's an interactive presentation.

We talked about a couple of areas and one of the areas where we had some interest was Cherry Avenue but we decided that we can better do that work in-house and do it quicker to address what the Planning Commission's issues were there.

It was suggested that we take a look at Avon for a number of reasons and the staff thought it was a good idea

One of them is that we're getting ready to start the bridge design and thought that this could help inform the aesthetics of the bridge design in addition to the engineering, although in putting together the engineering team we did stress aesthetics, but it'll give another venue, another opportunity to talk about that.

The second reason is that the Housing Authority, through the item you just voted on, will purchase a piece of property on Avon Street as part of their first part of their redevelopment efforts and this can help inform what that looks like and how it relates to what's around it.

and hopefully that will generate some additional development in the area.

And the third is that with the tearing down of the Better Living property and that site being available for development, this is another opportunity to help inform that.

We think we can use it to get some good ideas about bike pad connections from Belmont to the downtown and so there are a number of reasons why it would be kind of exciting to bring in a panel of experts to help Planning Commission and City Council take a look at the future of that area.

What we'd like your approval to do with the resolution that's on the agenda tonight is to allow us to negotiate a firm deal on this, get the dates, get everything set up, and then bring it back to you for approval.

You've got a draft of their agreement and what they'd like to see us fill out, but it's got a lot of holes in it.

And their projected cost to bring the team in is somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.

depending on the team they bring and that's mainly to cover expenses for the folks that come in here so we'd like if you're interested we didn't want to go any further with ULI until we we brought it forward to see if you had an interest in pursuing this and if you do then we'd like to to go try to do that we're shooting for because of our staffing needs probably sometime in the spring of next year to to kick this effort off again it would be a two-day effort with a lot of prep time ahead of time.

I had a couple questions.

Well, first of all, I'm glad you mentioned the bike pad connections because pedestrian safety in that part of town is a growing concern and particularly with issues with the bridge, with increased foot traffic going between downtown and Belmont.

and so I'm glad to hear that pedestrian, there will be a focus in this discussion on pedestrian bicycle safety.

I wonder if it's possible, even as sort of an ancillary piece of this, to look not just at Avon Street,

specifically, but just a block to the west, you have Friendship Court, which at some point in the next 10 or 15 years is likely to be redeveloped.

We don't know what it's going to be redeveloped into, but I'd like to see some thought be given in this discussion to sort of the broader, I don't know what,

I think we're at the stage to draw a boundary anywhere we want to draw a boundary.

As long as we keep it reasonable to study in a couple of days, we can do that.

As you're adding new suggestions, one area which would also be interesting to do would be Internevany, downtown Belmont as part of this area, northern area, because we could figure out better how we can use the area better than what we have done so far.

We won't go on each side I guess you say.

I have been part of the ULI panels for the last four or five years in communities.

They were useful, but I want to make sure that our planning commission is involved in the process and their thoughts.

Right.

What we'd like to do is put together a whole kind of itinerary schedule cost and come back to you for your blessing.

I think that's the way it works.

Absolutely, yes.

I think it's a great idea and I know that in other projects that Urban Land Institute has done these kinds of studies on or charrettes or whatever you want to call them, many times it has led to funding.

One thing I know that some folks had thought that this was going to be more the Cherry Avenue area and I just want to

to kind of have you re-emphasize why not Cherry Avenue.

I understand that it would slow down the Cherry Avenue process if we waited for this.

It would slow it down and it's a different kind of study that we need there, different kind of work that we need.

So we feel like we can, we do have the expertise to proceed.

They're looking primarily at land use and some urban design issues, but we can procure some of that service another direction a lot easier to go after and do it.

And my goal with that one is to be to the Planning Commission sometime by end of summer.

And there's a resolution, Mayor.

You're looking for approval on the resolution?

We got started on it today so we're

We're ready.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Carries unanimously.

Thank you very much, Mr. Tolbert.

I was reminded that we meant to move up on tonight's agenda.

We'd like to have our public hearings at the front of the agenda.

and we do have an item that was added, item number seven, which is a public hearing and an ordinance regarding the grant of utility easements under Emmett Street to UVA.

It's on the first of two readings.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Members of Council, this is a request from the University of Virginia for an easement.

For a 12-inch water line, the easement is 20 feet in width that crosses Emmett Street immediately south of the McCormick Road bridge.

It is advertised for a public hearing.

There's a draft deed that we typically use with this type of easement to the university in your notebook and a plat that shows the location of the easement.

Mr. Hurt from the University is here if you have any questions and this has been scheduled for a first reading of the ordinance tonight in the public hearing.

I will now open the public hearing on this matter.

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

I will now close the public hearing.

Any further questions or comments or a motion to approve the ordinance?

Alright, it's been moved and seconded.

It'll carry forward to our next meeting for a second reading.

Thank you very much.

Alright, now we'll continue with our regular agenda.

Item 3 is a report on the Old Lynchburg Road project and here tonight, I believe, is Tony Edwards.

Good afternoon, Councillors.

I'm Tony Edwards, City Engineer.

Here to give you an update on Old Lynchburg Road.

As many of you know already, the limits of this project as displayed on the board behind you reach from the southern city limits line to Jefferson Park Avenue.

and in there we have several elements that needed to be addressed with this project proposal.

Goals here were to create safer conditions for all users along the corridor as well as provide

Better drainage to reduce flooding and to give a system that will handle the capacity needed for the slopes that have created some serious issues in this neighborhood.

The pedestrian access needs here are great because there are no sidewalks, no bike lanes at present.

So with that in mind, we've reached out to the community and had numerous

Citizen meetings, public meetings with special groups that have interest in various elements here and in doing that we've had three public meetings and one-on-one interviews with some of you, in fact key stakeholders in this and of course the public and the neighborhood.

providing all of this information so far on our website inviting public comment at any time.

We've evaluated this project taking it from two concepts down to now a preliminary design of one concept.

The challenges in this project have already been identified by Peter and others previously but just to emphasize some of these

Again, we have no bike lanes, very poor sight distance for traveling public, pedestrians, vehicle.

It's very heavy vegetation along here, large tree canopy, which creates additional issues as far as drainage and debris falling from those.

And of course the windiness of the road alignment itself creates issues with those that wish not to travel to speed.

As we reach the end of our preliminary design phase, we're now jumping into final design.

And in doing that we can add a lot more detail to those elements.

And that's what this starts to represent here.

Difficult to maybe draw all that detail out from this drawing, but we're looking at things such as water quality features, BMPs, locations for that.

It's a difficult corridor to introduce that, but we are working with the Fry Spring Beach Club currently, who is also entertaining the idea of having Rivanna Trails make a connector through their property, which would be along the

Southern end of the property.

As you can see, we've kind of got a placeholder for BMP there.

It may not

Basically a water quality feature is what we're looking to do here which would give us some detention in the water as we collect it off of the roadway and also provide what we hope would be an educational piece.

If we could get a trail connection along there then that would

give us two major accomplishments by giving us a pedestrian connection along the west side of the roadway as well as giving us an educational piece that perhaps we could take small groups through or just the general public would have access to.

So we're excited about that.

We are talking with it.

It is still very much in the preliminary stage of discussion with them, but they're open to the idea.

Starting at the southern end, I just wanted to outline for you kind of what the road configuration will look like in this concept.

The sidewalk and bike lanes would be on the eastern side, the lower side of that drawing there.

Extend all the way up.

You can see the magenta lines there.

Those represent retaining walls because it's significant slope change right in there.

The bike lane and sidewalk would continue all the way up to Middleton Lane where at that point it would be signed to continue up Middleton Lane to Monte Vista Avenue.

We felt that that is a safer route.

We've spoke with many in the biking community that also agreed for a wide range of users that would give you a safer route to do.

It would also help us in

Continuing our other design along the corridor because it would prevent the need for additional retaining walls along the frontage of the eastern properties there, which we were having to do if we added a bike lane over there.

So in Middleton Lane, the cross section of the street design actually changes and the sidewalk flips over to the west side where you have softer slopes, wider right of ways, less impact to those personal properties and it's on the side that the drainage wants to go to.

So it's easier to collect and control on that side.

You may have noticed that we have some green areas indicated in the middle of those travel lanes.

One at Azalea Park entrance.

We have two there.

One about the midsection.

We have a raised curb, planted island proposed.

And one near the beginning of Frostbings Beach Club.

These are intended to add safety features by dividing the travel lanes

and striping appropriately, adding additional signs in advance of these, we're able to give an indicator to the traveling public that they need to slow down and that's the intent of these as well as adding some aesthetic value there.

The one at the Fry's Spring Beach Club, that is a combination between pedestrian crosswalk as well as a raised planting island.

It gives a little safety refuge area for anyone crossing.

It's deliberately placed in that bend there because that gives you the best sight distance to view in both directions for the traveling public.

So that's what we've added there for a safety feature.

Now once you move along the beach club frontage, we've switched that sidewalk to the east side.

That is intentional because of the restrictions on the beach club side.

We have a privacy fence there that's very close to the edge of pavement now.

We have some utility poles that are right on the edge of the pavement.

Immediately behind that fence, what you can't see unless you've gone inside, is a rock wall and then the pool itself.

So there's very limited space there to work in a sidewalk without a lot of disruption.

So that's the intent for bringing it over to the east side.

At each of the intersections, Middleton and Jefferson Park Avenue, those will be improved visually through better pavement markings, delineating those pedestrian crosswalks better, perhaps a different texture we could propose to give you a better, stronger indication that that's a four-way or a three-way stop.

And of course, better signage there.

Some of the other things that we've been able to work on since our last public meeting, which was last December, was working on developing the wall details, looking at each of the individual driveways as far as the slope, because many of the ones on the east side are very steep already.

You can tell by the pavement markings that they're dragging bumpers and stuff now.

We don't want to worsen those by any means, so we're looking at how we can do that and analyzing those a little closer.

And then of course the drainage piece of this.

We're very interested in how we can control that because that's been a major factor in that area.

Ideally that's how we would proceed, true.

But right now in the capital improvement budget it's not projected to start until what, when?

That I couldn't tell you.

I think it's 2013 if I'm not mistaken.

Do you know Peter?

2013.

2013?

Mr. Tolbert says 2013.

So we've got a project that's got a lot of citizen input in that's obviously making good progress.

You've done a great job.

But it could, at least right now, it's projected to just essentially sit on a shelf for a couple years until

The funding kicks in.

Partly my ulterior motive in putting this on the agenda tonight and inviting this report, which is very helpful, was to try to get a sense from council as to whether or not there's support for moving up the funding

I support your thoughts.

I think we ought to look at the next CIP, which we'll usually be doing here in February, March.

Well, it starts much earlier than that.

Yeah, that's what we'll be acting on.

Then we could find some more money to

It's possible to phase this project.

Certainly the portion between Middleton and the park

functions a little differently.

Drainage is a separate system essentially there.

The walk and everything is a little different there than it would be for the middle section.

And maybe we can find the money for the first phase at least.

Oh, I agree that we could

move ahead with some possibilities.

I'm just wondering if there's some other funding we could be exploring also.

There's some discussion of more stimulus funds coming our way also for ready to do projects.

I'd also just maybe look at the exploration of this rainwater demonstration project.

I think you're getting a sense from, and it's really not directed at you, it's more so directed at Mr. Jones and Ms. Beauregard and Mr. Tolbert is to see how we can move this project up and, you know, or at the very least start phasing it in, but I'd like to see if we can get full construction underway by next summer, so we'll ask you to take a look at it, Mr. Jones, and get back to us.

Thank you so much, Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council,

As you know, when I came before you in April, we talked about the fact that our contract for disposal services was ending June 30th.

Part of this is a part of the changes in our contract with Rivanna.

At that time we were having our trash delivered to the public service and formerly BFI because there were not alternatives for us at the Ivy landfill.

When we went out to bid

This year we had three bids.

We were formally paying $41.25 a ton for disposal with Republic.

The bids that we received were $33 per ton to have the trash disposed of in a landfill, $39 per ton to have the transfer station service that's taking the trash to

In discussions with the city attorney's office, and I will certainly defer to Mr. Brown about this,

We did look at accepting the low bid.

This would be a substantial savings to us in our budget of next year.

But also looking at the possibility of accepting the second bid from Mr. Vanderlinde, which would allow us to have a contract for an additional $6 a ton, which would take the municipal solid waste that we take to

his facility and have him run it through his recycling service.

This would increase the recycling rate that we have, it would help as you know there are some plastics that we can't take that he is able to take and so those plastics that now go in your trash can really would be recycled and it would also help us with some of our citizens that may not be as aggressive about recycling as I know

the dedicated members of city council are.

So at this point we would like your direction.

Mr. Brown has laid out a legal way, even taking both of these bids we are still under the next lowest bid.

and I think it's a great opportunity for us in the community to add to our recycling rate, have another option.

But I want to make it real clear that we do plan to have a major education campaign for our folks.

We don't want people to stop curbside recycling.

We want to remind them that the recyclables that they put in their curbside bin are free.

They're not putting a trash sticker on.

And our goal has always been that we'll give you as many recycling bins as you want or need because that's what we want you to do.

And we want you to have the very smallest trash can.

And better quality of recycling, absolutely.

I think this addresses some of the concerns we've had where we didn't want to give up our curbside recycling where we know where it goes and we know that it's being recycled.

for a more universal recycling that recycles at a lower grade.

But in this case, we could really have our cake and eat it too.

And so I certainly want to affirm that we do want to keep crib size recycling.

We definitely want to continue the highest grade recycling.

And I am a little concerned about what this might mean for the McIntyre Recycling Center.

And I don't want that to be a victim of this decision.

I don't think there would be any impact.

There's not anything that they're cut back in service that they're proposing next year.

I want to second your comments towards the recycling.

I think it's really, really desirable and we should encourage more of it.

I'm looking for a yes.

Yes.

Is that a motion?

Is it a move and second?

Any further discussion?

I want to indicate to you also that we are moving ahead with our recycling contractor to do a pilot

that recycle program where we will give people covered bins.

We've been having a lot of requests for covered bins so people don't have to keep their newspapers and their magazines in the house until the night before collection and hope that it doesn't rain.

So we will be moving forward that and depending on how much money I can save next year, I'd like to expand that program as it moves forward.

Yes, as a matter of fact there was a meeting this week at the Planning District Commission and we were told by a local businessman that he is having discussions with

DEQ.

As you know, there is no permitted composting facility in the planning district, but he is having discussions with them to try to get the necessary permits.

I don't have any kind of a time frame, but we will continue to keep an eye on that and let you know if that becomes a possibility.

I wanted to again emphasize the importance of education

Thank you Ms. Mueller.

Okay.

Next item is Ms. Judy Mueller.

A report on the new transit station presentation.

Yes it is.

Does that sound like it's working?

Some of you had the opportunity to come to our grand opening

last week of Charlotteville Area Transit's new administration maintenance and operations base on Avon Street.

This is a really, I'm just gonna hit the highlights for you tonight, but this is really an amazing building.

There's not another environmentally sensitive, energy efficient building like this anywhere in the Commonwealth.

We pretty much did it all.

This just gives you an idea of the previous home for Charlottesville Area Transit, formerly the Charlottesville Transit Service.

For any of you that haven't seen it, I would call it a metal quonset hut that is in our city yard facility on

on 4th Street.

It was dark, it was dingy, it was crowded.

If you ever went into the top right, that was the two maintenance bays that were always crowded.

On the bottom left is the main office, and you had dispatchers sitting there with people trying to explain routes to citizens, and it really was very congested and very difficult.

The site that we chose, and I think one of the things that we did years ago, you know, sometimes you do some things that are really smart but it takes some years to pay off.

In 1986, the city went out and purchased 59 acres in Albemarle County, just over the county city line in Avon Street, for use as our school bus facility.

knowing that at some time there would be a higher and better use for many of the other services that are at the current city yard.

And so we've been able to build on that.

We've since bought two adjacent pieces of property and it's one of those six-acre sites that we were able to use for this site.

We have parking for 40 buses and anticipate a 50% in growth.

During the time this was being designed, we were talking about a regional transit authority and just didn't know how big our bus system might get.

So we've built in capacity to grow over the years.

One of the other things we now have is a very secure perimeter fencing.

And this was great, something that we didn't have before.

We have a 50,000 gallon underground rainwater harvesting system.

This system is being used several ways, which we'll talk about, but mainly to wash the buses.

We have all kinds of innovative stormwater storage and treatment facilities.

We have five biofilters, all kinds of underground infiltration, storage systems.

And our buildings, if you look at the arrows, our buildings were designed and oriented to take advantage of the prevailing winds and passive solar conditions.

So pretty much everything was thought of as we were putting this all together.

This is a look into the site.

We have a secure site.

You can see the red and white fence.

What happens is the bus comes in, there's a sensor on the bus, and the gate knows that yes, that's his bus.

It should be off its route.

It opens the gate.

It allows it to proceed.

The bus driver drives his bus to the administration building and clocks out.

He turns it over to what we call bus hostlers.

These are the people that do the maintenance and things on the buses, but he clocks out and the bus goes to our fueling facility and then our wash facility and will walk you through all of those.

This is the administration building again.

I'm sorry for the visual because you really can't see it.

But a very nice thing here that people were able to see is we have a large conference room and an employee training room and there's a movable wall between the two of them.

And we designed the building in such a way that this area can be used by the public.

So if people want to come in and have a meeting there, there's a nice meeting room with nice audiovisual equipment, separate bathrooms, and a small kitchen.

So if neighborhoods want to have meetings or people want to have some public meeting, great parking just right over the city line, and I think we all know sometimes there's a shortage of spaces in the community.

We were the first IP voice over phone system in the city.

Our IT department worked very closely with us to have very extensive fiber connectivity.

And again, generous use of daylights with a very energy efficient envelope, which is the outside of the

outside of the building, everything state-of-the-art geothermal heating and cooling, waterless urinals, and the use of the harvested rainwater for other toilet flushing.

And I think this is one of the first municipal buildings that was allowed by the health department to use rainwater for toilet flushing, and we think that's really great.

We also very – we've been talking about recycling.

We had a very high recycle content in all of the furniture that we brought.

We were very sensitive to

to this.

So that's the front of the building and the top left when you walk in.

On the bottom left is a driver's room.

On the bottom right is a dispatch area which is absolutely phenomenal.

These dispatchers used to sit in a little room where they can't see anything.

Now they have glass on three sides and they actually can see everything that's going on in the entire facility.

This is Building B, which is our maintenance facility.

It has five large bus bays.

Remember, the other one only had two.

Lots of storage area.

It has a state-of-the-art vehicle exhaust system.

This is one of the ones that had extensive use of daylight.

And when you walk into this, it's not like any other maintenance facility you have ever seen.

It's really phenomenal.

Talk about a great place to work.

This is it.

State of the art fire suppression and alarm system.

We pretty much built everything into it.

Top left is the back side.

You notice on the top right, we put two bike racks out there.

We have a number of employees that are biking to work.

And we thought this was great.

We had it there, but they're actually using it.

On the left, you can see the maintenance building in use.

And on the right is some of the buses actually in the bays.

This is the wash facility and on the one side is just a regular bus wash bay and on the other is a chassis wash bay.

You know, the underside of buses and their engines get very dirty.

We never had the opportunity to really properly clean them before and we now have this again which is absolute state of the art.

I told you we're using the

harvested rainwater, we've got the automatic bus gantry, we've got bus lifts everything is built in such a way that it minimizes what the employees have to do as many things as we were able to do electronically which just means a greater level of safety

and everything we do.

There's fewer things, fewer opportunities for human error in anything we do.

That's the exterior, the wash, the one on the bottom right is where the chassis actually lifts the bus up.

The last building is the fueling building.

And again, this is very electronic.

As I said, the bus driver brings the bus in, they drop it off, the hostler takes it.

The hostler takes it up here.

As he drives in, the computers automatically know from the sensor on the bus what bus it was.

They know how many miles that bus should have driven.

that day and how much fuel it should need and so it's really an exception you know if there's something off then the people will notice it but but otherwise it just it just happens we also have a very secure vault counting room I don't want to tell you how we used to count the money in that crowded building that we had before but this is absolutely great and far more secure than what we what we had

and again, all kinds of any field capture system that is out there on the market, we've got it.

And that's a picture of the buses coming in, you can see the trolley in there.

We also have a very high-powered vacuum system to vacuum out the inside of the buses before they go, after they've been fueled and before they go into the wash bay.

This just kind of lists the sustainability features.

You've heard us talk before about LEED certified buildings.

We are anticipating at this point we are on track, you know, you don't get your LEED certification until after your building's been built and you have to send in all of the

Paperwork.

At this point, we're at a very high gold.

The only level that's higher is platinum.

We don't think that we can make platinum, but there's always possibility.

But we feel good.

As you know, the city is committed to trying to do a minimum of silver on all of its buildings.

So the fact that we can do gold is great.

And I think

We've built in just about anything that you could possibly imagine.

And employees, we'd love to have people come out and take a look at it.

It's really an amazing state-of-the-art facility, and we're very proud of it.

And again, I think it's one of the most innovative facilities, certainly in Virginia and maybe even on the East Coast.

And we'd love to have everybody come and see it.

Questions, comments for Ms. Mueller?

I think it's important for us to kind of note the fact that this building costs money, some of which came from federal funding in various places, but all of this kind of fancy state-of-the-art stuff isn't done just to be fancy and state-of-the-art.

It really, it's going to save money to the city over the course of time because, you know, I noticed when I did take the tour, a lot of places, a lot of rooms don't even have lights turned on because there's so much daylight coming in.

Where the mechanics are is in air condition because the breezes are channeled to come in.

The fact that they don't have to use tap water to wash buses.

And I think that's one of the things that we've learned in the city by doing former Leeds buildings is, you know, some people say, well, you're spending a little money up front, but your payback is so fast.

And we do not see energy costs going down.

Thank you, Miss Mueller.

Very impressive work.

The next item on our agenda is a report on our Summer Youth Internship Program, Ms. Heather Callums.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council.

I'm here tonight to give you an update on Community Attention's Youth Internship Program this summer.

And I guess the first words I'll use is extremely overwhelmed, extremely excited.

I'm extremely depressed that we had to turn down 105 of some of the most wonderful kids I've ever met.

Over the past month it's been very busy.

I'll give you kind of an overview about what we've been doing and then talk a little bit about where we're going.

I will say that my goal as Director of the Summer Youth Internship Program and the goal of my team at KUIP

Community Tensions Youth Internship Program is to grow the program to the point that summer 2011 we can serve at least another hundred students so we don't have to return so many away.

Now we did accept 60 more than we accepted last summer which is quite an interesting volume process but I'm very dedicated and committed to growing the program.

We are currently

looking at tapping into more private foundations and funding sources so that we can grow the program.

Our deadline for application was 5 o'clock on May 14th and I made sure I was there to

shut the doors at five o'clock on May 14th because we had lines and lines and lines and jammed up fax machines, et cetera, et cetera.

We received 256 applications, primarily from the city of Charlottesville, Charlottesville High School, and Beauford Middle School.

We decided to be very respectful to those that had applied and

We ended up interviewing all 248 face-to-face, which was a really great process and thanks so much to the help of the staff at Charlottesville High School, Buford Middle School.

They were very, very accommodating during a very tight academic time during SOLs and exams to let us come into their schools and interview them.

We interviewed both at CHS, Buford Middle School, and then we interviewed about 60 or 70 youth at our offices at 907 East Jefferson.

We kept thinking that they weren't going to show up, especially in a couple of afternoons when it just stormed and rained and Park Street was closed and out of the 256 that applied, only six youth did not show for their interview.

So they were lined up with parents, with grandparents, with support systems, sitting in our waiting room.

We interviewed 248

We ended up selecting 143 interns to participate this summer, and that broke down into 88 interns, thankfully sponsored by you all, or 80 specifically funded by the city, which is the largest majority.

We were able to slide in eight more because we have eight businesses paying the stipend.

Last year we had 11.

The economy was a lot tougher this year, and we were told from a couple of our funders that they just couldn't afford the $600 stipend.

We also at the last minute received the grant that you all awarded this year from continued funds from ARA and so we're able to serve another 20 of those kids who are eligible and we're also able to serve about 35 to 40 kids that are vended through our funding sources such as crime control

and Comprehensive Services Act.

Right now we have 143 youth we're going to serve.

I have no doubt in my mind that Charlottesville Albemarle is one of the most supportive places as far as businesses, schools, agencies.

that are opening their arms up to mentor these youth.

In probably a two month period of time, myself and my staff cultivated 28 awesome agencies and businesses from Heinz Music Electronics to more office businesses to marshals to stores to restaurants.

And so we have a really awesome, we have 155 spots right now that are very diverse.

in not only catering to our youth who have lower skill levels, higher skill levels, youth that are interested in animals, elderly, businesses, customer service.

We also have several sites, a handful of sites who tell us that if their youth are successful, especially the older youth, they will employ them after the summer.

So that's, we feel really proud about that.

We have, you probably saw the breakdown.

There's 23% of interns living in public housing.

Majority are city, 124, 16 Albemarle.

Because of the WIAA Piedmont Workforce Grant, we had to serve at least one youth from Green, Louisa, Nelson, and Fluvanna.

That's kind of our, that's our part of that grant.

We're really excited though this summer to launch this program.

We feel really, really, really proud.

I've copied probably 30 essays of why they want to work and I will share those with you toward the end of the summer as we see how things unfold.

But the essays are really, really, really wonderfully written and express specifically why the youth want to work.

Everything from helping their mom and dad pay for groceries to

I met with one youth I met with.

I asked him, I said, well, you know, so tell me a little bit about why you want to work and he was a youth that was

a little bit limited and he paused for like maybe a good minute and I thought he wasn't going to say a word and I kind of helped him.

I said, well just tell me a little bit about what your interests are and he looked right at me and he said, because Ms. Heather, he said, I need to care again.

He's like, it is time for me to care.

I don't care anymore and I need to.

Of course, I went home and told my 11-year-old, 8-year-old about this kid and the whole four weeks my daughter and son are saying, Mommy, did you take that kid to the program?

You have to accept that kid because he cares.

So just stories like that just coming out all over the place.

So we start on Monday and I

invite anybody that can come.

We're going to be meeting at Charlottesville High School.

Because of the numbers, we've had to split the groups into Group A and Group B.

So we'll have about 72 kids in the morning from 9.45 until 1 at Charlottesville High School cafeteria.

We'll have the next group of youth that will come in at 1.45 until 5.

and we had to really look at their schedules as far as who's in summer school, who's in Upward Bound, what sites can go where.

Alex Zann, thanks to you all, will be keying off our first day with a lot of motivational talks about why the youth should stay and work.

So we're really excited to have him as a part of our program this year.

Wednesday the 30th, they will all start to work.

They'll be working this year 19 hours a week and they'll have a weekly workplace readiness group again following a curriculum that focuses on job skills, money management, resume writing.

working through challenges, etc.

On Tuesday, if you all may, your schedules will allow, Tuesday Group A will meet their site supervisors at 12 o'clock and at 4 o'clock respectively in Group B.

We have lots of new sites, 28 new sites that will be there to meet, get schedules going on, etc.

We'll hopefully have an awesome six-week

High successful program.

The volume does make it a little more difficult to juggle, but I'm fortunate to have six really, really great staff who are very diverse and very, very experienced with working with these youth in the community.

So we feel real good about our team starting off.

And we will end on Friday, August 6th with a very exciting celebration and hopefully be able to continue to teach these youth about work

and the positive consequences of positive work ethics and behaviors and let them have some money.

We do have a larger number of refugees this year, which I'm really excited about offering those opportunities.

We've had to really look for some sites that will deal with the language barriers a bit.

And we've tried to respond to most of our sites' requests for special skills, such as Fluent Spanish Making and the QCC Outreach Team.

We have two youth who are Hispanic and fluent in Spanish so that when they go around to the houses and help with the recycling, the public housing and all the other things they'll do in the Green Team, they can do that.

All of our sites that have joined us this summer that wanted a youth, we've been able to place a youth at all the sites except for one.

And we're still looking at taking off our little stickies all over my wall and trying to meet that goal.

I wish some of you had been to the match process on June 11th.

It started at 9.30.

It went until about 6.30 or 7 at night.

Literally when we take everybody's application, look at their interests, where they live, and the proximities.

Can they get to and from work?

What's the highest probability of them getting to and from work?

Are there any therapeutic limitations for them not working or working with their population?

What skills are needed?

What their interests are?

What we say is just our gut feelings of where people might be successful and have a great experience.

So again, I welcome you to join us in our celebration and our orientation.

Again, my goal is to not have to turn down as many kids this summer.

I'm pleased that we were able to serve 60 more youth than we did last summer at 143.

It's amazing to me that when we first started doing this, it's been from 30 to 60 to 70 to 80, now it's 143.

but I know that there are many more youth that need the service and could work and can work and I have no doubt that there are many more sites and schools and agencies and businesses that we've had to turn down that want more youth and it's a matter of developing resources and funding to make it sustainable.

First I have a comment and then a question.

First of all I'd like to see your enthusiasm and I hope you'll continue till I was the sixth at least.

I'm really excited about this possibility.

Yes, we have several sites within the University of Virginia.

We have University of Virginia Human Resources, we have University of Virginia Housing Division, we have University of Virginia Dining Services, we have University of Virginia Medical Services, we have University of Virginia Architecture Services,

I think, oh, University of Virginia Semester at Sea.

And just a couple questions also.

If it would be possible to find out where the children can get their checks cashed, because last year I mentioned the hopeful possibility of some of the youth actually opening savings accounts or creating the opportunity.

But it's really two separate issues I want to explore.

Number one, where they are able to get their checks cashed, and two, if any of the youth have accounts at traditional banks.

Because I'd like to, as far as the money management piece, begin the idea of savings.

And also, I guess, to see if staff could follow up with this possibility.

Because I'm concerned about some of the check cashing places that are in the neighborhood and the amount of money that they take as part of the fee.

Would it be possible to have the checks cashed at like our utility window?

Or if there's a way that if we find that being able to cash a check at a traditional bank is a barrier.

What are the other choices for the six-week program?

We only were able to, I think we had like seven youth and their families that we took down to actually

take them down when we had set up a certain amount of time period to actually open up accounts.

Most of the youth, their individual counselors, their job are to help them get an ID from DMV.

So they can, we don't take them as big groups, but as far as the counselor's individual case management tasks, they would help them get an ID from DMV.

And because

Our office is at 907 East Jefferson and SunTrust Bank is like two minutes away.

They would leave right, almost all of them would leave straight from 907 and go right to Park Street and High to cash their check at SunTrust.

The key there is they have to have an ID.

So we found that most of their moms, grandmas, or somebody had some sort of an account as well that they could get their check cashed.

Just to follow up on Ms. Edwards' comment,

The nice SunTrust put together a packet of information.

Part of the packet has this little, it has a grid.

If you save this much one year, this is what you'll have in 20 years, 10 years, 5 years.

and so we definitely talk to them about that.

We also try to encourage their parents that each check they get is $100 maximum if they perform highest.

How much do you want to take out of that check and save it so that you have more money down the road?

Right, and I guess my biggest concern is to create as many opportunities to utilize other resources other than a check cashing establishment or any other establishment that would cash the checking and charge a fee.

They are because SunTrust is part of the city and they have viewed our internship and our interns as part of what the employee

our employee program they do have to have an actual ID though and that's the struggle is that you know you have to have some sort of identification to get an ID and a lot of times they don't know where their birth certificate is or social security card but we've been able to grassroots focused help them with that and so once they have an ID

because they want their check cash so quickly after they get paid.

It's, you know, what we say is just there's the bank.

You know, we don't say there's this, I mean we say go to the bank.

You know, it's right there.

I just want to say the same thing I say every year which is I really do think this is one of the best things that we do here in City Hall and a lot of that is because of your efforts so I want to thank you once again for continuing to grow this program.

It is a relatively small amount of money that we put aside each year for this program, but I really do believe it makes a big difference and I fully support any effort we can make to continue to grow the program next year so we don't have to turn kids away.

I'm just hoping that with the

28 of the new sites are primarily businesses, which we haven't really tapped into the first, second, third year.

We started with primarily city government and non-profits who don't have the money.

But because of the different sites, for example, we just partnered with Food Lion.

and they want 30 youth, all the food lions.

And they are phenomenal.

They offer a training program.

We don't have 20, but we have actually about 15 youth working at all the different food lions.

And they are very interested in if the program's successful on a pilot to not support the program 100%, but to provide at least the stipend.

And a food lion type of job is something that I feel like my kids could

continue to actually work at post internship.

So those are the kind of marshals.

I mean, that's the kind of businesses that do have that infrastructure that's a little larger that may be able to help us with funding and be actually a sponsor and continue to look at city funding, county funding,

Grant funding, but also maybe a larger percentage, $50,000, $100,000 from business sponsors.

I've been doing research on other programs like in DC, Urban Alliance.

The city doesn't pay anything.

The agencies provide, like most of the money for the program, the stipends, the businesses, and then they have other monies from Grant.

But the businesses are really supportive of the program.

Thank you very much, Ms. Kellen.

That concludes our regular agenda.

We do have one item that was pulled from the consent agenda, which was item J relating to the special use permit for 1147 Rose Hill Drive.

This is before us, the first of one reading tonight.

Do you want to...

There are some concerns the Planning Commission addressed in the conditions for this site and one of the concerns which I heard today as well as last time, the traffic going on Amherst was one of the concerns.

So I would like to suggest there are five conditions right now.

We have six conditions to especially prevent and that could lead to something like this.

Parking garage,

Ingress Negress be designed so as to only allow all outgoing traffic to the left to Rose Hill and no right to Amherst.

The sign also be placed at entrance of the garage indicating left turn only, no right turn to Amherst.

That will do two things.

First of all, it will drag the traffic away from the neighborhood and it will also minimize some of the conflicts, I think, which we could avoid otherwise.

And I know that parking garages can be designed, ingress and ingress can be designed so that you can direct the traffic to a certain direction.

It is not a very difficult task.

and plus the signage.

Combination of those things, I think it will help the neighborhood.

I don't know if Mr. Lowe wants to...

Please.

Yeah, I'd be willing to work with that.

Just one, maybe less one question, it could be that you have people in the neighborhood that actually work at the building too.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'd be willing to work with that.

I'm just thinking about the logic of whether there's some people that might work back in the neighborhood that might actually be employed in the building.

Hopefully they'll be able to walk.

This is condition number six which I read to you and I have it written down so I can give it to the secretary.

I move the amendment because we have six conditions dealing with parking, garage, ingress and ingress, so designed so as to only allow all outgoing traffic to the left to Rose Hill and no right to Amherst.

A sign will also be placed

Any discussion?

If no further discussion, I will please indicate your vote just on the amendment.

So the amendment carries.

I actually have another suggestion, amendment, which is actually to address item two which says no shift changes between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. That seems to me

quite nebulous and I don't know, not just nebulous but sort of micromanaging.

I mean could it be read that literally?

I don't think the zoning administrator would read it that literally were he to address a concern of this sort related to a technology-based business.

I think what the Planning Commission was getting at with this condition was to

encouraged most business and employment activity to go on during normal customary business hours and to prevent, I think the worst case scenario that the Planning Commission was really looking to prevent was to be some sort of 24 hour operation of a technology based business no matter how large or how small of an imprint that that was making and so in an effort to

in an effort to allow employees to work at the building into extended hours if need be on perhaps an individual basis, but to not encourage those large scale, more of that 24 hour operation.

It seems to me with the change we just approved, which is going to prevent cut through traffic on Amherst,

But the neighbors probably would lose some sleep.

I was there too for the public hearing

And it seemed that that was responding to a specific concern and I think it's a valid concern that if there were 20 people working in an office and they were on three shifts, 20 at a time, that if 20 people were leaving the building at 2 in the morning,

But I mean, if the owner were simply to build and manage this property by right, they could have shift changes all they wanted.

I think as the counselors evaluate this land use in and amongst the others that are permitted specifically by right in this zone, counselors can look at things such as an adult assisted living facility which is a by right use in this zone with no cap

on the maximum number of residents.

Things like a bank, a fraternity or sorority house, a daycare facility or a transit facility as other examples of uses that we as staff feel are on par with the intensity of a technology-based business or perhaps even more intense of a use.

Mr. Mayor, one more question, comment.

This condition does not hinder the technology business in my mind, but it does help the neighborhood.

I struggle with the enforcement of it because the, basically what you would have is a three, you know you got some business as a technology based business would have the restriction but another office wouldn't.

But I think it was a struggle with where they were trying to say what hours they could work or whatever and they also realized that sometimes a technology based business has an experiment going on that might go around the clock.

They might need one or two of their technicians there and they were trying to struggle.

It's not really giving me heartburn.

I'm not sure how to enforce it.

My impression was that it wouldn't even keep 40 people from working overnight.

Yeah, I think the confusion was less with the business we were intending to put in there and the definition of a technology-based business implied somewhere down the road that you could have, I think,

the Chairman of the Planning Commission was emphasizing you could have a computer assembly under that same definition and they could just have continuous operations and it was trying to accommodate that.

All right, well, I get the sense there's not a lot of support for council on removing it anyway.

I do think it's unenforceable, largely unenforceable.

But if you're fine with it, I guess we'll, and council seems to be fine with it.

So we have before us now an amended resolution.

So moved.

Is there a second?

If not, please indicate your vote.

The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Let's see here.

That concludes the regular business for tonight, or concludes our business for tonight.

We'll now reopen for matters by the public.

My turn is to represent one person in the neighborhood asking, first of all, Mr. Huja, I see what you're suggesting about a left turn onto only left turns off amherst.

My first question is how is that going to be policed?

The exit from the garage is pouring out onto Amherst and people who live in the neighborhood won't need to get into the neighborhood from Amherst.

So I don't see how you're going to keep people leaving the garage from also turning right just the way residents of the neighborhood who turn onto Amherst are going to go down to the street.

It's not a thing on the street.

The exit of the garage is kind of slanted and going this way, so you can't get that way from it.

It seems to me I have trouble understanding how this is going to be policed and how it's going to not hinder access to the neighborhood for the residents.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is

all of this discussion about the kinds of businesses that will be permitted don't go back to the original intent of this kind of zoning regulation which is supposed to be a gentle transition from commercial to residential not just concerned with the development which I understand the city needs we need all the tax money we can get to do the other good things we need to do on the other hand how is it not going to have negative impact on the neighborhood

And this is the thing that both at the Planning Commission and now here, it's as if this issue, because the building fits within the zoning requirements, nobody cares anymore what its impact is going to be on the neighborhood.

And we feel as if that issue is not being addressed and we want to know

how to make this issue heard before the building is built rather than once the building is built there's nothing we can do.

And so we're really asking for some advice about how we can make sure our concerns about what this does to the neighborhood are really being listened to instead of being told this is not the right time.

to present it.

OK. Point well taken.

Anybody else from the public like to speak?

And we'll provide feedback once matters by the public is done.

Tom Bowe, 1211 Augusta Street.

I want to first say I very much appreciate Mr. Huja trying to find some sort of a solution here.

I think that's great and certainly better than what we were thinking might happen.

I do want to call to your attention exactly what Ruth said which is that at that intersection you have a change in speed, you have a slope, you have two city bus stops, you have two public school bus stops, you have a US Mail drop box which is widely used, a lot of idling is done,

Even in the middle of the lanes, I saw that today, we would much prefer that there not be any entrance onto our neighborhood street.

We are not represented by an attorney as is the developer.

We have asked the developer to discuss, we have approached the developer to discuss this with us and he has not returned our request.

We would all love to be on the Planning Commission, but in our

Little area that is going to be impacted.

I count eight single parents.

I'm one of them.

And we would love to be able to have known this.

We don't have time to read the paper, a lot of us.

And so this kind of got through.

We sort of all sort of feel as though neighborhood planning let us down here.

We think code has let us down to a certain degree too because this is being the biggest possible structure on the smallest possible piece of land right adjacent to our neighborhood.

This is not someone who's going to be a tenant that stays on and on, he's going to sell it.

and make money and leave it for us to deal with.

We're concerned about property values.

We think this is about money.

I think Ruth's point about the intent of the houses that are currently there, this is a quantum leap in development.

So that's our concern and we don't have the resources to know how to go forward with this.

We're really at the mercy, we're not Glenmore where we have a private protection.

and we really are dependent upon city council and neighborhood development to help protect this neighborhood.

Thank you, Mr. Bohm.

Good evening.

Downing Smith, 810 Locust Avenue, Mayor Norris, Councillors, Mr. Brown.

It's been a fairly upbeat evening from what I can see.

I missed about the first hour.

But I was very happy to hear about the recycling and the garbage.

I was very impressed with the new building.

I was very impressed with the internship program.

I felt a pretty positive evening.

Something I'd like to pass on.

About two weeks ago, I believe it was Saturday, June 5th, it was National Trails Day and also

Clean the Bay Day.

It was sponsored by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Rivanna Trails, and our very own Parks and Recreation Department.

And I just wanted to make sure that they got credit for their good work on that.

They were our co-sponsor.

They provided some of the prizes for the raffle.

I'm sorry I don't have the gentleman's name who was there, but I think they do deserve credit for that.

Second thing is I know that you've put the neighborhood advocate on hold until after you get a new city manager.

But I'd like to plan an idea in your head.

As you all said during your discussion, we have something like 18 designated neighborhoods, but maybe only six neighborhood associations.

And there's some concern that it wouldn't really benefit the majority of our citizens.

And I'd like to just put a thought in your head about having

rather than a neighborhood advocate, an ombudsman.

I've had several instances recently where I needed help, needed city services and I didn't know where to go.

I eventually found those services by people outside the city.

The University of Virginia has a health ombudsman who has helped me on several occasions with problems with my health insurance.

And the Internal Revenue Service, despite all the bad things people say about them, they're usually very good, but on one occasion I had a problem that I just couldn't get solved, and they had something called the Taxpayer Advocate.

And that person was fantastic, and she got my problem solved with no, no.

problem at all so just something to think about maybe an ombudsman that would serve individuals as well as neighborhoods to help them get the services they need out of the city and finally I've been before y'all twice to ask you to give notice to terminate the agreement that set up the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and I guess I'm asking for a little bit more now that that you put it on your agenda and you discuss it and you vote on it

Thank you Mr. Smith, I appreciate that.

Good evening, Councilors.

This is clearly the most rocking City Council meeting I've ever attended.

Neil Williamson with the free answer.

Earlier this evening you heard from a number of folks with regard to the community water supply plan.

And I heard sitting in the audience of SPIN.

And one of the things that I've appreciated throughout the process, and it's been a long process, appreciated and perhaps misunderstood

is the scope of the reporting and the questions that are being asked.

When an answer came back of a cost per gallon that was provided, it was a rather objective cost per gallon in an engineering sense.

And the critique was, well that's not the answer we want, there's other issues.

I think that this community has been served by a number of highly technically qualified engineers that sometimes don't do the spin things so good and perhaps we need to recognize that we get the answers to the questions we ask.

City Council has been very direct in their questions.

I appreciate Mr. Fenwick's comments with regard to potential cost savings that have been actualized by the questions that have been asked.

I also think that there is a time for decision making, and I think City Council has set forth a timeline for making those decisions.

I encourage you to hold to that timeline, and I encourage you to get the studies, get the answers you can get, but you'll never have all the answers, and there will be time for decision.

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Very well said.

Anybody else like to speak?

We'll close matters by the public.

I wanted to respond on the... You're right.

Your neighborhood is at the mercy, just like many neighborhoods, of a process that is a mystery in many ways, which is one of the reasons why we've talked, and again, whether it ends up being a staff position or... We need a better way of informing neighborhoods about the kinds of processes and

Development sort of plans that affect their daily lives and how neighborhoods can more meaningfully engage because this is a textbook example.

I think, you know, we'll certainly ask the staff and I'm asking the staff right now to follow up.

We have a world-class traffic engineer in Jeanie Alexander

who can talk about how this particular change can be actualized to try to address some of the concerns because if this is an intersection which is as congested as you say, I'm not denying it, there are tools in our toolbox above and beyond what we've talked about tonight that we can work with you on implementing to try to address that issue.

In terms of the scale of development, that is really more of a zoning issue

and this is another thing that we need to do a better job of is educating neighborhoods about what zoning means, what zoning uses are allowable in various districts so that they're not blindsided.

So I want to ask Mr. Jones to follow up on a staff level with you all to try to work through some of these issues.

It's not going to solve all the problems and address all of the concerns, but I feel like we can do a better job of keeping you engaged in a constructive way to try to make sure that this development doesn't overwhelm your neighborhood.

Well, the one thing I would add is that as we were talking about this earlier, I was thinking about legal requirements of notification versus something else that we can do.

And we can certainly look at ways that we're notifying people in advance of these types of issues as they pop up in neighborhoods.

I was going to suggest that same thing of looking at the requirement

the notification requirements as a minimum rather than as a maximum and really see what we can do to make these processes as open as possible.

But I'd also just like to say that the size of the building and the scope of the project and where the driveway comes out and all that kind of stuff, the developer could have under current zoning just done it.

and you would have had no say at all because it's private property and that's how our country is set up and it may be that zoning we could have done something before to make that not happen but the way it's zoned that was what could have happened and I think in a way it's really fortunate that they asked for the special use permit for a tech company because a tech company is something that we've wanted in our city and it also gives you a little bit of control all those additions that got put on this

and the fact that the developer is needing to work with the city and how that affects the neighborhood, I think are all positives that's come out of this process.

So I know it's painful and frustrating, and I think we need to do a much better job of getting that part ahead of the game instead of kind of, ah, while everybody's in the middle of it.

But I hope it works out better than you think.

I was going to say to the neighbors, well done.

Thank you for choosing to be the leaders in your neighborhood.

Meeting's adjourned.