City Council Meeting   1/18/2011

I'm

Ms. Basco, would you call the roll please?

Dr. Brown?

Ms. Edwards?

Here.

Mr. Norris?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Yes.

Ms. Szakos?

Thank you.

We have a few announcements tonight before we move on with our agenda.

First of all, I want to announce that Piedmont Virginia Community College has Super Saturday coming up February 5th, 2011 from 10am to 2pm.

This is an opportunity for local residents to find out about financial aid and tax preparation assistance, college information, etc.

It's a great opportunity to find out about resources available through our wonderful community college.

In the month of January, a reminder that on January 31st, real estate assessments will be mailed, so be on the lookout for those.

Those of you who have already gotten your city notes this month will know that there was an article about the need for foster families in our area, the Community Attention, which is a division of the City of Charlottesville, and other agencies in the city

are very much in need of people willing to take in foster kids into their homes.

It's something that most of us who have been parents kind of know how to do.

Those of us who haven't been parents can learn a lot.

It's not horribly scary.

I've been a foster parent for four kids.

And I encourage anyone who's interested, if you want to talk to me about what it was like just as a parent, I'm happy to talk to you.

I also wanted to read a proclamation.

Several of us were in attendance this past Sunday night at a wonderful event at Mount Zion Baptist Church kicking off this year's celebration of the life and contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Whereas Monday, January 17th is designated as the National Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday on which we honor and reflect on the life, legacy, and contributions of one of America's greatest champions of racial justice and equality.

And whereas the City of Charlottesville recognizes its history of segregation and the direct impact of Dr. King's work on our community.

And whereas December 2008, the City of Charlottesville embarked on a dialogue on race to examine and heal racial divisions.

and whereas we commemorate and uphold the values, courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that Dr. King taught and exemplified and whereas Charlottesville citizens, community organizations and city staff have partnered with faculty, staff and students at the University of Virginia to organize an extraordinary schedule of events to take place January 16th to 27th, 2011 that will commemorate Dr. King's life and legacy.

and whereas this program of events honoring Dr. King asks our community members to consider how King's vision might be extended into the 21st century.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby express my support for the community university Martin Luther King celebration and encourage all citizens of Charlottesville to attend this program of events and reflect upon King's legacy.

It's really an impressive series of events that this committee has put together this year.

I'm not going to read them all, but if you go to the University of Virginia website, and I believe it's just virginia.edu slash MLK, does anybody know if that's the, I believe that's the website, to find out more information about all the different activities that are going on now in commemoration of the life of Dr. King.

So I want to publicly thank Dr. Marcus Martin for leading that effort.

And I'd just like to publicly thank our city manager for speaking at the event that was on Sunday and for all of the people who participated in organizing that, singing at it, speaking at it, ushering at it.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm sorry.

We do want to announce that the Albemarle Charlottesville NAACP Youth Work Committee in conjunction with the Jefferson Madison Regional Library has a workshop coming up on January 29th, 2011 from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. at the downtown library.

It's called I.M.

College Material.

This is a free college readiness seminar to learn more about how to prepare for college, how to find the money for college.

Some of the topics to be discussed include the importance of being college ready, how to prepare for tests, essays and SATs, where to find free money for college, scholarships and grants.

and getting support and handling challenges relating to balancing school, work and home.

Students of all grades are welcome.

Refreshments will be served.

Again, this is IAM college material, Saturday, January 29th, 2011, 9.30am to 12.30pm and I want to thank the NAACP for organizing this event.

We will now move forward to

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

Good evening, Mayor Norris, City Councilors.

In furtherance of this afternoon's meeting, City and County to discuss the water plan

Supervisor Rooker brought up that the 2006 plan basically was the most environmentally friendly.

I have a problem with that.

What we're talking about with the plan is eliminating thousands of trees that act as a carbon sink, killing and displacing hundreds of animals with a clear cutting,

the roadways that are being cut and a full quarrying operation for some 500,000 or close to 600,000 cubic feet of earth to do this earth and dam.

It was noted that they would be replacing these trees, which sounds good, but what they're talking about is basically replacing them presumably with saplings.

And for the saplings to get to where these trees will be clear cut is something like 60 to 75 years.

So I don't know how satisfactory that replacement would be.

I think not very satisfactory.

Then the dam price comparison, talking about apples and apples.

It's not exactly apples and apples.

If the 42-foot dam goes in and the expansion is made and the water starts flowing in, the pipeline is going to be required.

And that pipeline is going to be $63 million estimated.

Initially, it was going to go along the western bypass, but as we know, that's unlikely it will ever happen.

It's got to be longer.

It's got to be a lot more expensive.

So we don't need it.

And even though that is incorporated at some time in the future in the city plan, it is in the future.

It doesn't require the $63 million layout now, which is extremely important.

The cost of it, $142 million.

What does that really mean to the ratepayers?

Combination, city and county ratepayers are roughly 31,000.

If you look at the number, let's take 142 million.

Let's say they do it over 30 years at 5% interest.

I think that was something that was discussed.

That's debt service at approximately $763,000 per month or $9 million a year with 31,000 rate payers.

And in these extremely difficult times, it certainly doesn't seem to be the appropriate thing to do.

Much of it is precipitated because of the price of this pipeline that has to come in reasonably soon.

It was estimated five to seven years after the initial work of the dam was done.

So neither our pocketbooks nor the environment can handle this and be healthy.

and I just ask you to please continue with your studies for the 13-foot dam and the dredging of the South Fork-Rivanna Reservoir.

Thank you, Mr. Freilich.

Hello, I'm Brandon Collins, 536 Meade Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville all my life.

I wish I was here to talk about water supply.

I'm definitely in favor of dredging.

I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say tonight about that.

But, I'm here to call attention to some really terrible legislation coming through the General Assembly this year and ask your help in expressing opposition to that.

General Assembly is considering about 17 bills related to immigration.

They are all specifically anti-immigrant and anti-people, if you ask me.

These bills will get consolidated into about seven bills, and those are the ones we're looking at right now.

But it's really a comprehensive attack on immigrants in Virginia, undocumented people.

And in a lot of ways, an attack on all people who aren't

White citizens of our city and state.

So the laws are basically, we all remember what happened in Arizona last year.

Basically a stop and search, ask for papers, anybody you want.

This is almost identical legislation.

A few twists on it, but when you combine the different parts of the different bills, it has the same effect.

Added onto this are denial of pretty much all public services and at the same time creating almost all public servants, making them into immigration and customs enforcement officials, sort of by default.

That's a terrible place to put public servants in Charlottesville.

Somebody requests social services and somebody has to then turn that person into immigration.

That's a moral dilemma that people are going to face.

You know, what these bills are doing is turning the police into ICE officials.

And this is a bad thing.

We don't need that and it's not good for our communities.

You know, when people get busted for immigration offenses, they typically sit in jail cells for about eight months.

That's kind of the norm.

These are misdemeanor crimes.

Nobody should be in jail for eight months, separated from their families.

So this is a terrible moral thing and presents also an economic challenge to the state.

So what I'm asking you to do is raise some awareness about this.

There's been very little public outcry about this despite what happened in Arizona and you saw this national sort of uprising about all of that.

We need to raise that awareness here and I think the city council here could go a long way in making a strong statement about this.

passed on a draft resolution to the mayor last week and the rest of you got this in your inboxes hopefully this morning and I really hope you take a look at this and consider passing some kind of resolution opposing these terrible, terrible bills in the General Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Sunglasses at night because my other glasses have been damaged and haven't been replaced and I can't see anything.

My name is Alison Ruffner.

I live at 735 Grave Street, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902.

And you all may be able to guess that I am here tonight to mention a few things about music venues.

And as this is brought up in discussion that I hope we'll be able to come out of this dialogue is sort of a tweaking of what's going on.

I think there's, as I've said before, time and a place for everything.

I think you can work with different areas and try and create something that is absolutely workable.

I found it interesting that Seville Coffee came up because I was ridiculed routinely from using them.

For using them is actually an excellent example of something that can work even in an area that's not really designed to have something very loud.

So is this subject material is discussed?

I really hope that what's going to be able to come out of this is a more professional approach that just saying I want to have a music venue and set up a couple of amps and invite in some bands and let's have a jam session that if people want to do this they're going to have to make a commitment to this they're going to sort of look at this as part of their actual business plan in a true capitalistic way if you need to bring in soundproofing for the area you're in

You know, have some good rules.

Do you have the parking?

Are you willing to invest to put in soundproofing?

What are you going to do to make sure that things don't get out of control?

We have people falling out in the streets drunk, so we have to call the police and waste city resources and taxpayer resources.

I think that

By setting up this material, as it's discussed, in a way that people actually have to seriously consider it, I think we'll start taking care of a lot of the misconceptions and problems that have been associated with it.

And it may mean that some people that aren't willing to embrace that do have to close their doors if they can't make it as a restaurant or just do something else.

It doesn't have to be like it was with Bell Rio and I do think that what Seville Coffee showed is that you can do this on a small level where people can actually hear.

I actually had an interesting circumstance where a lady

who couldn't understand.

She said, why do you hear my daughter through your window at night?

And I finally said, because my hearing is perfect.

I haven't destroyed it in spite of years of being around music.

So there's a place for that.

And I really hope as we move forward that that's where we're going to be heading is how to make this work in different areas.

Thank you, Ms. Rockner.

My name is Wayne Berry.

I reside at 2320 Crestmont Avenue in the Fry Springs neighborhood.

Thank you for this opportunity to address you.

I want to encourage you to continue the work you began in 2008 and increase your moral and financial support for the dialogue on race.

I've participated in the dialogue for the past 18 months and co-facilitated dialogue on race group number nine.

Some in our community are questioning the value of your vision.

I'd like to provide you with three pieces of data as you consider perpetuating this activity.

First, I got to meet three wonderful African-American individuals I never would have otherwise.

My co-facilitator and graduate student in community psychology at UVA, Monica Savoy, a very compassionate, eloquent pastor, C.D.

Brown, and an incredibly energetic, sensitive, and spirited Kim Burton.

The six white folks in our group learned a great deal from the stories that Kim, C.D.

and Monica shared over six, eight sessions together.

From the subtleties of institutional racism to the unmitigated pain inflicted by blatant forms of individual racism and prejudice.

Second, I got to share a very illuminating article with the education work group members, which I'll share with you.

I'll leave with

the clerk.

The article highlights 14 factors in the home, in schools, and in the individual that contribute to under achievement.

The biggest finding in this longitudinal study was that the vocabulary development of three-year-old children from professional families was equivalent to the vocabulary development

of the parents of three-year-olds on public assistance.

Lastly, on November 30th in this same space at a community forum on the achievement gap, I learned that one-third of the children served by Charlottesville City Schools' three-year-old program are homeless.

and I learned that every dollar spent on preschool education returns something like $17 back to the community.

To me, dialogue on race has been priceless.

I cannot believe that those city council members who commissioned this community healing

and Community Building Exercise believed that two years of study and dialogue would correct four centuries of neglect and abuse.

I'm Jerry Krueger, 989 Allendale Drive, Charlottesville.

I'm a member also of the Achievement Gap Action Team of Dialogue on Race.

Before coming to Charlottesville, I spent 11 years teaching in Richmond, Virginia.

When I observed the poor reading skills of many of my students in Richmond, I decided to take classes to learn more about how to teach reading along with English.

Eventually, I completed a master's degree in reading at UVA and taught at Charlottesville High School for 27 years.

As a result of my experiences, I've learned a great deal about students who don't read well.

If they are promoted in spite of deficiencies and receive no remedial help, the gap between those who succeed and those who don't becomes greater each year.

Students trapped in the gap drop out, act out, become angry, and often give up hope that they can accomplish their dreams.

There are many reasons why children fall into this gap.

Some have learning disabilities and lack the coping skills to overcome them.

Many are poor and as a result have not had the advantage of good medical care and adequate nutrition.

They have never been led to or enjoyed enrichment activities from which privileged children benefit.

Many of those students are African Americans.

I can remember my students stating that Asians are smart.

My response was, they're no smarter than you, but many work harder than you.

I could see that they didn't believe me.

That's why we need dialogue on race.

There are many people in Charlottesville today, both black and white, who actually believe that whites are smarter than blacks.

We have to find a way to change this perception.

Our children are constantly bombarded by the media, TV, movies, and even from the school's heavy emphasis on disparities in test scores with messages that African Americans can't compete.

Dialogue on race is more than just talk.

My achievement gap team is looking for ways to keep the gap from existing in the first place by focusing on early childhood interventions such as preschool and partnering with parents who want what's best for their children but don't always know what it is.

Providing health care and nutrition are equally important.

Some would like to ignore race and focus strictly on education.

If we want all children to achieve, we must find ways to make them believe in themselves.

We cannot eliminate the achievement gap unless we eliminate old stereotypes.

The more we discuss matters of race, the better chance we have to correct misconceptions.

Someone once said, hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier.

Thank you, Ms. Krueger.

My name is Jacob Wolf.

I live at 614 Monticello Avenue.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of council, for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'm here tonight as a musician, music lover, and someone whose livelihood depends on live music in Charlottesville.

in regards to the proposed change to venue regulations.

These changes are something that I only found out about within the last couple hours and I along with many others have concerns and I'd like to briefly outline a few of those concerns for you.

Watching a news report on NBC 29 an hour or so ago, I learned that approximately 20% of the revenue of Seaville Coffee, one of the venues which is threatened by the proposal, is generated from live music sales.

I have no doubt that the same is true for many other local restaurants with live music that could be affected.

My question for the Council is, in a time when so many businesses are struggling, what small business can afford a 20% reduction in their revenue?

Shouldn't our goal be to help those businesses that operate within the spirit of the law and safety stay afloat, not hinder them?

Furthermore, I have many friends who work in the service industry and make a substantial portion of their revenues from the live music sales at their establishments.

Certainly we don't want to make their lives more difficult by detracting from their wages.

In addition to handicapping area businesses, it also stifles our local music scene and creativity throughout our community.

Many local bands simply aren't popular enough to play our largest music venues and rely on small venues to establish themselves.

Because of existing rules, there are already whole genres of music that have no venue.

It would also be a tremendous shame to see a benevolent grassroots institution like The Garage close to music for arbitrary and unexpected reasons.

If anything, shouldn't we be looking for ways to loosen restrictions and help those local businesses and artists thrive?

Lastly, regarding permits, there is much that we don't know yet.

What is required for a music venue to be granted a permit?

What is the cost of applying for a permit?

Are there instances when an otherwise eligible venue would be denied a permit?

Are there any additional costs after the fact?

Or must venues periodically renew their licenses?

Of the many restaurant owners and musicians that I've spoken to in the last few hours, all were caught off guard by this new proposal.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 4th Street here in the city.

I have six points.

I came away from this afternoon's meeting with the Board of Supervisors on the water supply plan.

very quickly.

There wasn't a lot of discussion about the burden on current rate payers if we build something we don't need for 40 or 50 years or ever.

Remember, a dam built today that isn't needed for 50 years will be 50 years old when it's brought online.

We still don't know the full cost, especially of the uphill pipeline and debt service.

I'm still distressed, even if the county says it will pay for growth,

What happens if that growth doesn't happen?

That would be unfair to county ratepayers.

Now, maybe that's not our problem, except I know plenty of people who live in the county.

Number two, I haven't had a chance to look at Schnabel's significant reduction in cost.

It's rather fortuitous and certainly seems rather dramatic.

But what happens if they shave it too close?

Who pays for the cost overruns that might come about?

Wouldn't that be a surprise for rate payers?

Unless, of course, the county agrees to pay for that too.

in which case it's a surprise for county rate payers.

Three, there was lots of discussion about trucks.

I'm dismayed that a question about millions of dollars may turn on the number of trucks.

This seems something like a smokescreen.

So perhaps to try to compare your apples and apples, we should ask Black & Veatch what options a contractor for a concrete dam would have.

they may choose to mix on site which would minimize the number of trucks.

Number four, I'm concerned that the county repeatedly said take dredging off the table for capacity.

Why would we do that?

Dredging is the most immediate way to increase capacity.

For example, if

UVA has dramatic growth, even though UVA is less than 10% of total water use right now, or federal government growth, or if industry does move in, it's the most immediate way to provide immediate capacity.

This is a measure, I believe, of the county's fear that adding freed up volume to the safe yield analysis

combined someday with a revised demand analysis would cut the legs entirely out from under the 50-year water plan.

Five, I think there's some inflated fear about permit and modification.

We have to modify the permit anyway.

There seems to be a lot of fear even about the stream flows, but as I understand it, the stream flows were not imposed by law, as someone said today.

They were agreed to by DCR and the Corps.

A phased plan can be consistent with the existing permit.

We phase in the streamflows.

In fact, DEQ approved a permit for phased construction, which has implicit approval for phased streamflows.

Six, I'm distressed that the county thinks legal counsel will have the answers to permit modification, especially legal counsel that has already shown its stripes and seems to be firmly in the Rivanna county camp.

If this goes forward, the city must be involved in formulating all questions and all correspondence and all communication and meetings with such council.

I applaud your September 20 resolution, your expressed commitment to fact-based decisions, your stewardship of the county's natural resources, water resources, infrastructure, and your care for county ratepayers.

Thank you, Ms. Quinn.

Good evening.

Dee Dee Smith, 2652 Jefferson Park Circle.

Hello again.

That was quite a meeting today with the Board of Supervisors on the water supply.

I'm here to thank you for your support of the September 20th city resolution and for your advocacy on the behalf of city residents.

particularly those who struggle.

And I want to thank Ms. Edwards for her questioning of the public health risk of the I-60, of having our only reservoir, what will be our only reservoir go under and up to I-64.

I'd like to thank Ms. Szakos for your dedication to conservation and as an integral part of the water supply.

There was an obituary in the paper yesterday and today you may have seen for Avery Catlin

an important person in this community.

Leonard Sandridge said of Mr. Catland, he was a thoughtful and committed administrator who can see the potential for new technology and innovation before others could imagine its significance.

I thought that was really an amazing testament to this man and I want to in turn thank you for having vision

Good evening members of council and public Stratton Salitas, 704 Grave Street and I'll say first that I don't know very much about the music proposal that y'all are planning on but what Mr. Wolfe said earlier definitely caught my ear and

Personally, I don't think we need more red tape, and I, as a musician myself, am interested in spreading it out in a lot of small, funky places.

So, I was fairly appalled at the meeting today, I have to say, by the comments of the supervisors.

I wrote a few things down, particularly Mr. Rooker and Mr.

Snow.

Mr. Rooker, when he says that the 2002 plan that was agreed on was not permitted, well, Kevin Lynch says that they didn't apply for a permit for that plan.

So, wow, that's a real surprise that it wasn't permitted.

And then when he was talking about dredging,

and the difference between maintenance and capacity dredging.

You know, it seems to me when you take stuff out of the reservoir that increases the capacity.

I guess he was just saying, well, you're only taking the stuff that's coming in as it's coming in.

I don't know what he was trying to say there.

But I hope that not only do we include dredging, but that should be the secondary most important thing in our water plan.

and I think the first important thing in our water plan should be conservation.

If I came to you and said, hey, for the next six years, I've got a way that we can increase our water supply 26% while our population grows 12% and we can do it for almost no money, you would say, wow, that sounds pretty good.

Oh, and there's no environmental impact either.

Well, that's what our default water plan has been for the last six years.

and it's been pretty good, I have to say.

And we haven't even really been trying.

If we were to put $142 million into conservation, I think probably we could, well, I don't know what the hell we would do with $142 million in conservation, but you get the idea.

So Mr. Brown, you seemed sort of impressed at the last time I was here with all the environmental groups from the county that are for the big dam plan.

I personally am not very impressed.

I look at each of these groups and I can see all kinds of interests that they have.

The pipeline, taking the route for the 29 bypass.

I just happen to come across the knowledge that the Rivanna Conservation Society got a $10,000 grant from Albemarle for this de-icing thing that they're doing with the airport.

I know that a lot of the other organizations depend on the county.

You know, Piedmont Environmental Council, you want to do mountaintop ordinance, protection ordinance.

Do you think the county is going to listen to you as much if you fight them on what they want most?

I think it's less likely.

All right, I see the old.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

My name is Betty Mooney.

I live in the city.

I want all the citizens of Charlottesville and all the ratepayers of Charlottesville to know that we were extremely well represented today at a meeting with the county.

Our city council is intelligent, informed.

It's amazing the amount of information they've absorbed over all these many years.

And I truly try to sit there objectively and listen and I think you all understand the issue.

And the issue is huge.

The issue is we have new information.

We have the ability now to have a better plan because of the new information that this city council in their infinite wisdom, and we all here tonight and everybody listening should thank them, have paid for.

And it is well worth our money because it's going to save us.

Tens and tens of millions of dollars and it will mean conservation and thank you Ms. Szakos.

I think finally we need to admit that as a society we cannot continue to throw away our infrastructure, to throw away what we have.

It's time we started to take care of it.

We have so many great assets in this city and we have let them go.

The Rivanna Water and Sewers Authority has maintained literally nothing for the 40 years I've lived in Charlottesville.

It's time that now that we have an elected representative and I believe we have better oversight and a wonderful new city manager, who I believe will have excellent oversight, that we insist that that water authority maintain our resources and that we fix our leaks

and that we insist on conservation and that if we're going to have a new water plan that we use the best information we can have.

Not old information, not outdated information, not false information.

I thank you all because I know it's not been easy and I know you're sick of hearing us.

And I, as soon as I get off of this water thing, I am so excited about your dialogue on race.

I met a wonderful new woman at Grace Tinsley's scholarship dinner.

We're going to get together.

I think that is a fabulous initiative.

And we need to put the water plan to rest and just say, dredging is the way to go.

It's maintaining the one reservoir we have that fills itself.

It's an immediate way to get more water.

It gives us decades of time to figure this out.

We don't really even need the new dam, but I understand there may be a compromise.

Hi, my name is Sam Bush.

I live at 421 9th Street, NW, Apartment C, Charlottesville 22903.

I'd like to thank you all for having people like me speak my views.

I'd like to talk about the music venue situation.

I've got three points.

I wouldn't find it shocking that the established venues of this town might be pressuring you all to close the less established venues for plenty of reasons.

I think tax purposes, economic reasons, I'm sure there are plenty.

And to this point I'd like to remind all of us really that music and art on a core level are not to be considered a for-profit venture.

like Jacob said.

Unofficial venues and venues like The Garage, a venue that I represent along with Christ Church and Seaville Coffee are part of the reason why we're on the nation's culture map.

Free music and art is a fabric unit of this town.

That's why I chose to stay here after graduating from UVA.

It's, I think, the reason why many of us do.

and I think it's dangerous to consider music as strictly a for-profit venture.

Second point, as far as the garage is concerned, I think it would be tremendously difficult for the city to close the space easily or even legally for that matter because it's on the property of Christ Church and so therefore performances and concerts

outdoor weddings, things like these aren't unlike what we're doing at the garage.

and since its beginning the church has provided enthusiastic support for the space to function and it's likened to our box lunch.

It's an event that we've held for years and years and it's provided free entertainment sanctioned by the church that promotes what could be considered secular music and so the church doesn't find what the garage is doing to be any different from this event.

The third note that I have is on a slightly conservative level.

I think that there are already laws and regulations in place that keep venues like the garage in check.

If there are any complaints concerning noise or lighting

or litter or any type of public disorder, then there are nuisance laws in place for things like this.

We've maintained a really great relationship with our neighborhood and are considered to be a really important part to the quality of life here.

and I'd just like to close with sort of a personal plea to allow us to keep doing what we're doing.

I honestly think it's very important for the city and for the neighborhood, for our church, for the people in this room and we'd be happy to negotiate with you all to allow us to

keep doing what we're doing.

I'd actually like to ask people who are here to discuss this matter to raise their hands.

I think there are a lot of people who care about this.

These are just a handful of people in this town that deeply care about this issue.

So thanks for listening.

Good evening members and public.

My name is Cecilia Lompart.

I live at 221 9th Street, Southwest.

I moved here just a year and a half ago and I moved to attend

Graduate School at UVA.

I'm in the creative writing program, which means that I'm not only a student at UVA, I'm also a teacher.

I'm not a teacher's assistant.

I have my own class of 15 undergrads, all majors.

I have business majors, architecture majors, precommunication students.

from ages 18 to 21.

These students came to me to learn about writing poetry of all things and I offered them one opportunity to make up for their absences and that was to attend local music concerts.

I did that because I grew up with a

Deep belief in supporting the arts in general and because I believe we live in a city that believes in supporting the arts in general.

Case and point, while this council was making their announcements at the beginning of the meeting, I heard support for local organizations, for local workshops, for local events, and everyone who is in this room tonight concerned for our local music venues is making a similar announcement.

Again, just like Sam, if I could bring your attention to the

Bright and brightly concerned faces in the back of the room.

Any one of them who walked in late into this meeting meant no disrespect.

They did so because all of us found out about this an hour ago.

And these are the people who we could assemble within the hour.

and there are many of those who could not attend tonight who wish to, they couldn't because they're working, they're working tonight, they're working, they work every night that they aren't playing music basically and they're working late hours to support a dream that doesn't pay but that they believe in anyway and the venues that support these musicians

Can't pay them.

Can't pay for the permits, but believe in those dreams anyway.

And I refer to the dreams of young people who are not delinquents.

They go to school, they teach at school, they work, they volunteer, and they love this city.

Thank you, Ms. Lampert.

Hello, I'm Drew Carroll, 221 9th Street, Southwest, Charlottesville.

As Ms. Lombard just said, most of the people who are musicians in this town, the ones that could be here and just found out about it came.

I'm someone, like she said, that works every night.

I'm not playing music and I'm not playing music to make money.

And the only time I've ever had a problem with a venue is when it's been one that is based in making money.

and the smaller venues, the garage, the tea bazaar, beer run, all these places close before midnight or at midnight.

and I don't know about you, but the garage is at a church.

It's kind of hard to fall out of a church trunk, as was earlier mentioned.

And we are the people that are just trying to further the culture.

A lot of people come to this city because they have concerts with local bands and they do show trades, which means band comes here, they play with us, we go to their city and play with them.

and a lot of people have fallen in love with this city due to said show trades and if these smaller venues close, there will be no show trades because the bigger venues aren't going to hold us.

We're not the ones bringing in the money and when we're playing, the local bands aren't walking out of there with too much and we're giving most of it to the touring bands to help them out.

Thank you, Ms. Carroll.

Hello Mayor, Council members, Colette Blount, 1523 Amherst,

A little over two years ago, more than 200 people bundled up, drove carefully through the quickly falling snow and flooded the MLK pack with their warmth and energy.

Through the simple notion of dialogue, community members joined together to expose the roots of the issues of race that permeate our city.

Around tables, in and out of coffee houses, religious institutions and classrooms, people met to share, to question, to extend, to observe,

to play devil's advocate or to assist all of this for the sake of connection.

I appreciate the initiative shown by Holly Edwards and Maurice Jones in starting the process of dialogue.

At almost each of the many events I've attended, I've seen a new face or been a part of a getting to know you activity that did indeed move people away from the term stranger and closer to that of acquaintance or friend

A month and a half ago, the Achievement Gap Action Team hosted a community forum here in council chambers, five panelists from local organizations, and the general community responded to questions.

There were over 60 people in attendance and over 20 organizations represented that evening.

It was a wonderful opportunity to gather information to assist us in addressing the issue.

Whenever an opportunity arises for a group of people to come together to learn from each other, it's a good thing.

With most new ventures, along with a curve of learning, there is also one of participation.

These curves allow for groups and or individuals to flow in and out naturally as life so dictates.

It is vital that avenues such as the dialogue on race be allowed to expand.

I strongly encourage city council to continue the funding of the dialogue on race efforts and allow the vision it had at the beginning of this venture time.

Time to grow, time enough for the toxic roots of confusion or misunderstanding to be replaced with the organic ones of vibrancy, optimism and innovation.

A bit of chicken soup advice, two heads are better than one, Rome wasn't built in a day, don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

On a second note, I want to put a plug in for the Rock Hill Academy.

I spent yesterday and the day before and the day before pulling weeds and uncovering what is the most amazing thing in Charlottesville.

Ms.

Moon spoke of our city assets.

that if you ever have a chance to go there is amazing.

It is terraced with amazing stone walls that nobody in this day and age would think of putting in, walking towards the back.

On both occasions I saw two blue heron in the water back there.

It is amazing.

We should not lose any part of that to putting in that monstrosity of the Meadow Creek Parkway that is proposed to be there.

The other one is, I want to put a plug in, although I didn't know this wasn't on the agenda tonight, for the outlets for our music venues for our young people.

I have, my former students are of the age now where they're coming out in the public and they're wanting to

Hello, Council.

My name is Peter Castiglione.

I'm 1516 Chesapeake Street.

I'm the owner of Mya restaurant and a lot of what I was going to say has been addressed, so I'll try not to be redundant and make this as fast as possible.

Just a couple of comments on the special use permits and this dance hall restaurant situation.

There's a fair reason for concern with the proposed SUPs pertaining to restaurant music halls.

The idea that I as a restaurant owner may not be allowed to offer live music within the confines of my restaurant property is disconcerting.

There's a fine line between a business operating as a full-fledged restaurant that supports live music and a music hall, and I'm worried that this distinction

may be being misapplied and use a call to a restaurant.

I would ask you to consider the difference between the two.

Although Maya is a restaurant first, we do offer live music three nights a week and I can honestly say that the live music enriches the culture and the atmosphere of our business and after almost four years has become an integral part of what we do.

I think we fall under Section C, which means we would need to apply for a special use permit

and what we would fear is that in the future maybe we would not be able to get a special permit.

The idea that at some point we could be denied this permit, we're zoned out of even having that opportunity as disconcerting.

Again, live music is a valuable part of what we do and I believe that dining and live music culture is something that you find in all the great cities and we're very fortunate to have such a rich music scene here in Charlottesville.

As a last point, I'm really concerned about the fact that some restaurants could be grandfathered out.

I think it's after, if they did music before 2003, the way it's currently written.

This seems unfair to me in a competitive market.

I believe we have upwards of 240 restaurants in the city.

Allowing one restaurant the opportunity to offer live music while denying another creates a real dilemma.

I don't think that this directive, as currently defined, I think it's going to cause more problems than it solves and that it's really not in the best interest of free market and fair trade.

Thanks, sir.

Guion.

I'm Guion Pratt, 700 Hinton Avenue.

I think like most of these folks I found out about this music venue situation within the last hour.

I was making dinner during that hour so I didn't write anything down.

But I have a few thoughts about this.

Mostly just to reiterate what Sam said about music being for profit only being a very sort of dangerous way to look at a cultural practice in the city that I think

brings a lot to the city.

I came from Chapel Hill before I was here and part of the reason I made this switch was I felt like I was trading up into a place where music is very accessible, something that we can get into without it being something where we have to play at the Jefferson, we can play at the garage, we can play at these places.

And I think having those venues accessible doesn't hurt anybody.

It keeps

It keeps everybody, it keeps people like Jacob in business allowing people to make money off of it which is a great thing but it gives those of us that aren't in it for that reason some place to do these things and I think that it would be

a shame if that got messed with and I don't see who it's hurting.

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

We will have another opportunity at the end of the meeting for additional public comment, but we're now going to open it up to council member responses to matters by the public.

Who would like to start?

I'll lead off.

I'd really like to thank Jacob, Sam, Celia, Drew, Peter, Gaian, and then Colette, Betty, maybe I named them all, for coming and talking about the music issue, especially considering we had a previous musical issue where I argued pretty strongly to make sure we didn't hurt an important part of our economy, an important opportunity for young people.

In a case where it was clearly impacting a neighborhood and residents, and I think Allison will probably verify that I was perceived by some as being on the wrong side of that issue, but I think it's really important that we try to keep our music scene vibrant, and I'm concerned about this, the path, we seem to be going on this, and I'm gonna ask that we pull it off the agenda and talk about it and make that we're clear on where we're heading and where we're gonna go with this.

I'd also,

I'd like to thank everyone who made the positive comments on the dialogue on race and what that really means is I'd like to thank Holly who really pushed us to do this, not only to do the dialogue on race but to do it well.

And then finally I want to thank Brandon Collins for calling to our attention, to my attention, the really bad legislation that's happening in Richmond.

It's both just wrong.

We're a nation of immigrants, largely, some willing, some unwilling.

And for us to pull up the drawbridge now is just wrong.

On top of that, it creates more problems, as was pointed out.

I will say I think a two-page resolution is a bit much, but we'll work on that.

I have two or three comments, similar to Dr. Brown's comments.

I definitely support the immigration legislations.

We oppose those legislations which are being considered in the state.

Myself being an immigrant, I have a good feeling for that.

We could use some more immigrants, a little less.

And I think we should make every effort to do a resolution to support this as soon as we can.

I also support the same idea of dialogue and race.

I think City Council has unanimously supported that and will continue to support that in the future.

So I was not concerned why some people are thinking

I'm going to drop it now.

I'm surprised.

And again, I'm also very pleased to see so many young people in the audience with music as a major venue.

I travel quite a bit.

One of the criteria of my wife's to go to a restaurant is if you don't have live music, you don't go there.

So we do have a lot of young people in this community playing good music.

I think we should really be encouraging them.

I just agree with the comments that have been made, but I also wanted to make some connections since that was an integral part of the dialogue on race and I think Brandon Collins should

and Cecilia Lompart should create an opportunity for all the students to get together to talk about the legislation and the things that need to be done because I think music has a way of connecting people anyway.

I would concur with my fellow councilors.

I think that I really appreciate Brandon Collins coming and talking with us and sending the information.

I agree with the two-page resolution.

I think we can do some editing.

But I think that even regardless of how we feel about immigration, and I agree with Mr. Huja that immigration is what makes our country strong, not what weakens it.

But I think that even if we disagree on that basic premise, I think that a lot of the legislation that's before the General Assembly now would make

our jobs as city councilors more difficult.

It would force our police to do things that are not part of their job.

It would overfill our jail.

It would do things that would make our community less safe rather than more safe.

It would make it hard for the police to do their work because people would be afraid to come forward and report crimes.

either against themselves or be witnesses of crimes against someone else and I think that those are all reasons why as city councilors it's our responsibility to take a stand on those issues so I do support that.

About the music venues, this is an interesting thing because Mr. Brown and I argued a fair amount about this issue when it was in Belmont and I think that one good thing that came out of that discussion was a sound ordinance that

that does help protect neighborhoods in a very strong way.

And I think that some of you all pointed that out, that we have that tool at our disposal.

And I think that I agree that we should take this off and discuss it separately rather than having it in the consent agenda tonight.

But I think that that's something that we need to look at as we look at that issue.

As a musician, I also support

Live music in our city.

There was something else that I wanted to mention.

Well, the dialogue and race, of course, I'm fiercely supportive of as the only member here who didn't vote for it just because I wasn't here yet.

I look forward to supporting it in the future.

I'll echo comments that my fellow counselors have made.

I too strongly support the local music scene and the local music venues that allow artists to do their thing.

As Mr. Tolbert can attest, I was rather appalled when I heard about this effort and we had a nice spirited conversation right out there in the hallway.

I think it's moving in exactly the wrong direction.

I think we should be doing more to encourage local music and I look forward to talking about that later and see what we can do in that regard.

Thank you Mr. Collins for bringing our attention to the legislation that I think we have.

an opportunity if not an obligation to stand up against, take a stand against and we'll get to work on crafting a good resolution using this as a framework and I too fully support continued funding and support for the dialogue on race.

Thank you to all who came and speak tonight.

Mr. Mayor, before they all leave, I want to make one comment.

You know, it's nice to see young people coming up on the City Council meeting.

We have a lot of boards and commissions.

We want new citizens coming and joining them.

They may not have realized that these cookies were for everyone who came up and spoke.

See, that's the key.

Well, thank you again.

Dr. Brown?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move that City Council make the following appointments to the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Commission, David Halbronner, to the Charlottesville Sister City Commission, Steven Latimer, to the Housing Advisory Committee, Diane Hillman, to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, John Kamath, Matt Landahl, Skylar Lyon, and Sean McCord,

Any discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

And it carries unanimously.

Thank you very much, Dr. Brown.

I was going to bring that up under business, but I can mention it now.

Sure.

That I'd like to, under council representative on that board, I'd like to expand that board by two seats by adding two youth members to that committee.

So I'll take that as a motion to add two members to that board to represent the youth of our community.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Any discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

And it carries unanimously.

Next on our agenda is our consent agenda.

Item A is the minutes of January 3.

Item B is an appropriation of $12,520 to the Community Attention Youth Internship Program, second of two readings.

Item C is an appropriation of $157,143 to the Victim Witness Assistance Program Grant, second of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $9,480, reimbursement from Albemarle County for additional wayfinding signage, first of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation of $14,598.42, Smith Aquatic Center, appropriation of Boys and Girls Club Reimbursement, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation of $1,485, Virginia Department of Fire Programs, Training, Mini-Grant Award, first of two readings.

Item G, a resolution, Land and Water Conservation Fund application through the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, first to one reading.

Item H will be pulled from the consent agenda regarding restaurant music halls.

Item I, an ordinance and donation of land to Habitat for Humanity, second of two readings.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

And it carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Next we have a public hearing and an ordinance relating the sale of land to southern development.

This is before us tonight on the first of two readings.

Mr. Jim Tolbert.

Mr. Tolbert.

Unfortunately, when most of those here are gone, I can't defend my honor because I won't be here.

The item before you now is

proposed sale of land to Southern Development.

This is one of the two lots on Elliott that I came to you at the last meeting about with a proposal that they both be donated to Habitat and the council said that you would rather that lot, since it's adjacent to the Burnett Commons development, see if there was any interest from that developer in purchasing the lot and them developing it.

I made that contact.

They indeed were interested in it.

and they've proposed to buy it at a price of $40,000.

I talked to Mr. Barber about the value and given the unknown soil conditions or the semi-known soil conditions under it, he felt like that was a very fair price given what it would cost and they have proposed to buy it as is, meaning that they buy it, they know what's under it.

They will build and have to clear it out and clean it out when they do that.

So, again, this is a public hearing, again, because it's a potential new purchaser of the lot, but we would recommend that we sell this to them for $40,000.

That wouldn't be any intent.

All right, we'll now open the public hearing.

Nobody's signed up to speak.

Is there anybody in the public who would like to speak on this matter?

Hi, my name is Allison Ruffner.

I live at 735 Grave Street.

I think more than anything from what I have been able to read from this, maybe I would like to just see some questions answered, which is

If there were a blank piece, I mean, for example, when I get my assessment, I'm told my little piece of land is worth this much, and then the structure that's on it is worth this much.

I would think that there would be at least an understanding when I hear, well, the soil might be this or that, and I realize these are concerns.

I would like to know what the assessments around it are.

Is that looked at?

in terms of pricing and so forth and how that process is handled because what I seem to garner from it is that it was substantially lower than perhaps some assessments were for areas around it and maybe that can be explained why in the process.

Thank you, Ms. Ruffin.

My name is Stan Braverman.

I'm with the Charlottesville Immigration Law Center on Douglas Avenue.

I happen to own property on Burnett Commons, and I know Southern Development is not going to have a problem with the soil because they did all the work around it.

They know exactly what's there.

It's a good deal.

otherwise they wouldn't get into it but Southern Development since that project has tended to just cram everything together to the point you've got too much in one of their developments down on 5th Street is just a bunch of townhouses with short parking spaces

I think the city should take a look at what they're going to build.

If it's going to be one house and comparable to the houses in the area, I don't think anybody's going to have a problem, but if they're going to try and squeeze three or four houses or a condominium in there and it's going to create parking problems in the area, it's going to be a mess.

I think somebody in the city should supervise and look over what they're going to do with it.

Thanks, sir.

Anybody else like to speak on this item?

We'll now close the public hearing.

Mr. Tolbert, do you want to take a stab at addressing the questions?

To the last one first, the property is zoned R2, but the lot is only big enough for a single-family house, and so that's what would go there, and that's the intent.

The other question is, the city assessor had set a value

Just looking at the grass up of $50,000 for both of these lots and given the problems that we know we ran into, given the excavation that had to occur on Burnett Commons, what a lot of people don't know is there was a lot of city landfill on this property in the past where the city dumped a lot of construction materials and so

The soils are not stable.

There are a lot of excavating costs.

As you know, as we talked about on EcoRemod, there was in the tens of thousands of costs to remediate that site before you could build.

It would be assessed based on the values of what's around it so when it's built and the first sale you know the first time it's reappraised or appraised the value would be based on what the land is worth.

I think this is a good use and a good price.

I think it will provide a good transition from one type of housing unit to another type of housing unit.

All right, it's been moved and seconded.

It will carry forward to our next meeting for second reading.

Thank you, Mr. Tolbert.

Next we have a public hearing and ordinance regarding 401 4th Street.

This is the SRO site, single room occupancy site.

This is before us tonight.

Mr. Mayor, let me clarify.

I think what your agenda says and what we need to do is this is first and second reading we'd like to ask you to consider tonight.

Oh, you're right.

You're correct.

Yes.

This is a property, again, that you're very familiar with, 401 Fourth Street, that is proposed for the SRO that will be constructed by Virginia Supportive Housing.

The plan that we had was for Virginia Supportive Housing to lease the property for 40 years at a rent equal to the amount that would have been due in annual property taxes that would have been assessed if it had been privately owned.

As you know, what we've read into is that

a portion of the financing for the project, permanent financing is being provided by Virginia Housing Development Authority and they are providing a 30 year loan which requires that they have control of the site for 60 years, double the length of that term and we are unable to provide a lease for more than 40 years.

State law limits the city's ability to lease property for more than 40 years.

Therefore we started looking a couple months ago now I guess at ways that we could facilitate this where

The property could be made available and in a way that would allow the project to go forward and so what we've come up with is the best way to do that, the only way we've been able to find if we want to make the project happen is to sell the land to Virginia Supportive Housing and at a price of 1.55 million which is what we paid for the property when it was purchased from Region 10.

The agreement would be that we would then turn around and finance the property for Virginia Supportive Housing with no payments due until 2042, 32 years, and the reason for that is that it would coincide with, it would be a 30 year note, the land would be theirs with a 30 year note, but we're doing 32 years, so it coincides with all the closings for permanent financing at the end of construction.

One of the issues that council had was wanting to guarantee and have some degree of certainty that this would remain an SRO and what we found out is that a sale of the property could not have any conditions that would guarantee this and be acceptable to the lender, the primary lender.

There are some factors that would increase the probability that it would remain affordable housing if not an SRO, at least affordable housing.

that is that the VHDA loan is secured by deed of trust that requires the property be used as affordable housing until their loan is completely paid off in 2042 and that the purchase price would be secured by a note in deed of trust as proposed now that would accrue interest until it's paid and we've done that in hoping that may be a disincentive to turn around and sell the property somewhere by requiring interest to be paid if VSH for some reason was going to sell the property

the purchaser would have to pay the interest on that note and it wouldn't just be paying off $1.55 million it would be considerably more.

If we proceed this route the city will have second position so if there were a foreclosure we would be behind the $900,000 VHDA loan which would be $900,000 at closing and then theoretically will be reduced

every 10 years by $300,000, making our position behind a lot less as we go through it.

And the property itself will be essentially a $5 million project.

So there is some security there that there would be enough equity in the project that we would get our money out if the worst were to happen.

We would propose that this be done with an interest rate of 4.128%, which is 1% over the bond

amount of our last purchase bonds that was suggested by the economic development director as a standard way that CEDA loans are done, those type of things, and so it would be consistent with that.

And at the conclusion of the term in 2042, that council then, if any of you are still here or any of us, would have the opportunity at that time to decide if you wanted to forgive the loan or forgive the interest, but under the note it would be due and payable at that time.

We would recommend that the council authorize the manager to execute the sales contract, the note, the deed of trust, and all other required documentation necessary for the sale.

We have representatives from Virginia Sport Housing here.

Good evening, I'm Allison Bogdanovich and we want to thank you again for helping us with a little problem that we had in the last few months related to our permanent financing.

I talked with Mayor Norris a little bit before the meeting.

He said a particular concern to the City Council at this point was this project's ability to last for 30 years.

You all might have seen some

a performer and some projections for us and that there might be concern whether Virginia Supportive Housing can keep this building in operation for the next 30 plus years.

And I just wanted to address that issue and underline our commitment to coming to Charlottesville and operating in this building.

The performers and the projections you saw were very conservative.

They're worst case scenarios.

And they actually predict the

highest expenses with the lowest rent increase as possible.

And what we do is we make sure that we have plenty of reserves set aside for those situations when that happens.

This deal has also been underwritten by investors who are investing about $4.3 million and Virginia Housing Development Authority, who's giving us a loan for $900,000.

And if they didn't think we were going to make it, believe me, we wouldn't have their money either.

I think that it's very important for you to know that we've been doing this for more than 20 years.

We've never closed a building.

We have over 300 units.

Every building that we've built is still in operation.

It's still going strong for what it was intended to do.

And we have to fundraise.

If things are a little shaky that year, it's up to Virginia Supportive Housing to go to the community and fundraise to make up those operating differences.

We don't close the doors.

That's not going to happen.

You know, when we came, when we decided to come to Charlottesville or try to come to Charlottesville maybe two plus years ago, we took it as a really serious commitment.

Our board, our staff all took an evaluation of moving our operations into the Charlottesville area.

We take it very seriously and we've been spending the last two years to try to get the project off the ground.

And so we don't take it lightly.

We really are committed to doing that.

Tonight I have our Deputy Executive Director, Kathy Talley.

And once I get this building out, Kathy's going to be responsible for keeping it going strong.

Thanks, Allison.

We are committed to making it happen, but I want to assure you that we are committed to serving the people in your community who need to be housed and who need to have the support that

will make them successful in being housed.

It doesn't do the community any good to have somebody move in and then just move right back out.

So we're going to make it possible for people to be successful in the housing and we're going to make it possible to be successful for our building and our operation in Charlottesville for the long haul.

Any questions or comments before we... We are also committed to this project.

We are putting up our good money, so we are hoping that you will stick around.

I have just two quick things.

One is that I just want to make it really clear to everyone that the need to do this is not because of something that you all did wrong or something we didn't think of.

It's a change in regulation at the state level that none of us created.

And this is our kind of trying to be creative in figuring out how to deal with it, just so that nobody thinks, oh, they don't even know what they're doing.

We do.

And this is how we're looking at addressing it.

I think when we were looking at some of the

There's been some concern about our vulnerability being second in line in financing, and it seems to me that our real vulnerability lies before the building is completed, because that's the only time when there's not equity in it that would pay back all the lenders.

All right, any other questions before we open the public hearing?

Questions or comments?

All right, we're going to now, thank you, we're going to open the public hearing.

There's nobody signed up to speak.

This might be a little facetious, but I think the charming young musicians that came in here broke my heart because they play for free, combine public housing and maybe a music venue in the new project that's being built.

They would have not only a home but a place for their music.

Delightful idea, thank you.

I'm Ed Bain and I'm chair of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless Board.

I've been working with Virginia Supportive Housing, reviewed a lot of the projects that they have around the state, particularly one in Richmond that they started with in an area that

was run down and they had a lot of NIMBYs that didn't even want that to happen.

Fifteen years later the neighborhood goes to Norfolk to support what they're doing.

So they're here, they know what they're doing, they're professional.

Thank you.

Mr. Bain, anybody else like to speak?

We'll now close the public hearing.

Any other questions or comments?

Before we do that, are there any other comments or questions about

what we're planning to do today.

I mean, this approach does give me some real uneasiness because, you know, unlike what we've been planning for the last couple of years, we do lose some control.

You know, previously we had a lease arrangement where we could pretty much say this is exactly what it can be used for.

You know, with selling it, we lose some control.

It can be resold.

It can only be used for low-income housing, but it doesn't have to continue to be used

for SRO type housing.

But on the other hand, we have some pretty good people who've come before us who have a track, a good track record in other places.

And most importantly, you know, everything I read, that the communities that are actually making a difference with their homeless population are doing so by providing this type of housing.

Any discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

It carries unanimously.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

And the motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate you coming all the way down from Richmond.

Thank you very much.

We have some excellent legal staff here in the cities.

Next we have a report on a little item called the water supply.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, as I think most people know, you had a joint meeting this afternoon from two to four with the Board of Supervisors to talk about the water supply, the areas in which we are in agreement, the areas which we may not be in

agreement and our goal tonight is to try to answer any questions that may have come up during that time, either ones that we can answer tonight or that we can get to you.

At least one member of council did request that Chris Webster from Schnabel Engineering be here tonight.

Someone apparently had some questions for him and so he is here to

answer your questions and at the request of the board of supervisors we will be making arrangements to have our Black & Veatch consultant make a presentation to the board at their earliest possible time.

I'm working with their clerk to see what their schedule is and did emphasize to her that we'd like to do that as quickly as possible.

Questions for Ms. Mueller?

I suggested Mr. Webster come and not that I had any particular question in mind, but just thought it might be useful.

We had a follow-up with Black & Veatch, and since there's new information on his, I just thought I would suggest you come.

We have met with the Albemarle County Service Authority.

and what we are trying to do is pinpoint the elements of each of the parts of the water supply, trying to break it down into what's maintenance and what's added supply.

The other thing that we're working on is trying to bring a recommendation to you of what we believe the

future water needs of the city and the city's largest customer may be.

We've been in conversations with the University of Virginia about this because that will be a key determinant in what the, you know, it's hard to divvy things up

First of all, when you don't know what you're building and then when you don't know what your needs are.

I think we've gotten some very good groundwork done and as we move forward in determining what it is we're going to build and which parts of that, you know, as Mr. Frederick said today, the whole $142 million which people talk about is actually a 50-year

supply plan and we don't envision that the cost agreement that we come up with to start with will cover that entire 50 year period.

It's the first projects of that that we want to come to a cost share agreement on.

And when you say the first part, how far does that go?

That's one of the ones that we're, you know, initially we did not look at that.

Now we're talking about, you know, if there needs to be some kind of a percentage.

We wouldn't bring you actual dollars.

What we would bring you is a percentage share.

And so we opened that discussion with the service authority within the last two weeks.

I had a question.

There's been a lot of assumptions made about different components of the existing water supply system that have come into question.

One of the assumptions being for instance that the existing dam did not have

much life left in it, did not have structural integrity, etc.

We now know because of Black and Beech that that may not have been an entirely accurate assumption.

There's been similar assumptions made about the condition of the current pipeline from Sugar Hollow Reservoir to Ragged Mountain.

I and others on Council have

supported the idea of building a new pipeline.

But I think it's vitally important as we talk about cost share that we really look at what a fair allocation of costs relating to a new pipeline, if it's

If the assumption about the viability of the existing pipeline is actually not true, in other words if the existing pipeline actually has a lot of life left in it, it seems to me that

the lion's share if not almost all of the costs of building a new pipeline really is to accommodate the county's interest in increasing stream flows to the Mormons River in which case the county would need to pay for that cost and I'm wondering how do we establish the baseline in other words

That was the basis of our initial discussion with the Albemarle County Service Authority.

And I don't have an answer for you yet, but we did raise those issues.

Some people will say, well, it's a very old pipeline.

We have old pipelines and we've not come to a decision yet on how we would look at that but we have that wavelength and we are clearly looking at that from, you know, we're in an adversarial position here, you know, we're looking at

what is in the best interest of the city ratepayers and obviously the people on the other side are looking in what's in the best interest of their ratepayers.

So those are the types of things that we're looking at and I appreciate you bringing that up.

Well, I'd like both to agree and disagree with the mayor on this particular point.

I agree completely that we really need to look, use the condition of the existing pipeline as a way of helping figure out a cost share.

But what I disagree on is I don't think it's

I don't think it's solely the county's interest in the health of the rivers.

I see that as a bigger community interest, a bigger environmental interest.

But what I think is that the driver in needing a pipeline is growth.

you know if we weren't expanding the water supply we probably wouldn't be talking about the need for a pipeline so I think it's a different way of framing the question and framing the thing but I think it's the same basic conclusion.

And that's the tough part of what's maintenance and what's growth.

and if I can keep talking, I will.

I don't have another question, but actually I'll just talk for a little bit if that's okay with everybody.

Because that kind of takes me to

You know, it is important to me that we have enough storage capacity to take the stress off our rivers, both the Rivanna River and the Mormons River.

And, you know, there's lots of people down in the weeds of what the permit says and how it all works and what supplies more and what's going to impact our rivers.

But to me, I think it's kind of simple.

I think the simplicity of it is the more water you can collect and store when water is plentiful, when it's raining, the less you're going to have to be taking away from the rivers when it's dry.

Now there's a whole other conversation about refilling if there's a

a series of droughts, protracted droughts, and the pipeline comes into that.

But the bottom line is, the more water we can store, the less stress both our rivers, and the way it's been explained to me, the way I kind of have my head wrapped around it, we can handle.

And that gets me to trying to figure out

What do we need to do here?

And for me, what we need to do has two components in particular.

One component is cost.

And if we can become clear on, you know, that the city rate payers will not be paying for expanding the county's water supply, that's what I want to make sure of, that we're not paying for expansion.

We're paying for our own needs.

We're paying for our customers' needs, which is University of Virginia and hopefully

University of Virginia can see it's in their interest to help us pay for the capital cost of expanding.

And then secondly, what's important to me is that we have enough capacity that we don't impact the rivers, that we ensure adequate streamflows.

When we had this conversation in September, we were missing one piece of information, which is DEQ had given some

very focused, very specific worded information in which they said, looking at their models, they didn't see a 13 foot rise being able to meet permitted stream flows.

I mean it was very specific the way they did it.

And I'm kind of coming to that conclusion myself.

I think we're really, I don't want to see us push the edge of what we can do to store water.

And so, you know, my conclusion is I'd like to see us agree to go to 30 feet with a dam.

Either with a dam or with an initial fill.

Preferably with a dam.

I don't see a reason to overbuild.

And

You know, I think 30 feet, I think if we conserve, if we dredge, we won't need to do more.

But that's, of course, my opinion, and there's lots of people who might disagree, especially on the county side.

I have two questions.

Okay.

Are you talking cost share about conservation?

No.

Okay.

Anything's negotiable.

We had not talked dredging up to this point.

On the conservation, we've bounced it around a little bit and I really need some more direction from counsel of what you're looking for because I'm not sure how to frame that part of the discussion.

And I think you had some discussions about that

this afternoon and I think we need to have some more.

I'm as sensitive as you are that some type of tiered rates

can actually hurt the least able to pay in the city.

And I think we want to be very sensitive that whatever we do doesn't do that.

I think what I would say is maybe we need to revisit the water conservation report that we did 12, 16 months ago and maybe we can update it.

We've been trying to keep an eye on what

Well, I'm not going to even pretend I would be able to come up with a whole lot of specific ideas, but I'm just thinking if the localities agreed to set a certain amount aside per year for giving either tax breaks or something, some rebates for people who put in various appliances that save water,

I think both the city and the service authority right now do have pretty aggressive rebates

programs but they can be expanded and we have not done very much except subsidize the cost of frame barrels.

If we're going to talk about making less than the maximum fill for this, I think that we have to be talking about conservation not just in a kind of a principle but in a commitment way because if we're not all equally committed to conservation

then there's no real kind of check for who decides when we need more.

We can do that.

And my other question is actually for you.

We heard from your company when we were talking originally about a concrete dam about the ability to build say 30 feet and then add on should more capacity be needed later.

With an earth dam?

Yes.

And again, I'm Chris Webster, principal with Schnabel Engineering here at our local office.

Before I answer that question, I do want to make one clarification to what I stated earlier today regarding clearing

Mayor Norris asked a question regarding the amount of clearing, so I just wanted to clarify that.

In the report that we provided with the breakdown, which I think you now have, we have that information and the amount of clearing for the reservoir is 98 acres.

and the amount of clearing and grubbing which would be cutting trees and of course removing the stumps would be for the borrow area which would be the soil excavated for the dam, 45 acres and in the area of a new dam the access road and the outlet structure approximately 16 acres.

So I just wanted to clarify that I think I said about 140 earlier today so with those numbers and yes.

So what does that add up to?

About 165 or so with the, I did not include the clearing of the dam area itself when I stated the amount of clearing.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

The other point for clarification is I mentioned about the comparison of the

Earth Dam to a concrete dam.

When Schnabel was first tasked with the preliminary design work, we initially looked at a concrete dam as Rivanna's previous consultant had.

What we wanted to look at at that time was the possibility of using rock excavated from one site to make crushed aggregate and use it for a concrete dam.

We compared the, once we did the test borings at the site we found we did not have a shallow rock and instead realized that to build a concrete dam of similar height we would be looking at 9,000 more trucks of stone aggregate and that's not concrete.

I think there may have been some confusion in that.

So with regard to the phased approach

We actually began the evaluation of a phased approach for an earthen dam shortly after we determined that was what we felt was the better way to go.

And we looked at basically a few different scenarios which included a dam that would only go up to some height x and terminate.

It would be option one.

Option two would be a dam

that could be constructed in phases.

In other words, some height X and then continue on up to the 42 foot raise at a later date.

And then the third option was to build the dam to its full height and that with the possibility of the reservoir itself being raised to some intermediate height.

And what we found was the cost associated with building an earthen dam in phases

Most of the costs are in the foundation itself and in what's called the spillway, the auxiliary spillway structure, which is a separate structure from the earth section of a dam that extends down into the rock.

And to do that sort of phased approach would involve, again, the cost of the dam's foundation, the cost of the spillway, and then at a later point,

you would have a cost of raising it but then you'd be reconfiguring the spillway.

In other words, the initial spillway would be excavated deeper, say about 30 feet deeper with a shorter dam and then would be filled, the section filled back with concrete.

So there would be some rework as you would with a phased approach.

So the bottom line, the cost to follow through with a phased approach

We would be looking at approximately 95% of a cost would be up front and the remaining costs would be, of course, in the second phase.

But the two-phase approach would, of course, have additional impacts along Reservoir Road,

along the perimeter of a reservoir where clearing took place and the cost, we anticipate the cost of course would be more than with a single phase approach.

So in summary, we feel that a full height earth dam of those three alternatives was really the only practical alternative but with the possibility of a partial height raise of a reservoir.

I'm not sure if that answers your question but I tried to

It answers most of my questions.

And it was very clear.

But I guess one thing that I'm looking at is I think that when we've looked at our demand analysis and looked at various things and kind of changing some of the assumptions going forward and information that we've received since the original estimates for capacity, I think that there's some

thought of if we build a smaller dam, that that may be all we need.

If we built, say, 30 feet, or if we went shy of 42, but adequate for stream flows, that we'd be kind of taking a gamble, that yes, it would be more expensive to add more later, but hopefully we won't need to add more later.

And so how much more would it be to add more later if we lost that gamble?

In today's dollars, probably about 20% more than going a single phase.

Again, that's in today's dollars, but just to, again, very rough.

That's all I wanted.

With regard to the earth dam, it is technically feasible but not practical to do so.

Practical from the standpoint of the cost, as I alluded to earlier, most of your costs are up front.

instead of paying 95% of the cost for a phased approach.

In other words, the first phase.

I think it would be better to pay the full 100% for the full phase given today's market.

In 2011, the cost for dam projects remained low.

The market is very advantageous.

As part of development of this updated estimate, we resurveyed contractors.

The cost that we received back from these contractors that we surveyed in Virginia all remain at these low numbers.

So my concern is that with a phased approach, the cost would be much more than anticipated.

And the second is

The impact to the community, again Reservoir Road itself, you'd be disrupting it twice, disruption to Camp Holiday Trails, disruption to the neighborhoods that surround the reservoir such as Ednam Forest with noise.

All these, we feel that it would be advantageous to go ahead and have a contractor do the work

at once and then move out.

It takes about 18 months.

If the work was to commence, say, in July or August, they would be working in the fall with basically one winter to work through.

And then finishing up the

the project by next year before next winter commences.

If, on the other hand, if it's pushed back, the contractors, of course, will be dealing with two winners and we'd be looking at a two-year project.

So, and then we talked earlier today about the clearing of a reservoir.

It's more difficult for the loggers to get in there a second time to do clearing.

You may have to do clearing from, say, Barge.

have a contractor could potentially have a barge placed out on the reservoir and clear from shoreline.

The phased approach would work best for an earthen dam where you considered the full height and then the reservoir itself as opposed to the concrete dam which could, with a spillway, be set at some intermediate elevation and then brought with further concrete.

And I just have one more kind of follow-up to that.

When you were talking about 95%, just to clarify, is that 95% of the 15.9 to 19.5 or the 95% of 24.8 to 28.4?

Do you know what I mean?

This would be our updated cost estimate, if you would.

and approximately 95% of our current estimate for a phased construction approach.

The dam construction itself, so that is the rain, yes, that you quoted correct.

and I would also point out that the phased approach with constructing an earth dam, I mentioned the 95%, the 30 foot raise would, I think, would probably apply best to that.

Thank you.

Excuse me, I have a comment.

I wanted to thank Ms. Mueller for being honest about the use of the word adversarial because this has begun to fill this way and it's been really difficult as we continue this journey with our water plan.

One of the things that made me rethink the whole process, and the analogy may be too simplistic, but I use a medical analogy, and that's if you're diagnosed with cancer, do you want to have your care plan based on research and medications that were developed in 2006?

Or do you want your medical plan to be based on research and medications that have come out since 2008?

2009 and 2010.

And it was the opportunity to look at new information that was becoming available, which created this path for me to explore the plan.

I'd say it's more of a journey.

This afternoon we talked about going down this road.

In many ways it was like going down a rabbit hole.

But my question now is in regard to the legal consequences.

What would be the ramifications of exploring a new permit?

What would be the ramifications of having a modification to the permit?

I think Mr. Frederick mentioned in the last meeting in the afternoon it will take anywhere from 16 to 18 months to do a revised permit.

Does anybody have a better answer?

What's that?

I mean, I do agree with the line of thought that DEQ is not going to answer hypothetical questions.

They'll run a model.

They'll answer specific questions that we have, but they're not going to tell us ahead of time.

If we want to change something, we need to change it, and they can decide whether they approve it or not.

And I think that the guidance is that some things are considered small in nature and other things are larger.

I think our experience is that some of the plans we've had in the past that we think were just good ideas

just didn't even come close to meeting regulatory approval.

You know, Buck Mountain.

I mean, a lot of money got spent to acquire Buck Mountain for water supply, and it's just not part of the plan at all.

The idea of raising the height of the South Fork, you know, was an idea that had a lot of support, but it just wasn't an idea that could go anywhere.

I think it's a good point.

It's also important to remember that what we're talking about is within the framework of the approved permit.

We're talking about full restoration of stream flows.

to the Mormons River.

We're talking about, it may take a few more years than the current plan, but it's there.

We're talking about providing all the water that this community needs for the next 50 years.

We're talking about an approach to dam construction that's specifically outlined in the permit support document that we all approved.

So I don't see it as a radical change in any way from the permit that's been approved.

It will have to be modified, but it has to be modified anyway.

The permit has to be modified anyway.

And I think DEQ, again, not to beat a dead horse, but they're really looking to us

They're looking to the city and the county.

They've made that clear.

I think the fact that they offered to come and help us resolve the differences, the fact that they've not wanted to weigh in and play the heavy and intervene and would rather see us work this out says to me that I think a resolution along the lines that we've been discussing will be

favorably received.

I think one of the things that I have been sort of struck by in sort of the concerns of some of the people who want to build the Full Height Dam, which I don't want to do, is the concern over having to re-timber once the reservoir's already expanded, having to come back

at any time in the future and expand it further.

And so what I would love if we could do is try to really...

I'm personally not confident that 13 feet is going to give us the kind of long-term thing where we are pretty sure we're not going to have to come back.

I think 40 feet satisfies everyone in the world that we never have to come back probably for 500 years.

I think that the DEQ has actually weighed in once on a very specific question, which was that 13 feet, and they said no.

And so I'm really struggling with wanting to go the minimum amount that really kind of enforces and reinforces our commitment to conservation, to dredging,

to our belief in the new information that we've come up with without just being so optimistic that we end up backing ourselves into a place where it's kind of a 50-50 chance of whether we'll have to build more or not.

And to me, the risk of that is high enough that I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.

I understand the logic.

I just want to make very clear that DEQ has never said no to 13 feet, never.

What they said was that 13 feet will not meet the goals, 13 feet plus dredging will not meet the goals.

outlined in the permit, 2006 permit, which simply means you need to go back and amend the permit.

It doesn't say it won't meet state law, state code, state guidelines.

They never said that.

What they said was it doesn't provide as much water as the 2006 plan.

and it doesn't provide as robust streamflows in the interim period between now and when the new pipeline is built.

I just want to make that very clear.

We all knew that.

And I don't think that most of us want just the minimal, you know, what's barely allowed by law.

Right.

Ms. Miller, I would like to make a few comments, if you don't mind.

It will take a few minutes to do those.

I hope you will be patient.

Now we have been talking about war for some time and I think we need to come to some conclusions.

It is not the civil city alone or the city and county.

It is not just alone.

We cannot make a unilateral decision which everybody will agree to and vice versa.

as everybody is aware that water is one of the most fundamental needs of human beings and people before us who are here did planning for us which we are taking advantage of now and we need to do likewise for the future generations to make sure that we have adequate supply.

I don't mean to say just wasteful supply but adequate supply.

As you are aware that there has been extensive study and research by consultants who were hired, the county is hired, as well as the citizens who are sitting in this room who did a lot of research and provided a lot of good information I think.

I think we need to take that information and go from there.

Studies have shown that there is a need for water and you can, the difference questions comes up

It could be anywhere from 18.4 to less, something like that.

In our plan, my understanding is that there is 109 gallons per person whereas DQ suggests between 80 and 200 gallons per person.

So it is a fairly modest allocation for water per person.

As I think we just discussed a few times, the University of Virginia is growing, which we didn't know before, and the day and days are going to go from 1.5 million to 3.1 million, almost double, and they are our customer.

They are not only customer, but they are 31% of our city's water goes to university, so they are big customer.

in a sense.

And there is some growth, growth is expected in Cali and the University and some little bit of city, but given the University is part of the city system, so that growth needs to be accommodated somehow.

As you are also aware that when we plan for water, we plan for the worst situation, not for the average situation.

And there were droughts in the last few years, quite a few of them, and 2002 was probably the worst one.

and you are mostly aware that city has 54% of the water use and currently has 46%.

So we are a big player in this water, not just a minor player.

As we discussed a number of times, today and afternoon, that dredging needs to be part of a solution.

And in the past 50 years or so since the bore, the reservoir was built

what 22% of the space has been lost because of the, no more work has been done on maintenance.

We need to do some standard dredging, especially segment 1 and 2, which we talked about by DHR, HDR study, as we talked about many times.

Besides that, the maintenance dredging is equally important in my mind, because it is a good asset which needs to be maintained, as some of the citizens in the audience have just explained to us.

as we also talked about conservation.

I think planning costs are 5% conservation and I think we discussed that we should raise it so more than 5% maybe 10 or 12 or 15% and I think it can be achievable and that way you won't need elemental water as need

and to achieve the conservation goal, as has been said, we need to provide some incentives.

It's not just, it's not going to happen by itself.

We need to provide incentives and a plan of action.

These things do not happen by chance.

Some of these will make them happen.

We do need to expand the capacity of Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

My understanding is that they have said that you need at least 30 feet of dam addition to make the means for the water, for human beings, as well as for the flow of the environment and the river.

If you were to put a 42-foot dam, it will take anywhere from 30 to 160 acres of land underwater.

At the same time, we will be getting, my understanding is that we will be getting 200 acres of land nearby from Nature Conservancy, and another 200 acres will be planted in Buck Mountain Creek.

We also need pipelines and improvements to infrastructure which are outlined in our plan.

We also are committed to, and I think as Mr. Szakos has said, we need to deal with the water needs for the warmness in Rivanna River.

Rivanna is minimal but what is necessary for a desirable plan of flow.

We also need to have a very equitable share of expenses.

Whereas the county is basically going to do the most growth.

I think that they need to be bearing the most cost of any dam and pipe.

We need to think at least the best plan we can have for long term rises for short term.

We had talked, and I also want to go back to September when we acted on the resolution, we talked about 13 foot at that time.

At that time we did not know

that we provide enough water for people as well as for the diverse.

In spite of what may be said, that does not meet the needs of water.

In 2010, in September, we also did not know that U.S.A. is going to grow much more rapidly than its plants.

At that time, we were aware of it.

As I mentioned, they've doubled their water consumption and that they are one of our customers.

We also need to build some trigger points for higher dam or higher water level based on maximum daily use maybe on an average of 5 year water plan trend so that there will be a surety that there is more need for water we can build on it or some ways

I think that we need to proceed with some decisions today and discuss the resolution which we have adopted.

I think most of the resolution in my mind is pretty well.

The resolution is still good and I would think that if you can go to 30 feet elevation on your first dam, it will take care of most of the needs and my hope is that the dredging and the conservation will provide

I'd be prepared to make a motion.

I'd like to move that we amend our previous resolution to

It's been moved and seconded.

I would say I'm more comfortable with 30 than with 13 but really only if we really lock in

Conservation and Dredging is part of this.

And I think when Mr. Rooker today was saying that dredging isn't allowed under the permit, I think that sometimes we get semantically confused when you talk about something being permitted, meaning it's in the permit.

When it's not permitted doesn't mean it's not permitted.

So I think there's nothing that says we can't dredge.

Yes, but I think that as we talk about locking that in we also have to talk about financial, you know, going forward.

Yeah, what I would hate to have happen is for us to do this in good faith and to say, we believe that 30 feet is going to be enough.

We really do.

We don't want to add on later.

We think that we would agree to adding on later if something, if we're completely miscalculating and something is really wrong with this, that in 40 years we realize we need more water.

That's within the realm of possibility.

It seems to me that going with 30 feet

I think it's important to note that the reason, just to remind the public, the reason why 13 feet was the preferred position of many Charlottesville citizens and some of us on council was once you get beyond a 13 feet rise, the cost of the project rises significantly because

You're having to pull the reservoir under Interstate 64 which requires several million dollars worth of infrastructure.

It also significantly increases the impacts, negative impacts on the natural area by having to construct access roads to that embankment site.

And obviously the larger you go on the reservoir, the significantly higher tree loss, more acres of forest, biologically rich forest is destroyed.

And obviously there's just cost in building a larger dam.

It's a significant increase in cost.

It also, when you, I think Mr. Kuttner made a very eloquent point that in cautioning us about overbuilding, about building to peak demand, because then it obviates the need to be innovative, it obviates the need to conserve, it obviates the need to incorporate and pursue new technology.

Or I shouldn't say obviously, but it lessens the

the pressure to innovate, to find new technology to conserve, to be more efficient.

And I think that's an opportunity lost in moving beyond what we know we'll need for at least 40 years to come.

I guess when I have

agonized about this and lost a lot of sleep over that very thing because it does exponentially change it, maybe not technically exponentially, but it does, it changes the ballgame when you're talking about going past 64.

But I think that given the kind of our best guess looking forward for 30 years or 40 years or 50 years, I think that we can all see that our, well maybe we can't

Maybe we don't all agree, but I feel strongly that the likelihood of our needing that at some point within this 15 years is high.

And so rather than just avoid doing it now, knowing that we might well have to do it later, plus the added environmental impact of doing it later when we've already expanded once and done construction once and then having to come back in and do it again, to me balances out, makes that seem like

All right, there's a motion on the table.

It's been seconded.

Construction of 30.

Motion carries 3 to 2.

We've had a request to take a short break.

We will reconvene at half past the hour.

you

I've been waiting for you.

Mmm

You're welcome, please.

Thanks for watching

Are you conveying the meeting?

The next item on our agenda tonight, I guess I didn't note early on that originally on the agenda we were to have a report and a resolution on Carver Recreation Center lease, but that has been deferred.

Sorry, I forgot to announce that.

So the next item on our agenda is a report and ordinance relating to electronic gaming cafes.

Mayor Norris, thank you once again.

We are asking for the similar action that you took on the SRO earlier this evening to waive the second reading and to pass the item on

on the first reading tonight just so that we're prepared like other localities are already around Virginia with similar laws who have those similar laws on their book.

We want to be in the same boat as everyone else.

What we're talking about is what we're classifying as electronic gaming cafes that are called out in the press oftentimes sweepstakes cafes, internet sweepstakes cafes, something like that.

Customers will enter these establishments, purchase a ticket or a card of some sort that gives them internet minutes or credits of some sort.

It varies from establishment to establishment.

Those are used to play a series of games.

a computer or a wall mounted terminal of some sort and the customer has an opportunity to play these games and win additional points or credits that can be turned in for cash or if those credits are used they can purchase more credits to play the games again for additional

opportunities to win cash or prizes and this is a gray area at the state level and there are a number of state laws that have been bills that have been submitted at the General Assembly this year to better firm up these types of establishments to whether they are classified as gambling establishments or not and in the absence of

of being able to control the General Assembly, which is something we can't do, we decided to take a look at this issue from a land use approach and we think it's a vital approach because of the proliferation, the very quick proliferation that these establishments have made, particularly along the south side and in other communities in Virginia, mostly resulting from the fact that they were banned

by North Carolina earlier last year as a part of some state actions on the part of their legislation.

So the Planning Commission did take up this item at their December meeting.

They supported a proposed definition that was generated by staff to define the use

We also proposed to limit the use to be permitted only by special use permit in four zones throughout Charlottesville.

The Planning Commission felt that that was a bit too broad and they limited that to only two zones in Charlottesville.

And like I said before, we're asking... What are those two zones?

The two zones that they chose to limit it to would be the highway corridor zone, which is most of 29 north of the bypass, also areas of Charlottesville right near the two Interstate 64 exits as well.

The other zone would be our industrial corridor zone, which is basically the more light industrial sections of Harris Street and River Road as well.

The Planning Commission recommended unanimously the ordinance that's before you tonight.

That was something that was a question that came up at the Planning Commission meeting.

And it was a question that we didn't have a good answer for on the staff side.

It was something that we felt was perhaps better for the legal minds to answer.

That, to me, might speak of a reason to do a first and a second reading on two different

days, because I too would far prefer to see these not exist in Charlottesville.

So if we could do that, I would be much happier.

I'm not certain.

I want to say yes.

My concern is that if we don't do something now, it may be a moot question.

If staff was confronted with a situation where someone was to come in and say, I'd like to open an electronic gaming cafe, the zoning administrator by state law does have up to 90 days to determine the use to classify, you know,

what the use is and thus figure out how it would be regulated as a part of our zoning code.

Absent of any laws on the books, the zoning administrator would have that study period to make that analysis.

Clarify what Mr. Rogers said.

The state code says 90 days.

Our code says it has 30 days.

One of the primary concerns is if we have somebody walk in the door and say, I want to put one of these things on the downtown mall,

then he's got 30 days to decide but he has nothing to base that decision on.

You know, similar type use.

As long as they're legal it's very difficult to zone them out of existence.

If we had on the books a first reading that said no zones, would that give you the sort of

I know that if the Planning Commission makes a recommendation and it's been advertised for two and you go to zero that's okay.

Once we've done zero

It's a little bit different situation.

I think you're thinking about individual properties that are zoned to more or less intensive uses.

We're as concerned, Mr. Mayor, that these could be every bit as bad as payday lending, which we know that you're concerned about, with the way they prey on people that don't have the money to do them.

That's why North Carolina banned them.

And that would be our preference.

But as we understand the zoning code, and Mr. Brown may correct us, that if a use is legal, then

I'm not sure if you adopted it today and if you need to show them backwards we could always do that.

Right now they don't go to any commercial area.

They don't go all over Spain.

Maybe, you know, to give Mr. Brown time to study it, maybe if you adopted it tonight and didn't allow him anywhere and adopted that on first and second reading

I don't know if you can do that without legal aid.

I'm concerned that if they're legal, we've got to allow them somewhere.

Yeah, originally we had looked at the purpose and intent of each of the zones listed in the code and we felt that this use matched up with four zones, mostly light industrial areas, areas that are appropriate for an intense commercial activity.

The Planning Commission felt that those areas of the B3 zone, which is an intense commercial area, they felt that was inappropriate.

They differed with the staff and they felt that one of the other light industrial zones, the MI zone, was inappropriate mostly because of the proximity to low density residential zones.

There was a higher proximity, a higher number of low density residential zones

I think to answer your question if you felt that say the industrial corridor was more appropriate than

If we were trying to send a signal that we don't want these kinds of establishments in the city of Charlottesville which of these two zones would you keep in industrial?

I would entertain a motion to allow these establishments by special use permit in industrial corridor zones only and then we'll have our attorney review it further.

Are we doing both readings tonight?

Is there a motion to waive the second reading?

Is there a second?

Second.

Any further discussion on that?

If not, please indicate your vote.

We clear the board.

Thank you.

Let's try that again.

Okay.

And now the motion is to allow them by special use permit industrial core zones.

That's been moved.

Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Okay.

Did we just amend the motion?

Now we have to vote on the motion?

Just industrial.

The second reading was waived.

The motion, there was nothing to amend because counsel had not previously acted on anything.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Next item on our agenda tonight.

is an annual report and budget update from our friends at the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Suzanne Koch.

I do.

I do have a PowerPoint.

Okay, it does work.

Okay, can everyone hear me?

Now I don't know who to talk to here, there, or...

Well, thank you for having me today.

It's been a long time since we've been here, and I'm sort of convinced myself that what you've done was you've just put me last because you've saved the best for last.

So I'm going to go with that and just stick with that.

But we haven't actually presented an update on the SPCA in a very long time.

So this is from 2000, probably 2001.

This is from way before I ever started at the SPCA, and that was what the SPCA used to look like.

We now have a nice new building and we moved into that building in July of 2004.

You know, the new building, despite moving into it, didn't sort of solve all of our problems.

Sometimes it creates more problems because you have a new building and you need new staffing and we had a clinic and we need to staff that.

But still, despite the beautiful building, at the end of 2004, we were still killing 53% of the cats that were coming into the doors of the SPCA.

We were also still killing, and I use killing term versus euthanized because these were healthy, adoptable animals and we were still killing some of the dogs that were coming in.

50% of the animals that we adopted out from the SPCA at that time were not spayed and neutered.

Very limited assistance to the public for spayed and neutered services.

We didn't have any counseling or any help if people got in trouble that we could help them with.

And we had very limited medical care for the animals that were coming to us and needed help.

But then in 2005 we adopted a no-kill mission and with that mission what we really adopted was a new attitude and we think this is all about attitude.

The attitude that we adopted was just a relentless determination to succeed and success for us meant saving lives.

What that meant is we were just focusing on the positive.

We weren't going to sit there and talk about all the excuses about why we couldn't save animals and how hard it was and that there are too many animals and not enough homes.

But what we wanted to focus on was solutions and not excuses.

And we also wanted to set what I say is audacious goals because we didn't want to go from killing 53% of the cats one year to maybe only 43% next year and 33% the next year.

That was just not

It's going to work for us.

We didn't want to take 10 years to save the animals that were coming in our doors and that needed us.

And so what we did is, along with a new attitude, we adopted a new strategy which we called the Just Do It strategy.

We're not against planning, we're not against strategic planning, but we think you can do things and at the same time plan.

So we didn't want a 10 year plan to begin saving lives.

We wanted to do it right away.

And the it that we wanted to start doing was just implementing a lot of programs that were proven to succeed for saving lives.

And I'm not going to go through this list because we'll go through them a little bit individually.

But one of the first things we did was we changed our hours.

And you can a lot of times do that without having a great budgetary impact by just

having people start later and work later, but we needed to be open when the public got off of work so we could help them and they could adopt animals.

We needed to be open on the weekends, not somewhere like 11 to 4 when everyone was working during the day.

So we did that immediately.

and then implementing some other things like a great foster care.

I heard you all talking about foster care.

Well, we'll talk about our foster care for animals.

We have an incredible foster care program.

We really focused on improving our customer service so people had a good experience when they came into our SPCA.

The first thing that we'll talk about in more detail is our foster care program.

And while foster care is needed for many, many reasons, one of the main reasons that we needed foster care at the end of the day was for space.

Because if you look at this, this is what was the white bar here.

Let me see if this actually works.

Apparently not.

There we go.

The white bar here shows the number of cats that were coming in on a monthly basis.

That's the white here.

That's what's coming in our doors in April, May, June, July, and August.

That is what was going out through adoptions, people returning those cats to owners, transferring them to other organizations.

The reason why most organizations kill animals in the country is because this gap

in between what's coming in and what's going out.

They don't know where to put them.

And so they think that the only answer that they have in that case is to euthanize them.

We didn't want to do that.

So we really wanted to focus on our foster care.

When I first started, everyone said, oh, we have all the foster care that we can get.

We can't possibly get enough.

And again, we said, no, we're going to do better.

So we did some things like foster care marketing.

We did a lot of different marketing.

So it could be just emails, postcards, flyers around town.

We did just a ton of marketing.

And it wasn't so much that the SPCA needed people, but the animals needed them, and they needed their help.

And if you look at here, our foster care in 2004, we had about 5% of our intake went into foster care.

That was 300 animals.

In 2005, we increased that from 300 to 992.

The year after that and ever since that, about 17 to 1800 of the animals that come into our care any year go into foster care.

And that actually is about 38% of what the intake that's coming into the SPCA will be fostered at some point during their stay with us.

That is what solved that gap between the white bar and the gray bar in those crazy summer months.

So when we put all these animals into foster care,

And it was like, what are we going to do with them?

No, they're all going to come back.

And everyone said, well, we're not going to have anywhere to put them when we come back.

So we focused really on our customer service and really helping people the minute they walked through our door so we could provide them the service so they could adopt an animal from us.

But we also focused a lot on our marketing.

And it's a little bit, I don't know,

Well, I don't know that I'm going to be able to switch the lights.

But what we do, we do a lot of adoption events and what we wanted to do is bring people into our SPCA.

There's no holiday that's off limits to us.

We celebrate them all.

Halloween, Christmas, everything, and then we create our own.

So we did a lot of adoption events to get people to know what we had.

And I mean, like most people with businesses,

You know, up until this point, a lot of SPCA's even to date still do this.

They sit around and they just wait for people to come.

They don't do anything.

No business in the country would have a store and just wait and hope customers come in.

It's our responsibility to let everyone know that we have a wonderful product and we have the best product around.

Cute little dogs, cats, kittens and puppies.

So we did a lot of marketing.

We created different specials for just about every occasion.

Winter Olympics, every time the U.S. won a medal, we discounted our adoption fees a little bit more.

We had the Mad Cat or Tea Party when we had the movie come out.

Oldies but goodies, senior pets still rock between naps at least.

Desperate house cats.

This is our current special.

We have a lot of hounds right now.

It's the Love Me Tender special.

All hounds are $12.95.

That's because that's the price that Elvis paid for his first guitar.

And they also get a free case of Pepsi donated by Pepsi because Pepsi was Elvis's favorite drink.

So we just try to take everything we can and let people know and have a fun, you know, creative marketing to let people know that we're there and we've got the best pets available.

Because we have so much fun with all of this marketing, a lot of times the media, and I love the media in Charlottesville because they actually really help us get the word out about the pets and about everything.

So the media picks up on our stories a lot and helps our adoptions.

We are, I was going to say a big fan, or we like Facebook.

Those terms, those Facebook fans.

We have over 4,000 Facebook fans right now.

And it's a great way for us to get our word out and let people know what's going on in the community.

We also have an off-site adoption satellite which for the first year and a half was donated space, retail space, that we could have CATs available for adoption.

Right now we pay rent and we have a donor that actually pays the entire year's rent for that facility.

So it's no cost for us.

And as you'll see, we did increase adoptions and then we decreased euthanasia.

So we, I don't want to say we don't, and I use the different term here, I don't say we don't, I use kill if we're putting to sleep healthy, adoptable animals.

I use euthanasia when we're putting to sleep animals that are very sick or very aggressive and are too, there's too much of a public safety risk to place them.

So we only euthanize 10% of our population, we save 90% of the animals that come into our community.

But that alone, adoptions, foster care, we still needed to do a lot more and that was on the medical care of the animals that we provided.

And one of the great things about our facility right now is we do have a fully licensed, a full serv- licensed full service veterinarian clinic.

Meaning we can do more than spay and neuter, we can also do a lot of different types of surgeries to help the animals that come into us.

And that little puppy that was there came into us

And it wasn't just skinny because there was nothing wrong.

It wasn't that we tried to feed it and it would just throw it up.

It didn't have any virus, anything like that.

We couldn't figure out what was wrong with it until we put it under, it went under surgery.

And you'll see that, I don't know if you can see the stick there, but that stick was lodged into the puppy from its esophagus down to its stomach area.

And once we got that stick out,

That was a great little puppy and it went into foster care and then was placed in a home right after that.

This was a kitten that was brought to us by Officer Durr from the City Animal Control.

This was a kitten that had jumped into maybe a bucket of tar and then got into some rocks and it came to us like that.

I gotta tell you, we weren't sure what to do with that poor little kitten.

But it just really took a lot of time to get all that oil and stuff off of it.

and to help it, like giving it some pain meds because as you took it off, some of the skin would pull off too.

And we worked with one of the veterinary and emergency centers here and they helped us overnight and that kitten was in good shape and got a great home.

And actually that kitten lives with someone who works for Service Dogs of Virginia, so that kitten helps work with all the different service dogs too.

But one of the most essential things about our clinic is our spay and neuter efforts.

We provide ongoing spay and neuter, subsidized spay and neuter services to the public.

So not only do we now adopt

All of our animals spay and neuter all of our animals before they are adopted but we provide a service to the public if they can't otherwise afford to get their animals spayed and neutered we will do it at a very affordable price.

But again, even though our normal spay and neuter service is pretty affordable, we run specials all the time, especially for cats.

In our current special right now, we are doing free cat spay and neuters.

Anyone in Charlottesville in these targeted zip codes, we will spay and neuter your cat for free.

And that's by virtue of a $56,000 grant that we got from PetSmart Charities because we did the research and we pulled the data to say where are the kittens coming into our SPCA.

Where are the areas that we need to go out and spay and neuter those cats before those kittens ever come in?

And by pulling that data and being able to give them that, they gave us $56,000 so they could subsidize the surgery so we could do them for free.

And so that's running right now.

My guess is we'll probably run it into February too.

I don't know if people know, this is all year round, every day, free spay and neuter of pit bulls in our area.

Anywhere in Charlottesville or Albemarle County, if someone calls us up and they have a pit bull, no questions asked, we are going to spay and neuter that dog for free.

and what you'll see here is the number of surgeries and I think people don't really realize how much is going on in our clinic but this is the number of spay neuter surgeries that we do in our clinic every year and how it's increased.

In 2008, we almost got to 6,000 surgeries and actually this year,

And had we paid a little bit closer attention to that number, we would have got those 30 animals in at the end of the year to hit that 5,000 target.

But we have been spaying and neutering a lot of animals in our clinic every year.

So since embarking on our no-kill mission, and this is all of what that means, we have maintained saving 90% of the animals in Charlottesville, Albemarle for five years now.

That is actually quite unheard of across the country.

We are one of the few places in the country that has maintained a save rate like that for one year, let alone five years.

We've found homes for more than 18,000 animals.

We've spayed and neutered 25,000 animals since 2005.

And we've provided life-saving medical care for more than 12,000 animals.

And so when I give you, you know, I talk about how unique this makes us, this bar on top is the number of animals that we save.

So we're always around the 90%.

This is, if you looked at all shelters and rescue organizations and everything in Virginia, under the state of Virginia you have to report all of your data to the office of the state veterinarian and it's online and people can look at it for any organization to see how many animals they're saving and how many they're euthanizing and how many they're adopting out.

But the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, right now we're only saving 60% of the animals, if you look at Virginia.

If you look at the nation, it's sort of a bar that the data hasn't been updated for a long time, but really the last statistics that were pulled nationally, animal shelters and groups around the country are only saving 50% of the animals that come in.

and quite frankly I think that's a tragedy.

There are programs that we can do, that people can do all over and that work.

So our goal has really been to create the SPCA as a fun center for everyone that comes in, young, old, and the animals.

It's a fun center for everyone.

because we really think that the bond between animals and people creates a really great, loving relationship and it's the greatest job to have when I walk around.

People always tell me about an animal that they've gotten from the SPCA and there's nothing that makes me feel better.

because of the accomplishments over the last few years.

For the last five years, we've received awards from local groups, regional groups, and some very influential national groups.

But just if you look at in 2010, we actually recently received from the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies the Ashire Award, and that was for the volume and what we've been doing with our spay-neuter programs.

and I think all of this, I think it's created a great sense of community pride.

I don't know how many times I talk to volunteers and people that come into our SPCA and one volunteer just said it to me the other day how proud she feels to live in Charlottesville because she feels that the animals are safe in our community, that they can count on our SPCA and that makes us feel great.

So a little bit about the expenses.

Here are our expenses.

And I'm gonna talk to you about a little bit at the end where I think our expenses are related more so because if you really look at our save rate, everyone always says, well, all the expenses are associated with the no-kill mission.

Well, to some extent, there's some expenses.

But we went from no-kill in 2004 up to here.

We were like this and then we leveled off.

So if it was only related to that, it would be all up and leveled off.

Our expenses are made up of a number of different components and these are the major components.

It's really animal care and veterinary care.

That is what really makes up a lot of our expenses.

Our rummage store, which says 11%, that's all rent, pretty much.

I mean, we do have some minimal staffing, but it's rent and then a mortgage.

We still have about a 2.8 million dollar debt on our building.

We've reduced that from about 3.5 million in 2005, but it's still a significant debt.

And the rest, then, are the administrative and the fundraising cost.

If they're related to fundraising, they're going to go into fundraising.

If they're generally related to adoptions, some of them will go in animal care for adoptions.

Yeah, a lot of it is just flyers that we put a lot around town and very low cost.

If we're going to spend any money on, any significant money on marketing, it's not so much the flyers it would be if we decided to do a TV ad or a radio ad.

We did that early on for a couple years and we pulled back because of the expense.

Lately some people may have seen our Love Somebody commercial or PSA with Sissy Spacek.

That was actually sponsored by BMW and Comcast.

So we actually did not have an outlay of any expense for that.

So that's what we'll do a lot of times to see if we can get some of that sponsored.

One of the things that's in the expenses, but it is in the sort of animal care and the veterinarian expenses, too, is the cost of running our contractual obligation to run the pound for the city of Charlottesville and the county of Albemarle.

And what does that mean?

You know, we sort of lump everything in together.

We don't sit there and look at all of our businesses differently because every animal, when it walks in the door, it doesn't matter whether it's a stray, it's been brought in by animal control, it's an owner surrender.

We treat every animal the same.

and so, but we do any strays at the public fine.

They will bring them to the SPCA and then we would wait for owners hopefully to redeem them and we take extra measures to make sure we get the information out that the animal is here and that people can find their animal at the SPCA.

If there is an animal that needs any veterinarian care, by law we are required to provide veterinarian care.

Often times emergency life saving care and having that clinic actually keeps the cost down for that.

Things like bike quarantines or if there's any court cases, if animal control is not a confiscation, we would actually hold the animals in our care.

Our revenue, this is where our revenue comes from.

It's mainly donations, and I look at the rummage store as also donations because everything coming through the rummage store is donated and then we resell it.

So it's donations in the rummage store.

Services and products, services and products, that's where we're going to include things like adoption fees.

On some of our spay and neuter services, we charge a subsidized rate, so if we're charging $25 to spay and neuter someone's CATs, that's where that's going to come in.

Grants and Investments, and then the city and the county funds.

Now, I don't know if you can see this up here, but I tried to break out the total is 14 percent.

I don't have my glasses on, but I think that says 3% in 2009.

So out of the city and county, 3% of that is coming from the city.

In 2010, we're likely to see that go up to around 15%, with 4% of that coming from the city.

And then in 2011, with our new contract, the total will be likely around

21%, thank you, and 7% of that will consist of the payment from the city.

So I said I would come back to where I think actually a lot of our expenses are related to.

And I'm not saying this is totally, it has to do with nothing else, but when I laid out the number of surgeries, spay and neuter surgeries that we're doing,

and the increase in SPCA expenses, you'll see a very, very, whether it's coincidental, I don't know, but there is obviously a relationship to our expenses and how many surgeries that we're going to provide the public.

I will say in 2008 we reduced our expenses over $400,000.

We, like every other business, we were going through some difficult times there.

We did cut salaries.

So people that had salaries, they were cut and reduced.

We had a freeze on any type of raises.

We cut staffing.

And not all of that was just related to spay-neuter, but it was an overall overhaul of reducing expenses.

But I think we would like to see more effort being put into spay neuter in the future so we may see some efforts to increase our revenue and to increase our expenses to do that too.

So what's 2011 and beyond?

We want to maintain our no-kill mission.

And let me say that despite having held it, have done that for five years in a row, every year presents new challenges.

And you don't do that every year without making sure you're operating at excellence on every level of your business every single year.

It's a hard thing to do, but that is first and foremost what we want to continue to do.

But we're all also going forward about doing more on spay and neuter and dealing with the community cat problem in our area.

And I use the term community cats because these are cats that weren't necessarily owned cats.

They don't have an owner.

There are communities' responsibility for these cats.

And the reason I know they don't have an owner is because your normal redemption rate for dogs in our community, for stray dogs that come in, about 40% of them are going to go back to their owner.

About 35 to 40% are going to go back to their owner.

For cats, it's usually less than 5%.

because most of the kittens that walked in our door never had an owner to begin with.

There was a cat that was out there that gave birth that someone found those kittens and they're bringing them into the SPCA.

So it's not that there's not an owner out there.

It's not the owner can't find them.

There's no owner out there looking for them.

So we really want to focus on spaying and neutering more of those community cats.

We work right now with Voices for Animals and we do TNR clinics at our SPCA.

For the year, we probably do about 700, maybe 800 cats during those clinics.

That is not enough for us to reduce the in-cat...

I'm sorry, yes I can, trap, need or release.

That means we're going out there, someone is trapping the cats, they're coming into the SPCA or actually a vet clinic for surgery and they will be released back to where they were.

And that's really to eliminate the repopulation and the birth of more kittens.

I think sometimes there's a real difficulty for people when they talk about cats out in the community and we want to say, well, you know, let's get all those and put them in a home.

Most of these are feral cats.

They're not going to be placed in a home.

They're not adoptable cats.

They're not cats that you can hold and cuddle.

It's different.

And I always try to encourage people to sort of look at them a little bit, maybe like squirrels or rabbits.

And they are living out in the wild with other animals.

And I always hear this when people say, well, I've seen a cat on the street.

We can't re-release it.

It's likely to get hit by a car.

We see squirrels out on the street too and it doesn't mean we're going to go bring them all into the SPCA because we're really not the place for a feral cat and we're really not the place for wildlife.

So we want to do a lot more spaying and neutering generally, but especially on addressing the kitten population and reducing the kitten population in our community.

I will say that I think that no other community in the country has resolved the overpopulation of cats and kittens in their community.

and if we were successful in doing this, this would be yet another way that we would be a model for the entire country.

And we do have people coming from across the country coming to RSPCA with their board members, with their employees and trying to learn about what we're doing so they can replicate it in their community.

So I leave this with a final story about Rochelle because when I said we adopted our no-kill mission, I said what we really adopted was a new attitude.

And I really believe that all of this is about attitude.

And Rochelle came to us.

She was a little...

like three or four month old Chitzu puppy that had been hit by a car.

She didn't look very good and worse than what she looks like here because she had this stick sticking out of her back that was lodged into her back.

And so our veterinarian staff took a look at her, got the stick out, did sew her up and everything.

But it was concluded that Rochelle would never walk again.

She would be paralyzed from the hips down.

And so I think Rochelle's story tells us a lot about attitude Winston Churchill said attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference We think everything that we've done at the SPCA over the last five years has been about a change in attitude

So we looked at Rochelle every day and said, should we euthanize Rochelle?

Is this an animal that we should euthanize?

Is she going to have a good quality of life?

And every time we opened the cage, she was so happy to see everyone, kissing on everyone.

So we just couldn't make that decision.

So one of our fosters, that would be me, took her home.

and said well let me see what type of quality life she would really have.

One of the first things we did was we cleaned up Rochelle and one of the local groomers groomed her and she looked so much cuter.

And then we wanted to see what her life would be like.

And I hope I'm not gonna blast y'all out of here, but this was Rochelle showing what an attitude can make all the difference in the world.

Whoops, wait a minute.

Okay, you're getting no sound.

Wait, okay, so I'm going to try it again.

Okay, so bear with me one time.

Aw, man.

So Rochelle went into a foster home, which at the time had two pit bulls, a chow mix, and two collie mixes, and she took control over the household.

It didn't matter that she was a three month old shih tzu puppy paralyzed from the hips down, she bossed the big old pit bulls and the chow mix around the house.

And so we did find Rochelle a home.

And she is loved to death, she has her own chair, and apparently has many, many outfits for every occasion.

and we think her success just talks about the success of our SPCA.

So I'm ready to answer any questions.

We have a lot of volunteers.

We actually have probably one full-time staff member and a part-time and the rest are all volunteers and we have a lot of volunteers.

I think I go along with Dr. Brown.

I agree, but I was co-president of Voices for Animals when we started the