City Council Meeting   3/21/2011

Mic Check 1, Mic Check 1, Test 1, Test 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Mic Check 1, Mic Check 2, Mic Check 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Mic Check 2.

We have a number of proclamations to get us started tonight to honor individuals and organizations who are doing good works here in our community.

First of all, I'm going to start with a proclamation on Poison Prevention Week.

Whereas last year the Blue Ridge Poison Center responded to more than 31,000 human exposures to poisons in its 54 county service region, including 2086 here in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Whereas poisoning is the second leading cause of injury hospitalization and the third leading cause of injury death in Virginia.

and whereas poison prevention education including the use of child-resistant packaging, safe placement of poisons in the home, reading and understanding prescription labels, keeping the poison control number available is an important mission of the Blue Ridge Poison Center.

Whereas the Blue Ridge Poison Center has been instrumental in alerting individuals of all ages to the needs of poison prevention and providing individuals with treatment information and advice in a poisoning emergency.

Whereas it is fitting to recognize the 50th annual observance of National Poison Prevention Week

in order to highlight this preventable health hazard and help educate all Virginians to better understand how to avoid the dangers of accidental poisoning.

Thank you City Council for allowing me to come here and honor Poison Prevention Week.

It's a week set aside once a year to call attention to this very important health issue.

When you think about the poison center and what it does and who might call the poison center and why might someone call the poison center, it might first help to define what we mean by a poison.

And in fact, we consider a poison anything that can harm you or cause death.

gets in your body if you breathe it in, if you swallow it, if it gets on your skin or in your eyes.

And in fact, 93% of all poison exposures happen in somebody's home, and they're caused by things that we all have in our homes.

Plants, pesticides, medicines, both over-the-counter and also prescription drugs, cleaners.

So anything that is a chemical substance that can harm us, we consider a poison.

It's true that a lot of kids get into trouble with things that I just mentioned.

And in fact, half of all of our calls are about kids under the age of six.

But in fact, 83% of all poison deaths happen to adults.

So poisoning is a multi-generational problem that affects everybody from birth to death.

So please visit our website to get some great tips on how to protect you and your family from poison.

Now, like all injuries, poison can be preventable, but in spite of our best prevention efforts, accidents do happen.

So what should you do if you think someone or yourself may have been poisoned?

You can call the Blue Ridge Poison Center.

The Poison Center is a place where nurses and doctors are standing by the telephone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

You can call anytime.

We're never closed.

and a real live person who is a trained health professional will answer the phone and help you.

And even if you just have a question, you're free to call us at any time and our experts will help you out.

Now, 80% of the time when you call, we're able to give you information to help you stay home and treat your poisoning.

And we estimate that in Virginia alone, we've saved about $11 million in unnecessary healthcare costs by keeping people out of emergency rooms.

So call first and we'll tell you what to do.

It can be hard to remember the number or to find the number in an emergency.

So we'd like you to have it on your hand.

I brought a whole bunch of these.

I'll pass them around.

They fit in your wallet.

There's even a little breakaway part that can go in your keychain.

And this number works everywhere in the country.

You may not be near a telephone bill when you need to call.

So take one of these home with you.

I hope you never need it.

Next we have a proclamation on Preservation Week 2011.

Whereas our historic buildings and historic places are defining elements of our community character, our well-being, and our future development, and whereas the preservation of historic resources and sustainability go hand in hand as complementary concepts, and whereas preserving the heritage of the city establishes the city's unique sense of place, fosters civic pride, contributes to an understanding of the past, serves as a guide for the future, promotes economic growth and tourism,

offers affordable housing options and enhances the quality of life and whereas the Piedmont Area Preservation Alliance will be sponsoring and Preservation Piedmont will be organizing Preservation Week 2011 to provide opportunities for the community to learn more about preservation and sustainability.

Okay, thank you.

The preservation community is very excited about all the events that are lined up for this week, and I would encourage all the citizens of the city to choose at least one event to attend.

There's quite a variety.

We're opening buildings such as Eco Remod on Ridge Street to show what can be done with a historic house to make it energy efficient.

The old jail will be open, the hardware store, which was turned into a restaurant.

and then into Urban Outfitters, that building will be open.

There's a wonderful walking tour of West Main Street and Starr Hill area and several of the restaurants along West Main Street are offering special deals as part of that tour.

And then there's an antique show at the old ice park space.

Yes, thank you.

On the city's website and also preservationpedmont.org.

All right.

We have a very special guest joining us here in a moment from the UVA Cancer Center, who we'll be hearing from in a moment as I read this proclamation.

Whereas this year, 141,000 people in the United States

Let me finish the proclamation first and then we'll pass out the case.

No, you can stay in the room if you like.

It's just a little discordant because I'm reading about

cancer.

Whereas this year 141,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer and whereas this year 49,500 people will die from this highly preventable and treatable form of cancer and whereas colorectal cancer incidence and mortality is highest among African-American men and women

and whereas colorectal screening exams can detect and even prevent cancer before it ever develops thereby saving lives and whereas 90% of colorectal cancers can be cured if detected in the early stages and whereas our late state senator Emily Couric made it possible for Virginians to have colorectal cancer screening by making Virginia insurance companies cover the screening

and whereas people need to know the facts about colorectal cancer because the knowledge of risk factors, symptoms and recommended screening guidelines plays a major role in the prevention and early detection of cancer.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim March 2011 as Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and encourage the people of Charlottesville to know the facts about colorectal cancer, its prevention and early detection because a simple screening exam

will save lives.

And here to talk a little bit more about colorectal cancer, we have some very special guests from the UVA Cancer Center.

Looks like Cindy Thomas and our old friend Nyla Saliba.

My name is Cindy Thomas and I'm the director of the UVA Cancer Center.

And on behalf of cancer survivors and those with cancer, I thank you for proclaiming this Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

As you can see, cancer is an unruly disease and causes a lot of havoc and chaos.

While there are several risk factors for colorectal cancer, the ones we can do something about are diet and exercise.

Here you see that that pesky polyp person is encouraging people to do the things that support polyp growth.

Also, you see a healthcare professional, or have seen them, trying to get rid of the polyp.

The people of Charlottesville can be encouraged to reduce their risk of developing colorectal cancer

by diet, through reducing red and processed meats, and increasing amounts of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, just the things that polyp has not passed out.

Exercise by increasing your activity and exercise as much as possible.

Again, what pesky polyp person has encouraged you not to do.

and by screening.

It's a simple and painless process that can save lives.

The best way to prevent a reduced occurrence of colorectal cancer is to have a colonoscopy with removal of any polyps found.

Polyps are not usually cancerous, but a few can be.

and special thanks to former Virginia State Senator Emily Kirk and others who requires that insurance companies in the state of Virginia pay for colorectal screening.

All right, moving on.

We have a proclamation to honor somebody who's done a lot for the democratic process here in the city of Charlottesville.

Whereas we recognize with gratitude your years of service and dedication to our elections community in the Office of Voter Registration and whereas we appreciate your service as an Officer of Election in the Jefferson Park Precinct in the City of Charlottesville for the past 36 years.

and whereas during the time of your service as an officer of election you have seen and adapted to many changes in voting and in election law to include voting machines, electronic poll books, and new procedures every election and whereas by your perseverance and dedication you have inspired others to take on the important task of ensuring fair and impartial elections and whereas you, Eva Page, are retiring as an officer of election at the age of 90

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do on this date, March 21st, 2011, extend to you on behalf of the citizens of Charlottesville our sincere appreciation for your service and wish you continued success in all of your endeavors.

Let's give Ms.

The best decision I ever made was the day I decided to become an election officer.

Thank you very much.

It's an inspiring example of somebody who gives back to our communities in very important ways.

So thank you, Ms.

Page.

And speaking of somebody who gives back to our community in important ways, we have a surprise proclamation for somebody in the room who is also involved with our electoral board.

Whereas we recognize with gratitude your years of service and dedication to our elections community and the electoral board.

And whereas we appreciate your leadership on the electoral board while rotating as the chairman, vice chairman, and secretary for the past 15 years.

And whereas during the time of your service on the electoral board, the Office of Voter Registration replaced punch card voting machines with electronic voting machines, moved from paper poll books to electronic books, worked with two registrars, and added over 12,000 voters to the registration rolls.

and whereas during your service on the electoral board you have been recognized for your commitment to the highest standards in election practices and implementation as well as professionalism and ethical principles.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville, do on this date, March 21st, 2011, extend to you, Stephanie Commander, on behalf of the citizens of Charlottesville, our sincere appreciation for your service and wish you continued success in all of your endeavors.

Totally shocked, totally surprised.

I was going to get some people.

But I will have to repeat what Eva said.

I have enjoyed my years on the electoral board.

I've learned a lot about elections.

I knew a lot about elections before I came to Charlottesville, because at one point, I lived in the city of Chicago.

And if anybody ever knew about the council wars in the city of Chicago,

You heard politics every day so you got to know about it whether you wanted to or not.

But I would say that being on the board enhanced my knowledge and thank you very much.

We'd now like to share a few announcements before we move on with our meeting.

I'd like to share the Charlottesville Albemarle Reentry Summit and the co-sponsors also the Charlottesville Dialogue on Race.

The City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle, along with community agency partners, are excited to announce a Reentry Summit.

This event plans to raise awareness on the issues ex-offenders face in our community.

We will feature two guest speakers and work with panel discussions and dialogue to promote understanding, identify issues, and create strategies for new courses of action.

You are encouraged to come, participate, be heard, and join us.

April 19th, 830 to 430 at the Holiday Inn, 1901 Emmett Street.

Guest speakers include Darryl Hunt of the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, Harold Clark, Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Panel discussions include social reintegration,

Housing and Financial Obligations, Education and Employment, Health, Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

Pre-registration is required.

You can fill out the form and mail it to Mike Murphy.

You can call 970-3353.

There's online registration, www.Charlottesville.org slash Reentry Summit.

Well, as we've been celebrating election officials, another important piece of a democracy is citizen involvement and advising elected officials.

And so the city is currently looking for people to serve on various boards and commissions.

I notice that we have quite a few youth in the room.

There are youth positions here too, so listen carefully.

We're looking for someone to serve on the Charlottesville Albemarle Commission on Children and Families.

We're looking for somebody to serve on the Chart Committee.

It's a citizen advisory committee about transportation.

The Economic Development Authority, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the Community Development Block Grant Committee, the Dialogue on Race Board, the Housing Advisory Committee, the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, Monticello Area Community Action Agency, the Citizens Advisory Panel, Youth Applicants Only, please.

Region 10 Community Services Board, Sister City Commission, Social Services Advisory Board, the New Tree Commission, and Vendor Appeals Board.

Thank you.

A couple other announcements.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 22nd from 12 to 5 p.m. we are having the Spring Life Giving Blood Drive sponsored by the City of Charlottesville.

Walk-ins are welcome, so if you have not made an appointment, please come on by if you'd like to participate.

It's at the Herman Key Recreation Center here next to City Hall.

Also as an announcement, the city will be providing a one-time free collection of bagged leaves the week of April 4th.

Leaves must be at the curb in clear plastic bags by 7 a.m. Monday the 4th to assure collection sometime that week.

We will not be providing leaf bags for this one-time collection.

This Friday, I don't know if a lot of you know, but this week is actually the 50th anniversary of the first major civil rights march in the city of Charlottesville.

It was a civil rights demonstration, I should say.

It took place on the corner 50 years ago this week to protest

discrimination on business establishment on the corner.

So this Friday, March 25th at 10 a.m. there will be a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of that event.

I believe it's on the stretch of the corner near where CVS is now located.

But it's an important milestone in our community's history.

Also, speaking of issues of racial justice, there is a forum coming up

on Thursday, March 31st from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Buford Middle School Auditorium.

It's free and open to the public.

It's a forum titled Education Before the Achievement Gap.

It's a community forum from the Dialogue on Race.

We'll have community members sharing their experiences and answering questions.

Lilia Brown, Garwin Deberry, John Gaines, Elizabeth Gleason, Marsha Howard, Tommy Theodos.

It's gonna be a very insightful discussion.

Any other announcements?

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

I'm Allegra Cooper.

I'm one of the program directors for The Female Perspective and I'm here to introduce to you The Female Perspective.

The Female Perspective is a nonprofit organization that provides coaching and mentoring to youth, families, and communities with a mission of providing culturally relevant educational, social, financial, and emotional alternatives to existing programs that work to effectively and efficiently promote positive social change and reduce systemic risk factors that plague the youth, individuals, and families in low socioeconomic status.

The vision of the female perspective is an empowered and integrated independently functioning community of youth, individuals, and families that are consistently excelling from their own prosperous community investments.

The female perspective intends to raise awareness of social, educational, and cultural limitations as well as implemented

as well as implement supportive and accommodating practices to combat these limitations.

We will assist youth, individuals and families in identifying social and communal constraints and support the amplification of personal and familial strengths and abilities.

Our organization will perform community outreach projects in order

to enlighten youth and families about available resources and to enhance the confidence to seek those resources when they are needed through regular program meetings, production of community events, and social and educational trainings.

The female perspective has engineered four separate but complementary programs that provide a holistic approach to addressing youth, individual, and family needs and concerns.

The programs of the female perspective are emails, a male empowerment and mentoring program for males of all ages, women organizing with men for birthhood or womb,

which is a comprehensive family-centered program that works to empower females, the Ladies and Gentlemen's Program, an after-school youth organization that provides social and academic empowerment, guidance and expression for at-risk youth of low socioeconomic status in the Charlottesville community, and the And What Media production.

an educational, entrepreneurial media literacy program that provides unique training and experiences for at-risk youth and adolescents.

The female perspective has also developed invaluable relationships with community businesses and institutions such as Charlottesville City Schools and the Providence Group who all support the organization's purpose and the families and youth it endorses.

Thank you.

The next person to sign up to speak is Megan Niziolek.

Am I anywhere near close?

Good evening.

My name is Megan Niziolek, and my address is 6524 Jarmons Gap.

I would first like to say that I was born and raised in Charlottesville, which is why I'm so passionate about my community involvement in the city.

For the past year, I've worked as a case manager and a cheerleading coach.

all while either directly or indirectly mentoring the youth in this community.

With my experiences in the past year, I've discovered a need for a program like the Female Perspective, which is why I'm part of this organization.

I've learned that many services are based around the individual as opposed to the family component as a whole.

While individual treatment is important, the idea of changing the family as a whole tends to be more successful and progressive.

One thing that sets this program apart from other services provided in Charlottesville is the fact that the program was originated to address the issues that our youth and families face here in Charlottesville.

As many of you may or may not be aware, many other agencies that are providing services for our youth and families originate in other cities within the state, which tends to cause gaps or lags in services that are provided.

This program is different based on the centralized idea of cultural relevancy.

Outside agencies that are not from Charlottesville may have a problem providing the best services possible for this community because Charlottesville is a smaller area with a more diverse population, including a large difference in economic achievements.

The latest census data has shown that 19.7% or about 1300 children of Charlottesville under the age of 18 live in poverty.

This is above the national average of 18%.

With this program, we hope to turn this number around and provide a higher quality of service to assist our youth and families within the community of Charlottesville.

There are four main programs that are provided by the FEMA perspective as Ms. Cooper just said.

The one that I work closest with is the ladies and gentlemen's program that is provided after school.

With this program we hope to educate our youth in many areas including wealth building and exposing them to new experiences and new ideas which they otherwise might not have the opportunity.

With exposure and new experiences come change within the community that will hopefully last for our future generations.

One way we are raising awareness to this program and our youth is a benefit event that the Ladies and Gentlemen program will be hosting at the Jefferson Theater on May 29th.

The youth have decided to call this event community in hopes to raise a sense of unity within the youth and peers in the area, including inviting the surrounding Albemarle County high schools.

The potential and strength I observe within these children never ceases to amaze me, and I'm thrilled to be a part of these children's futures.

I would like to personally invite you all to come take part and witness the brilliance and value of these children during our after school program on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 330 Charlottesville High School.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

My name is Rose Williams and I live in 305 Meade Avenue.

I'm here to give some public announcements.

First, I would like to thank the city for all the grants and programs they have for the elderly and permanently disabled.

I, for one, have benefited greatly by many of them.

I'd also like to thank Mrs. Shefferson

from Waste Management and Mr. Herndon and Ms. Alabama from Neighborhood Planning for working with me to make my home and my neighborhood a safe environment.

I also would like to thank the city for funding the VSA Arts Program.

As a writer and workshop facilitator, I have seen many children, teens, and young adults build confidence and self-esteem by writing their stories, poems, and even writing about how they overcome their disability.

In saying that, I want to thank you for the opportunity

to be a role model for so many.

I also would like to thank Ms.

Manners and the new me, Slim Park, for being so accommodating to the disabled community.

and for giving me the opportunity to teach children inclusion at an early age.

Also, I'd like to thank Bob Villanelle for bringing so much joy and laughter to our therapeutic program.

He's such a joy and he's a role model and a politician to those who have cognitive disabilities.

And last but not least,

All I can say is that you have a jewel over there in pots.

Thank you, Ms. Williams.

And thank you for everything you do as well.

You deserve some acknowledgement yourselves.

Scott Beyer, 2556 Summit Ridge Trail.

Good evening, Council.

I'm returning from a weekend in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC, where I visited multiple areas that have recently transformed from poverty pockets to functioning neighborhoods.

Each neighborhood has taken different paths towards revitalization, but if there's one variable behind the positive change in any of them, I believe it's that each has, to an extent, opened up to economic growth.

In these three cities, like in others across the nation, there has been a correlation so strong as to seem redundant between a pro-growth mentality within poor areas and their subsequent improvement.

This has been expressed through new condominiums that replace abandoned buildings and provide affordable housing, through chain grocery stores in areas previously known as food deserts,

through corporate retailers that create neighborhood jobs and through an enhanced tax base that funds public improvements.

And it all supports a broader trend in urban America the last 20 years in which businesses and low-income neighborhoods collaborate in the name of economic justice.

Now, there's a reason I'm bringing this up, and I'll tread lightly because I know Charlottesville is not Philadelphia or Baltimore or DC and doesn't have the problems that they do.

There's not an area in Charlottesville that is blighted or truly dangerous.

But imperfections do exist in the city and to find them you have to search down to the very block.

And I like to do that for two successive city blocks.

These two blocks are Cherry Avenue between Ridge Street and Sixth Street Southwest.

Along them are the following.

a public park, Tonsler, which despite recent renovations is, according to the comp plan, still underused during the day and dangerous at night.

There's a former seafood restaurant that is now closed and there's an IGA surrounded by typically empty parking lot that has a product selection inadequate for a family neighborhood.

Now if these two blocks sound familiar, it's because they're the same ones that William Taylor Plaza was set to be built on.

And I realized there was a whole complex assortment of pros and cons behind this project.

But one of the pros was that the project was going to contain 72 units with bare minimum household incomes of $35,000.

So while it was criticized as something that would bring more low income housing to the neighborhood, it really would have brought an even greater middle class presence, particularly to these two blocks, and thus would have improved them.

So I want to conclude with this.

Projects like William Taylor Plaza are, for better or worse, what revitalization looks like and are part of what enhances cities block by block by block.

They are similar to what enhanced downtown Charlottesville in the 1990s, what enhanced West Main in the last decade, and what could have enhanced this particular stretch of Cherry Avenue.

But if we keep voting these projects down, especially in the current market, then we're going to get what we wish for.

And that will eventually see less and less of them proposed.

My name is Kimberly Williams.

I reside at 906 Apartment C, South First Street.

First, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for allowing me to speak on the behalf of the female perspective and the positive effect that it has had on me and my family.

In October 2010, I came involved with a service called EMS Services and it was then

where I came to know Michelle Bates and her team.

They worked intensely with my son and I, mentoring and emotional support.

They also pointed us to various programs such as food banks, clothing, closets, et cetera, based on our needs.

And on a personal note, it was a treasured experience for my son and I.

Due to the level of support that we received, around and about this time EMS services was no longer able to continue their services.

Shortly after the end of the year, my son's behavior started to change, hanging out, running with the wrong crowd.

not much to my liking.

So I reached out to other services in the community and I was non-successful.

My son would not respond to any of them and would not participate and continued to shut down.

In late December, he was first involved in the law and the snowball effect started.

And we wound up in juvenile court for approximately six to nine months.

Not knowing where to turn, I reached out to Ms. Bates again who then introduced me to Officer Brasfield.

To my surprise, my son already knew Officer Brasfield and much to my surprise responded in such a way that I've never seen.

Ms. Bates and Officer Brasfield came and supported and encouraged not only my son but both of us as a whole.

Around and about February, I was feeling hopeful.

I noticed the dramatic change in my son's, my son and his choices that he was making.

It was then when Ms. Bates informed me that the program, the female perspective that she was working so hard on was ready to move forward and it was up and taking shape.

My son got involved in the And What program

He got involved with the ladies and gentlemen and the email program.

These three programs alone has enhanced my son's self-esteem.

We talk to each other now, not at each other.

He's making better choices.

And when he falls short himself, he holds himself accountable.

So I reached out to Ms. Bates.

If this can work for my family, being a single mom in the community, I know I'm not alone.

So I asked, so I come to the board, I come to the board and I reach out and ask for this to please be considered.

It has helped my family tremendously.

I'm so proud of you.

and so I just said let's work together and I'm on board with Ms. Bates because I'm also sure that I can give back to the community.

And we're here today to talk to you about the female perspective, which you've actually heard a lot of prior to us, and particularly the ladies and gentlemen program.

I myself have recently become involved in the ladies and gentlemen program within the past two or three weeks, and essentially what it is that we are, who it is that we are.

We bring in a group of students, and we all sit down and we talk about what it is that we want,

what it is that we feel that we need as members of this community and then together we produce ways to achieve and implement those needs and those wants.

As an example, we've actually planned a benefit which will be held on May 29th at the Jefferson Theater, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. And as someone who's participated in Youth Round Tables, a dialogue facilitation group at the high school, recently become a member of the Youth Initiative of the Dialogue on Race,

and also having begun a forum on Facebook with my close personal friend Eric Dunguzzi known as the forum for the realization of eventual equality, also known in short as free.

I've come to realize that it's programs such as this and it's initiatives such as this that prove that whatever it is that anybody in this room, whatever it is that anybody in this city, in this state, in this country can say about what it is that the youth are not doing, what it is that the youth cannot do and the problems that we continue to pose to society that

Hi, my name is Mary Michael.

I live at 125 B. Longwood Drive.

I'm here to speak about the AMR production and what it has done for me.

It kept me out of trouble, showed me a commitment at a young age, and we have mentors Ms. Bates and Officer Bricefield and the rest of the team.

We learned important skill sets in media production and still learning, and for me it has helped a lot.

and it is still happening so I hope you guys can improve with this program and continue to help youth like me in Charlottesville.

Good evening, Councilman.

Good evening.

The emails, I'm kind of emotional.

I didn't know we were doing so much.

But it started about last year, about this time, with issues going on at the downtown mall.

That was what spawned our group down at Tostler Park.

We used that facility to meet, and we now currently meet at Buford Middle School on Wednesday evenings from 6.30 to 7.30.

The email is a program that focuses on defining a man to some of the young men that are maybe disenfranchised.

I was born and raised in this area, Albemarle County I raised.

Sherry and I went to high school together, graduated together as a matter of fact.

And this program is near and dear to my heart, it's my passion because it focuses and promotes education

and supports males with the evolutionary process required to assist males with becoming responsible citizens, fathers, and most of all leaders.

As you saw, you have young men that are stepping up to the plate, speaking on behalf of issues that are concerning our community, and we promote that.

I'm not the face of emails.

They are.

And I thank you for your time.

Ma'am, gentlemen, Mayor Norris.

And I'm Peter Kleeman, 407 Head Street.

I neglected to tell Peter that the intern always takes the fall.

So if I make a mistake, talk to Peter.

What we have here is a difference approximately 50 years makes.

This is a slice from the trunk of a poplar tree

It was blown down in Rock Hill Gardens last summer in the microburst or the mini tornado that we had.

There are hundreds if not thousands of these at Ragged Mountain Natural Area.

This sapling is in its second year of growth.

This is what we will lose at Ragged Mountain if the new county dam is built on city property.

This is what is taking its place.

We lose around 50,000 trees of all kinds and all ages, oaks, maples, elms, pines, and we won't even get this at Ragged Mountain.

We couldn't get this because part of the construction of a new dam and reservoir is the clear cutting around the perimeter of the new reservoir to anticipate and accommodate the rise in the water level.

We get the new saplings here.

and part of what is called mitigation offsite or in a field somewhere.

So we will lose tens of thousands of trees this size and we will get these.

Does that strike anybody as a fair trade?

Now I'm not a tree hugger, I'm a tree appreciator.

Even as a commercial crop to build houses and the hundred other things we use wood for.

But we also need parks and natural areas.

If it came down to a choice between providing clean and abundant water for the families and businesses of our community, I would choose water in a heartbeat.

But that's not the choice we face.

We have abundant water now, and we have abundant water for 40 years into the future, particularly if we get a dredge into the Rivanna Reservoir.

What we don't have are enough trees.

This council has recognized that in the establishment of a city tree steward.

But what's the point in hiring someone to steward trees and then needlessly clear-cutting thousands of them?

That's heading in the wrong direction.

At that rate, the tree steward would be out of work soon because there won't be many trees to steward.

Now, I've heard the best time to plant a tree is 20 years past.

20 years ago.

The second best time is today.

Many families will celebrate a wedding or a birthday or some notable family event by planting a tree.

I would encourage them not to put it off.

After all, children grow quickly too, sometimes faster than we'd like.

So do it this week or this month.

And lest anybody think I was disrespectful to this little sapling here,

This is actually an American Chestnut from the American Chestnut, the Virginia Department of Forestry Chestnut Reclamation Program.

The Virginia Department of Forestry has donated seven of these seedling chestnut trees to the reclamation over at Rock Hill Gardens and that's where this is heading.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 Fourth Street, here in the city.

As usual, when it comes to the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, there's some good news.

There's some not so good news.

And this time, there's some not too surprising news.

First, the bit of good news.

At its last board meeting, the board spent some time discussing this council's expressed interest in the mechanism for citizen oversight or involvement in the new water demand study.

and staff, Rivanna staff seem supportive of a fairly robust open process.

The board asks staff to bring options for ensuring public participation and that's expected to be done tomorrow.

I would still like another restatement of your expectations to ensure that it actually comes about.

Now, the not so good news.

This doesn't quite sink to the level of bad news, partly because, you know, we've all come to expect spin.

In written responses to public comments, Rivanna's staff refuted what I had characterized as a year of delay tactics regarding the demand analysis.

The reason I bring this to your attention isn't just sour grapes on my part.

I want you to know the facts behind my statement.

The fact is Rivanna's staff emailed the executive director on February 9, 2009 to advise that a new demand analysis would be required.

The RFP was issued on February 9, 2010.

exactly one year.

As for tactics, well I spoke with Scott Cudlass of the DEQ several months before the RFP was issued and he described having had lengthy discussions with Rivanna regarding whether indeed a new demand analysis was necessary.

In addition, you'll recall that Rivanna repeatedly advised the board and this council that a decision on Ragged Mountain was necessary in order to prepare the 2010 state required plan.

My conversation with Mr. Cudlass confirmed that the regulations are clear.

Implementation of a measure to address a shortfall is not a required part of the plan.

If insisting that a decision on the dam was a necessary step wasn't a delay tactic, well, I'm not sure what else you'd call it.

So the not too surprising news.

Tomorrow the Rivanna staff will ask the board to adopt special guidelines to allow a performance approach for dredging RFP to move forward.

But it's not too surprising they're not very enthusiastic about it.

What should be surprising, but isn't really too surprising, is the statement that maintaining the South Fork by dredging would, quote, be relaxing our strategic focus and taking a broader role than most utilities at a time when we have competing funding needs, mostly regulated,

and beyond our control to include higher expectations for wastewater treatment and a need to catch up on past years of deferred maintenance.

Several questions.

Is a new dam a regulated need?

Do we really believe that other water utilities ignore siltation of their primary reservoirs?

What is dredging, if not catching up on deferred maintenance?

Please, clearly, explicitly,

and directly tell your negotiators that the water supply cost share agreement must be contingent on dredging.

Not sometime, not later, but soon.

Also in the not too surprising category is this.

If you look at the dredging materials for tomorrow's meeting, you'll see a concern about committing, and I quote again, citizens in our community to pay more for water and wastewater services.

Of course we want the authority to watch our dollars and dimes, but that statement was made as an argument against dredging.

Thank you, Ms. Quinn.

I'm Eric Green, 542 B. Cleveland Avenue.

I'm in front of you today to discuss about the activities in Charlottesville, Virginia.

There's really nothing to do for young African Americans.

That's mainly why young African Americans are getting in trouble.

Well as me being a senior in high school I won't be a part of the youth anymore so I would like to see the younger generation have something constructive to do besides playing basketball and playing football because everyone doesn't want to be a basketball no football player and I think the Boys and Girls Club is helping out a lot but

to occupy my time.

I mean, I would like to have a boxing ring somewhere around here.

Thanks.

Good evening members of the council.

Wes Bellamy, 4187 Cypress Point.

I actually came today to speak on behalf of a few patrons who I met earlier last week.

I was asked last week to come down to Townslope Park and view a few things from a few patrons who actually live on Cherry Avenue, the street in which the gentleman before was speaking on.

What I saw there I was somewhat very disappointed by.

I was actually

brought down because the two ladies who asked me to come down, they said that they didn't feel that the park was suitable for their kids to play at.

When I got down, I actually had to respectfully agree.

What I saw was quite disturbing.

I saw individuals urinating,

on the fences.

I saw a play area and play station rather that I wouldn't necessarily bring my daughter to because many of the rings on the play area were outdated.

They were very worn out.

The jumping section was completely torn and it was just despicable to say the least.

And like I said, as the individuals brought it to me,

Why is it that Meade Parks, Washington Park, and other places throughout the city seem to have somewhat nicer equipment?

than some of the non-affluent areas within the city.

So my plea to you, I know most of you all, I know you all will diligently work on this issue to try to get it handled, but like I said, we definitely would like to see something done.

And in regards to the individual who was speaking earlier, I don't see them anymore.

They are very, very good people on Cherry Avenue as well as some of the other non-affluent parts of the city.

That concludes this session, Matters by the Public.

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

Who would like to get us started?

Two last items.

Actually, I've spoken with the recreation people about the boxing program, and I understand that they're trying to put in an area in the Carver Recreation Center at Jefferson School, so I hope that that's at least part of what we're looking at, and I think that's a great idea.

I also wanted to, just kind of going back in a little more

Chronological Order.

Mrs. Williams, who spoke, got choked up when she talked about Mildred Spicer, who works at the Therapeutic Recreation Program.

And I know why.

My daughter has also worked with her.

And she is a real gift to the city, a real gem.

And so I just reiterate that testimonial that she gave.

I just want to thank all the folks who came from the female perspective.

I'm inspired by your organizing.

As a person who believes in community organizing, I think that that is how things happen.

Not so much as something you do for people, but allow people to do for themselves.

So I really wish you well and thanks to all the folks who came here and showed that you are organizing.

So that's terrific.

Also, I just wanted to mention about Tonsler Park.

When my kids, who are now 19 and 21,

echo the sentiments and I'll include that I'm also just pleased and proud that the female perspective also included the importance of civic engagement and it kind of blows the stereotype that our children aren't capable

of doing great things and presenting themselves well.

So I really appreciate your presence and I'm hoping that the presence of the youth will inspire some of our adults to come forward.

Shout out to Rose Williams for the effort that she takes to be here and to be intentional

about what she has to say.

And she spent time recognizing our city staff that really do work hard, so I really appreciate that.

The comments made by Scott Beyer, I did oppose the William Taylor Plaza development because I chose to be a voice for the neighborhood that really objected to the development.

That was my vote and I stick with it.

Regarding Thompson Park, it is time to renovate the park and I will say that it is long overdue.

That's where I met my husband, so I can honestly say I met him on that basketball court that probably now needs to be renovated.

So it does go, your points are duly noted, but keep in mind that a lot of the parts of the city

It has a lot of meaning to a lot of people because of the history.

And when you make disparaging remarks and conclusions and

and at Perceptions, make it a holistic approach in your research and include many of the people that have been a part of the community for a very long time.

So it's not to say that your comments aren't appreciated and there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but just keep a holistic approach as you move forward with your questions and your curiosities.

The Bob Fenwick and Peter Kleeman kind of

That was interesting.

I don't quite know what to say about that other than I like the way that you always bring the Rock Hill Garden to our attention.

Thank you.

I agree with everything that's been said about our friends here tonight from the female perspective.

Thank you all for coming.

Keep up the great work.

Keep us posted as how we can support what you're doing.

And also the boxing club.

I, too, have spoken with Mr. Bellamy and spoken with city staff about how we can help make that happen.

I think it would be a great addition to the roster of services that we provide.

to the youth of our community so I'll rededicate myself and I know others on council are also very supportive of that so thank you for coming to speak about why it is important.

I'll just echo again I think

Tonsler Park is a real asset and we need to take better care of it and so thank you Mr. Bellamy for bringing that to our attention.

I fully agree with the comments that Mr. Fenwick made about trees and I do think we need to get clarity very soon on this point that Ms. Quinn raised about and others have raised about whether this council

is going to insist that dredging be included in the cost share agreement.

We heard from Ms. Mueller that the discussions among staff have included dredging, but I'm not sure that we've gotten sort of official clarity.

I think it probably would be best if we were to do that at a separate meeting, but we have been having discussions about cost share over the issue of dredging.

And, you know, council at any point could give us an indication of how they feel about whether or not we need to have a cost share in place before we move forward with

with the dam.

That would be helpful to know.

But we have been having those conversations about dredging at the same time.

And I believe we've also, there's another point that Ms. Quinn raised and will raise us again tomorrow.

We do have concerns about some of the language that was used concerning moving forward with dredging and the impact on staff.

We certainly understand that it will have an impact on staff at Rivanna.

But our message, hopefully it will be clear that we want to move forward with dredging.

I would just request that if you're looking for official action maybe at our next agenda we can add that to the council agenda and see if there is indeed consensus or at least majority sentiment on council on that point.

We certainly can do that.

And can I also mention on Tonsler Park, we have had some conversations with Parks and Recreation.

As Councilor Szakos mentioned, we do have a rotation on a number of these parks.

The parks that have been addressed in recent years, including Washington Park, Honesty, Forest Hills Park, were addressed because they've been in disrepair for a long time and we needed to address those.

Tonsler Park, as you mentioned, is probably about 16 years old or so since we had the last renovation there.

But we recognize, especially the play equipment there,

Thank you.

We're going to now move forward to our regular agenda.

The first item on our agenda is our consent agenda.

We have on the consent agenda this week, item A is minutes of March 7th.

Item B is an appropriation of $250,000, Charlottesville City Schools, appropriation of capital improvement program, large cap supplemental contribution, second of two readings.

Item C in appropriation of $44,336 domestic violence services coordinator grant, second of two readings.

Item D in appropriation of $95,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture summer food service program, first of two readings.

Item E in appropriation of $92,029 Police Department insurance recovery miscellaneous revenue and fees, first of two readings.

Item F, a resolution application for fiscal year 2012 transit grant funds, first of one reading.

Item G, a resolution DEQ consent agreement, first of one reading.

And item H, an ordinance tax exemption for disabled veterans, first of two readings.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

It carries unanimously.

We have three items left on our agenda tonight.

The first two have to do with our city budget.

Tonight we are holding public hearings both on the proposed property tax rate as well as the city manager's proposed fiscal year 2012 budget and here to get us started with that

Mr. Mayor, on the annual tax rate, the public hearing for that, the presentation's pretty short.

We are proposing to hold our tax rate at 95 cents per $100 for real estate property in the city of Charlottesville of assessed value and the personal property tax at $4.20 per $100 of assessed value.

Any questions for Mr. Jones before we open the public hearing?

Okay, we are now going to open a public hearing just on the tax rate itself, not on the budget in general, but on the tax rate itself.

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

Good evening Council, I'm Peter Kleeman, I live at 407 Head Street in the city and I know on an annual basis when the tax rate is set there's a statement typically made about what that tax rate does in terms of the actual expected revenues to the city and whether it is in fact an increase in taxes

or a decrease in taxes or the unlikely situation that it would be identical.

And I didn't see that and I didn't hear it tonight.

I was just curious if, in fact, this has been listed as saying that there's no increases in taxes.

I guess I've seen some small amount of data.

I would just like to have a clarification of, in fact, what are the expected changes over the revenues and whether there are additional revenues being generated that could be put forward to some of the projects that I and others would like to see done.

Thank you, Mr. Kleeman.

We'll be happy to do that.

Anybody else like to speak on the tax rate?

Hearing none, we will close the public hearing on the tax.

Yes, I do.

Hold on one second.

The real estate tax, the estimated for next year will be $50,436,619.

Thank you.

I know that at some point, and I looked for it in the hour before we started this meeting and wasn't quick enough to find it, we had a comparison of how Charlottesville's tax rate compares to other cities in the Commonwealth that provide similar services.

And what I took away from it, although I don't remember those numbers, is that ours is relatively low compared to other cities.

Well we had it in the last PowerPoint, we took it out of this PowerPoint.

And that was not a comparison to all cities around the state, but there are a lot of cities that offer similar services to ours.

We actually rate a little bit lower, actually significantly lower than a number of those cities.

I'd love to see that again because I think that it's important that people understand that our tax rates are higher than the county's but we provide a lot more services than the county and really comparing it to other communities that provide

on the same kind of services, road services and things that we do.

So we are not taking action tonight on the tax rate and also this is not the last chance that members of the public will have to weigh in on the tax rate.

Please feel free to contact us anytime in the next few weeks if you would like to weigh in on that issue.

You can email us, call us, council at charlesville.org or we also will be having a community budget forum this Wednesday which I know you'll be talking about in a moment.

The next item is a public hearing on the city manager's proposed fiscal year 2012 budget.

This is, we are doing a condensed PowerPoint from the PowerPoint presentation that we did two weeks ago, so if you want to move for that, feel free to do so.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, I'm honored to present to you for public consideration and for the public hearing tonight the city manager's budget for fiscal year 2012.

We'll first begin with the impact on the residents of Charlottesville and our businesses.

We are not proposing an increase in our tax rates or in our fees.

In fact, as a result of the new assessment numbers, 71% of our residents will see no change or a decrease in their real estate taxes.

In addition, we are not proposing cuts to reduce, cuts to our services as well.

The proposed budget is balanced within the revenues that we expect to receive next year.

We believe our revenue estimates are fairly conservative and we are presenting a budget that lays a solid foundation for future budgets while strategically investing in our community.

Our approach also provides some protection from an economy that seems to be slowly recovering.

This budget meets our community's needs while reflecting the City Council's vision for our city.

This next graph gives us a look at how drastically the economic times have changed over the last 10 years and it gives you a sense of the new reality that we find ourselves facing in the future.

Let's take a look now at our general revenues.

Local taxes make up the largest source of the general fund with the real estate property taxes accounting for a significant portion of the pie.

Our overall revenue for last fiscal year was down 1.2 million dollars but a number of our departments returned funding back at the end of the fiscal year which resulted in a surplus for us.

On the expenditure side, the city schools account for 32% of the funding.

The city council has historically and continues to strongly support our schools and its operations and capital needs.

Public safety and justice, that includes police, fire, sheriff's office, courts, etc., will make up nearly 26% of the operating budget, followed by healthy families and community at nearly 19%, and infrastructure and transportation at almost 10%.

The total city contribution to the schools and the city manager's proposed budget is over $41 million.

We originally proposed contributing $1.7 million in new additional funds to the schools, but have since amended that number a bit.

I'll address the amendment in just a moment.

In addition to the $1.7 million, we had proposed $2.5 million towards capital improvement projects in the school division.

So let's touch on the amendment now.

After my budget was developed, we learned that the schools will be receiving additional funds from the state.

So at our work sessions, council has determined that the best course of action is to allow the schools to simply keep the money from the state,

reduce our contribution to them by a nearly identical amount and to place that money into a reserve account for school use that will be considered by the council as we prepare for fiscal year 2013 budget.

On a much smaller scale in terms of new investments, we've made room in our budget for the expansion of some current programs including the summer youth internship program and the dialogue on race.

We've proposed additional funding to accommodate another 40 students in the summer youth program and we have put funding aside for the dialogue that will keep our program coordinator on with the project for one more year and to help fund some of the ideas that have been generated by our community action teams.

It is also important to remain competitive in the human resources marketplace, so we are proposing a 2% salary increase for our employees.

It's the first salary increase that they've had since 2009.

Right now the Proposed Economic Downturn Fund for 2012 is a little over $700,000 but that may be reduced as we look for another funding source to close the gap in the proposed housing fund.

We've decided not to use home funds or CDBG money there so this seems to be the most likely source for the additional $400,000 at least for fiscal year 2012.

So here's a look at our capital improvement program for next year.

The Fontaine Fire Station, Old Lynchburg Road, and the school's CIP are the largest projects, $8.75 million for Fontaine, $3 million for Old Lynchburg Road, and $2.5 million for the school's capital improvements program.

At our CIP work session last week, Council decided to amend the CIP by increasing the previously mentioned housing fund by $410,000 and adding $50,000 for bicycle infrastructure.

In working with the Bike and Pedestrian Committee, we will be revising previous plans for improving access for bicyclists around Charlottesville.

So those are the highlights of the proposed budget in addition to our public hearing tonight.

We have several additional opportunities for the public to weigh in on the budget including this Wednesday's budget forum as the mayor mentioned that is scheduled for 7 p.m. at city space on the downtown mall.

We have a work session scheduled for 5 p.m. on March 31st in the basement conference room of City Hall and then the second public hearing on the budget at our May 4th City Council meeting.

We tentatively have a work session scheduled for April 7th if it's necessary and then the budget will be adopted on April 12th.

So we would be glad to entertain any questions that council may have at this point and we will open the public hearing in a moment.

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

I appreciate concise PowerPoint presentations.

I know that's an oxymoron, but that was a good one.

Any questions for Mr. Jones before we open the public hearing?

Hearing none, we have a number of people who have signed up to speak and others will have an opportunity to do so as well.

Again, when you come forward, please state your name and address and we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes.

Good evening.

My name is Paul Long.

I live at 1410 Grady Avenue.

The plight of the homeless continues to get worse in this city and service for the homeless is totally inadequate.

There are not enough beds at local shelters to house all the homeless if they all decide on any given day to come off the streets and seek emergency shelter.

There is no long-range provision of services

to address the issues of why people find themselves homeless and provide long-term solutions.

Region 10 has seen the cutbacks in its funding.

I have heard that the Haven is facing a $25,000 deficit in its current operating budget.

The Salvation Army is struggling financially and Own Our Own of Charlottesville is struggling to keep its doors open.

This budget addresses the aspirations and concerns of the middle and upper middle classes.

The homeless in Charlottesville need long-term help and funding should be allocated from the city's budget to reflect this.

City Council has been conducting meetings in local neighborhoods to get the pulse of the city neighborhoods and residents.

I suggest that City Council conduct a meeting at the Haven to hear from the homeless themselves about their problems and how the city can help.

Thank you, Mr. Long.

Good evening.

Paul Vaughn, 1112 Meadow Street.

And I am here this evening to ask council to please support additional funding for the Public Housing Association of Residents and the Legal Aid Justice Center.

The Legal Aid Justice Center, I don't have to tell most of you, they provide critical, very, very important legal services to the low wealth community here in Charlottesville, all low wealth people.

We just can't afford to have cuts to their program.

The Public Housing Association residents are far.

We depend on additional funding to run the internship program that we run every year.

It's a very important program that teaches public housing residents the value of leadership skills and organizing principles to make positive change in their communities and in their neighborhoods.

And some of them are going to come and talk to you here in a second.

You're looking at some of the folks right here tonight that have learned through our program that making positive change in your neighborhood isn't some sort of magic thing that happens.

It's not something that other people do.

These are the ones, these are the folks that have taken upon themselves to go out and make change in their neighborhood and take initiatives on things that are important to them and to their community.

In our last year's class of interns, we graduated the largest class ever.

They've gone on to do some really great things.

Two were employed full time.

One is a full time student at Old Dominion and he just received a very prestigious scholarship.

Three folks serve on Farr's Board of Directors, so our graduates are doing very good things.

We're on track this year to graduate a class that's almost as big as last year.

It's a very strong class, and they're doing some wonderful things.

So we need funding for next year's program.

It's important.

It's vital.

Good evening everybody.

My name is Ove Johnson.

I live at 500 South First Street.

I'm a graduate of Farr.

I'm also the president of Caresson Hall.

Through the leadership program, I use now and a day to help my neighbors in my building.

Right now, we have a problem with the elevator.

Right now,

I'm going to take the stand of going door knocking to ask for signatures so we can do this.

At one time, I wouldn't care.

But now I got to take a stand to help my fellow neighbors.

And through FAR, that was what FAR helped me do.

And a lot of my classmates that went on, I still keep in contact with them, and they're still doing things.

and their communities.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening, Mayor Norris and City Council.

My name is Janice Lewis and I live at 832A Hardy Drive and I'm a graduate of FAR internship

and the fall program has opened many, many, many doors for me and I think it's a great program.

I've been honored to give back to my community and I've done a lot of community hours

and also helping the other residents that live in my neighborhood to open their eyes and see the opportunities that the great of Charlottesville has to offer to them.

And I think FAR will be a great program for our low income residents to broaden them and to expose them like to our great city councilors here and our mayor and just to

Hi, I'm Whitney Banks.

I live at 1621 B. Madison Avenue.

I'm a current FAR intern with the program, and I want to say first and foremost to Paul and my leader Perry.

He's not here at the moment.

This program has been such a beneficial program to me.

I've had so many doors open up for other things that I'm doing because of being part of the program, but first and foremost, I've gotten so much more knowledge about things that I wasn't aware of that were open out there.

So it's because I am a public housing resident and there are people that aren't aware of the programs that we can get involved in to make changes in our community.

I've seen the small things that we've changed and I'm in between young adults.

So I have small kids and I like to see things change for them that weren't offered for me as I was younger.

when I was younger.

So I just want to say the FAR program has really helped me in so many ways in so many different aspects of things being a public housing resident.

But first and foremost, it's given me a different pride about myself.

I don't have a problem going in my community and letting people know about things that are going on that they may not be aware of.

It helped me be a better speaker.

We took public speaking classes and so now I don't get so nervous when I go and speak in front of people and coming here and doing those things.

Hello, I am Shamora Cooper and I reside at 713 F 6th Street.

And I would just like to say I graduated from the Public Housing Association Residence Intern Program and I'm currently the Secretary of the Board.

I feel like FAR has shaped me to become a better person.

It has shaped me to become a leader and also it has taught me how to follow.

The Public Housing Association of Residents, it helped me to learn the rights of public housing.

It also gave me the opportunity to earn a stipend to provide for my family when I was unemployed.

It helped me to go into my community to help others understand their rights of public housing because a lot of people don't know their rights.

So with the internship program, it allowed me to do public speaking.

It allowed me to learn and to meet a lot of new people that I wouldn't have normally probably talked to on a regular basis.

So that's all I got to say that I really enjoyed the internship program and I hope that we can get funding to allow others the opportunities that we had.

Thank you Ms. Cooper.

Good evening, Councilors.

I'm Peter Kleeman, 407 Head Street in the city.

In the last several meetings, there's been discussion about the sidewalk.

on the Belmont Bridge and the need to address that.

There was some discussion of a cost of roughly $300,000 to $400,000 and looking at the presentation by Mr. Jones there was $300,000 allocated for new sidewalks but I didn't see anything that was associated with existing sidewalks or maintenance.

I'm curious if in fact there are funds in the current budget that could cover the

necessary costs of repairing that and looking on the city's website dated March 10th or 11th I believe is a construction report that states the city is going to be repairing that using city staff, public works staff to do the work

and that seems to be not necessarily the decision that I heard at the city council meeting of two weeks or four weeks ago, whatever it was.

So my concern is that I would like to ensure that there are funds available to repair that sidewalk hoping that the city will decide to actually repair that entrance corridor pedestrian way.

but that this would not be just by default not done because there are no entries in the budget to sustain the budget that would be necessary to do whatever repairs are going to be done there.

So I would like to ensure that in your discussions of the budget as you move forward that either some of those funds that have become available and put into reserve accounts, maybe some of those funds could be placeholders for maintenance

maintenance on that particularly very important project.

So I didn't see it on the presentation.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Mr. Brown, Mr. Jones.

My name is John Conover, 104 West High Street.

I would like to start by saying I support the request by far.

I've taught in their internship program and have been amazed how that quality of that program has increased over the years.

I think the graduates add to the strength and fabric of our community and our public housing.

I am an employee of the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I am here to tee off a request for some money out of the council priority fund.

We totally support Mr. Jones' budget.

I understand that legal aid is not unique in suffering in this economy.

I will argue that we've taken some special hits.

We enjoyed CDBG money last year, which we applied to housing program.

They have chosen to go with an economic model, employment model this year, that as a whole.

Our largest funding source is interest and lawyer's checking accounts.

I'm not going into too much detail.

That is a product of the interest rate and economic activity.

Unfortunately,

Economic activity primarily real estate has decreased that may be rebounding.

The interest rate, most of us are happy that it's not going up, but when you multiply something by almost zero, you end up with almost zero.

It's not counter cyclical.

So as employment has, unemployment has increased, our monies have gone down.

Thirdly, the recession has allowed

many law firms, big law firms, New York and Washington to say we've got too many lawyers, too many young lawyers, we will pay you half your salary, two thirds of your salary to go away and do something.

So we have benefited from them for the last two years primarily doing unemployment insurance cases in the city of Charlottesville.

I'll provide you later some more detail, but in 2005 we did 45 UI cases, this is Charlottesville and Albemarle, last year we did 292.

We want to continue doing that.

We're not saying we're going to go out and hiring new people, but we have to do internal reorganization and need money to do that.

So our primary goal is to spend on housing, which keeps people in housing.

You do an admirable job to work with the homeless and help people stay in their houses financially.

We help people stay in their houses legally.

Unemployment, and I say we will get you some figures,

is a direct benefit of money into the city.

This only keeps people in the houses, but we're talking about people who are unemployed through no fault of their own, and the VEC system is relatively broken.

We no longer have an office in Charlottesville, we have a hydraulic road that doesn't really handle cases.

You have to go to Lynchburg or Richmond.

It is very difficult to collect insurance, which is essentially employees' right, and getting that keeps people, families together and in their houses.

So we'll be getting you some paperwork, but wanted to let you know that's what we're doing.

We're looking at about $32,000 as a total.

Thank you, Mr. Connerly.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak?

Last Chance.

Alright, we will close the public hearing.

Again, we'll have an opportunity this Wednesday at 7 o'clock at city space for members of the public to interact with council and with department heads about

I know it can be a little intimidating to come and speak at a public hearing.

Thanks to all of you who did that.

But this session Wednesday night is a lot less intimidating.

It's much more informal.

There's not time limits.

We're not eight feet above everybody.

I just wanted to point out to council that traditionally the next work session that we have will deal with agency funding and so this may be an opportunity that the couple of requests that have come in tonight have focused on specific agencies.

And I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe that one of the reasons why we're hearing from Legal Aid and FAR tonight is that the programs that we heard about have at least in recent years been funded through CDBG, the community development block grant.

and the recommendations for this year were to not fund, not provide continuation funding.

And so if we can get some clarity on that issue because that's another potential avenue.

All right.

I'd also like to thank the folks from FAR.

I think that the fact that you're here shows that that program is important.

As we look at a lot of things in this community, I think that when people speak for themselves instead of allowing someone else to speak for them, that's when we really listen.

Yes, thank you.

The last regular item on our agenda tonight is a

Presentation and public hearing regarding voting precinct reconfiguration.

And I have a PowerPoint.

Mr. Mayor, council members, thank you.

In January, we were here before you talking about the need to re-precinct and reconfigure some of the precincts in the city based on census numbers.

At that time, we didn't have census numbers.

We had the 2000 census numbers.

We didn't have the 2010 census numbers yet.

But what we were talking about and what we told you was the reason that we needed to be precinct, and I'll just refresh very quickly, is that over the past 11 years voter population has grown over 10,000 registered voters.

That the Alumni Hall precinct, according to state law in the code section, is not contiguous.

that in a nine month period in 2008 over 5,000 voters were registered and that all indications show, and this is a really good thing, this is not a bad thing, that we're going to have well over 30,000 registered voters by November 2012.

Today we have 28,341 voters and we have a barometer and a thermometer outside our office and so you need to come look at it because we're moving up every day.

Some of the things that we need to consider when we re-precinct, that we looked at this as an important to keep the neighborhoods together.

And this is a conversation we had with you all in January.

When designing the district, are there enough potential polling places within the boundaries?

Some of the issues that have been raised in the past are about having polling places and places of worship.

And we were wanting to know, is this a concern of council?

And the law does allow polling places to be located up to a mile outside the precinct boundary.

Is this an option?

So these are some of the things that we talked about.

So at the January 3rd meeting, we went over all this information and this is what we asked.

We asked you all to allow staff to appoint a committee to examine the precincts and use the 2010 census numbers when they came out to come up with the most reasonable configuration.

You specifically asked us to develop an eight precinct configuration using the 2010 census numbers, just tweaking our current precinct, keeping it resembling the same, looking the same in the eight precinct model to attempt to bring them in compliance.

And that you asked us specifically to come back in March with a recommendation.

So pretty tall order, but I think we did it.

We appointed the committee.

I'm happy to say that of the nine, members seven are out here tonight.

So if you have any questions directed toward the committee, they are here for you to answer them.

And I think we had a very good variety and variation from the community representing different groups.

both chairs of the parties, the League of Women Voters, the election board, former council members, residents, everybody here is a resident, they do live in the city of Charlottesville.

So this is what we did.

We met in January.

Again, we only had the 22,000 numbers.

So we sat in January.

We met and we discussed objective and a timeline about what we wanted to do.

We came up with some goals and some things that we wanted to do.

We looked at the configurations that we showed you using the 2,000 numbers and talked about some of the things we wanted to see when we got the 2010 numbers.

We were told at that time we were going to have the 2010 numbers in early February.

We did.

We had them in the first week of February.

We met the day after we got the numbers.

We were really excited in the city of Charlottesville to have 43,475 people counted from the census.

So we were pretty excited about that.

So we met and we looked at many different scenarios.

These are the factors that were considered.

The one thing that the committee was very interested in seeing were the number voted in the last presidential election.

So what we did was we took our list of those who voted, which we get from the state, and we geocoded all of them and we had a map of all the precincts and so we put all of the dots of everybody who voted and we could actually see everybody in our current precinct structure who voted in the 2008 election to see how it spread out.

We also looked at public transportation, walkability, and accessibility.

Because if you remember, that was one of the things you specifically asked us to look for.

So that was high on our list.

All of these are high on our list.

It's unfortunate it has to be in a list.

We looked at voting age population within the precinct.

That's one of the things that the census is able to give us, voting age population, so that we could see how that fell with the number of people we had.

We looked at potential polling places.

You know, you think about redrawing the lines, and you think it's easy just to move the lines around, but if you don't have an adequate building or facility in the area that you're looking to draw, then it's really a moot point.

So we had to look at all the different polling places.

within the city.

We also had to look and make sure that we stayed in compliance with state and federal guidelines and the other thing that you asked us is to make sure that we minimize disruption in our current precinct structure.

So these are the options that we studied.

We studied retaining the current eight precincts.

We looked at a configuration of 11 precincts, a configuration of 10 precincts, and we looked at six different configurations of nine precincts.

And here are the conclusions that the committee came to.

We really came to the conclusion that as much as you wanted us to look at keeping the current eight, the eight could not be retained based on the numbers and based on the code.

And I'll show you that in a minute.

that we looked at the 10 and the 11 precinct models, but we really deemed that that was more change than necessary at this point in time.

And so the nine precinct model, one of the six configurations of the nine that we looked at, was approved unanimously by the entire committee.

And you have a letter in your packet that has all of their signatures on it.

All right, so this is very important.

I don't have my little laser pointer.

But what I want to show you is that, thank you Joe, I'm sorry.

Oh no, I will explain it, I will.

It doesn't even, okay.

Alright, I'll still explain it.

Up at the top, it says calculations from the 2010 census data.

So you have the total population.

And if you add up the total population, that comes to 43,475.

And if you add up the voting age population category, we have 37,001.

That's our voting age population in our current structure of 43,000.

What we did, I told you the first thing that we did was we took the list of those who voted, which were the people who voted in the 2008 presidential election, because that's the highest number of voters that we've had in an election.

And we geocoded them and we put them in their precinct where they voted.

So what you can see is you can see the breakdown in all the precincts, and the precincts are in alphabetical order, of

Who voted?

So you had 1790 people voting Alumni, 1631 in Carver, 2177 in Clark, 3231 in Jefferson Park, 3450 in Recreation.

That's important because those are getting close to the 4000 number.

1901 in Tonsler, which is huge for Tonsler.

Venable, Venable was our red flag.

Venable had over 4,000 voters.

Now that's election day voters and absentee voters because you understand that people who vote absentee have the opportunity to vote in the precinct if they were going to be in town.

So that was the

That was what made us have to do this because we had to do something with Venable.

And in Walker we had 2318.

So those are the numbers of voters in our current precinct structure that we had voting in 2008.

So the one thing, and Mr. Huja was the one that asked us to do this, what he asked us to do was he asked us to keep our current eight and just tweak, if I remember the word that you used, to tweak and kind of move things around to keep them in compliance, make Alumni Hall contiguous,

and with our current 2010 numbers.

And so we did that, we think, to the best way that we could, but if you see under total population and voting age, it really throws some of them out of whack.

It throws Venable well over the number.

of 6,015 and actually even Carver with 5,124 potential voters of voting age population.

So the committee looked at this and we looked at different variations of possibly moving the numbers and really realized that this really wasn't, this wasn't a viable option, this wasn't a possibility.

And again, I do have committee members here.

I'm doing this on behalf of them that can answer any questions you may have.

This is the proposed committee option, and we feel really strongly about it that it's a really good option.

This is what it's done.

You've noticed that what happened within numbers is that all of the growth has happened in the southern part of the city.

All right?

And so what we realized is that we needed to create a precinct to alleviate some of the stress in the bottom half of the city.

So we made Alumni Hall contiguous.

So you took that little part of Alumni Hall over to my left and just made all of that Alumni Hall, which used to be part of Venable.

We made Venable its own precinct, that little, you can see it right up in the middle.

What we did was we split JPA into two precincts.

So we've got, and we're proposing the change, Johnson precinct and Buford precinct having already gone, looked at these facilities, talked with the people involved, and have gotten an okay from them.

And it just really,

We've just sort of moved the lines, made the precincts much more equitable than they currently were.

One of the other things that you asked us to take into consideration, and I'm sorry that the actual figures we had have turned into number signs,

but that's a transit route and we wanted to make sure that all of our current precincts, anything that we may add, would be on a transit route.

The only thing right now currently that's not on a transit route is Walker.

It's not on a transit route.

There is a possibility in the future, if we're interested in moving that precinct maybe to CHS or to Martin Luther King Performing Arts Center, that is a possibility which is on a transit route.

Then that would make all of our precincts on a transit route.

That is a possibility.

But that's not on the table tonight.

The last thing I really want to say is that

Working with this committee has just been wonderful.

I need to tell you that working with these nine people, they have been extremely thoughtful and concerned about the voter.

They've been very thoughtful about making sure that we don't disrupt people.

And they took into consideration everything that you asked us to take into consideration.

and also in canvassing the state and canvassing other registrar's offices, I've realized that we are the first to be this far ahead.

We are significantly ahead of everybody else and my staff will tell you I strive to do that.

So I'm very happy about that.

We're ahead of everybody else and if we go ahead and have the second reading on April the 4th and you guys are happy and this happens, we might be the first justice submission for the state and I'm loving that.

Had to say it.

That's all I have for the PowerPoint.

Thank you, Ms. Hayachita.

Questions for Ms. Hayachita?

I do but I have to find it here.

with those names.

you know there's always the concern that any change is going to suppress the vote and so an idea that I heard which I think is a really good one one is the option of having the whole transit system be free that day so that people can get you know go vote and just make it a big public hey go vote buses free and the other is the possibility of having fans or buses or whatever we might have available

to go between polling places so that if somebody shows up at the wrong one, there's a way for them to get to the one they should be at, especially if they took the bus or walked or don't have a car that they can just quickly jump across town.

So I think that those were ideas that I'd like to see considered.

Other questions or comments?

Let me make one or two comments.

I was for the eight precincts which were existing with some tweaking, but it seems that you, tweaking does not work.

Thank you.

I did have a question.

When will precincts are presumed because of multi-family units?

That's why it's so small.

Yeah, it's a very dense area.

But it only has 56 children.

It's got a lot of people over the age of 18.

I was just wondering, can you describe some of the, and because it sounds like things worked out well, but what was the journey like getting there?

I might ask, do you mind if I ask one of the committee members to answer that?

I just sat and ran the meeting.

Good evening, Charles Kremtowski, 1829 Yorktown Drive.

It was a very cordial group, a very intelligent group.

The biggest obstacle at the beginning, I think, was learning how to use the software.

As you move, there are 285,000 census blocks in Virginia.

I'm not quite certain what the number are in Charlottesville, but you first have to become accustomed to moving census blocks around and seeing how the population numbers move.

in order to create equitable precinct boundaries.

So that was the first obstacle.

To be honest, there really weren't any other major obstacles after that.

We really worked as a committee.

Alright, well I fully endorse the proposal and again I echo the comments acknowledging the work of the committee, thanking the committee members for their efforts.

It's before us tonight on the first two readings.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

It will carry forward to our next meeting.

Thank you.

That's the last item of regular business before us tonight.

All right, we will now have our final matters by the public session.

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

Hearing none, the meeting's adjourned.