City Council Meeting   5/2/2011

Here with the roll call please.

Dr. Brown?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Yes.

Ms. Szakos?

Somebody's missing.

Our mayor is traveling.

They should have arrived in Winneba, Ghana by now.

And I hope that they accomplish all the things that they've set out to do and that they have a wonderful time.

Next on the agenda, awards and recognitions.

And I'd like to begin with recognizing Charlottesville Police Officer Tyler Thornton.

Charlottesville Police Officer Tyler Thornton was on duty March 30th when he was flagged down by a soon-to-be grandmother at a bank at Barracks Road.

Baby Courtney was on her way, but wasn't patient enough to make it to UVA Hospital.

Officer Thornton helped deliver the baby soon after pulling in and wrapped her in a t-shirt and he checked to make sure she was breathing.

He then grabbed the flashlight from his cruiser, ripped off the lanyard and used it to tie the umbilical cord.

This on-the-job training will come in handy for Officer Thornton as he and his wife are expecting their first baby girl this month.

Officer Thornton, will you come forward please?

Is that your wife with you?

Can you stand up please?

Thank you.

I will be the substitute reader for our proclamation declaring National Tourism Week.

Whereas the travel and tourism industry in the city of Charlottesville continues to be vital to our economic stability and growth and it contributes significantly to our city's cultural and social climate and whereas the travel and tourism

Industry supports the vital interests of the Charlottesville community, contributing to our employment, economic prosperity, international travel and relations, peace and understanding and goodwill.

And whereas the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau is funded through a collection of the overnight hotel tax from county hotels, bed and breakfasts and campgrounds, and whereas the mission of the CACVB, I believe that's

CACBB is to enhance the economic prosperity of the city by promoting, selling and marketing the destination and whereas in 2009 the Virginia Tourism Corporation reported a $157.8 million in direct visitor spending in the city of Charlottesville

and approximately 1,960 jobs in Charlottesville are directly supported through the tourism and hospitality industry which includes lodging, food service, attractions, agritourism and payroll for those individuals was $34.4 million and whereas the US Travel Association estimates that one of every eight non-farm jobs in the United States is created directly or indirectly or induced by travel and tourism

and whereas every citizen in the City of Charlottesville benefits from the positive economic impact of the tourism industry, and it is fitting that we recognize the importance of travel and tourism, now therefore be it resolved that she, Holly Edwards, Vice-Mayor for the City of Charlottesville, do hereby proclaim the week May 7-15, 2011,

as National Tourism Week in the City of Charlottesville and calls upon all citizens to recognize the value of the tourism industry in our community and to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Signed and sealed this second day of May 2011, Holly Edwards, Vice Mayor.

Is there someone here to receive it?

Vice Mayor and Honorable Councillors, I thank you very much for this honored proclamation.

We partner with many, many folks in our community and oftentimes they are the ones that are forgotten who really make the rubber hit the road, so to speak.

With the

Many thousands collectively both in the city and the county that work in the hospitality and tourism industries.

They earn a decent wage for work rendered and that buying power filters throughout the community and helps to support other services.

I'd like to again just say thank you and mention that we do have a Facebook presence with the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention Visitors Bureau.

Folks can go to Charlottesville, Virginia and look at travel slash leisure and friend us.

We hope they will.

And we will have a campaign that you'll hear more about beginning in June called My Backyard Vacation.

which we hope to launch with a lot of success this year as we start seeing gas topping $4 a gallon and we hope to impart ideas with our local residents on activities and things they can do that are low cost or no cost and create some fun excitement for families that otherwise would not have an opportunity to travel out on a vacation.

One of the reasons why people come to Charlotte is those beautiful trees we have here.

Arbor Day was on the 29th of April, but I am reading this on behalf of the mayor who is not here today.

Whereas in 1872, Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for planting trees.

Whereas the holiday is called Arbor Day, which is observed by planting one million trees in Nebraska.

Arbor Day is now throughout the nation and the world.

Whereas the trees can reduce erosion by precious topsoil, by wind and water, but cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce life-giving oxygen, provide habitat for wildlife,

Whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper, wood for houses, fuel for fires.

Whereas trees in our city increase property values and enhance the community vitality of the business district.

Whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal.

Now, therefore, I on behalf of Mayor Norris hereby proclaim April 29th, 2011 as Arbor Day in the city of Charlottesville and I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and support the effort to protect our trees and woodlands.

Thank you to council for your continued support of our tree initiatives here in the city.

Without your help, we couldn't be doing what we continue to do every year.

I want to let everybody know we planted this year's Arbor Day tree in Tonsler Park between the tennis courts and the community building.

So if you want to see the tree, it's out there now.

And I'm going to continue to celebrate by having one of these tree-free cookies.

And I have a couple of announcements.

There will be a minority business summit, changing needs, new solutions at the Omni Hotel on May 23rd from 8.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and this is being sponsored by the Dialogue on Race.

The city received recognition for its Walker friendly infrastructure.

Charlottesville was awarded the silver level recognition

Charlottesville is among only 11 communities recognized in the inaugural round of walk-friendly communities announced.

The pedestrian and bicycle information center has designated the city with this award, and I'd like to thank our traffic engineer, Jeannie Alexander, for taking the leadership on this.

Making an old house new

A public open house will be held for the Ridge Street in Burnett Commons neighborhood on May 12th from 5 to 7 p.m. to the corner of Ridge in Elliott.

This will have the ultimate recycling project.

A couple other announcements.

The city market will be opening in Penn Park in the Farmers in the Park at Meade Park this week.

At Penn Park, the City Market will be open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. and in Meade Park on Meade Avenue on Wednesdays from 3 to 7.

Is that saying Penn Park on Tuesdays?

Did I say that?

Are you all paying attention?

Any case, City Market every Saturday downtown from 7 to noon, Penn Park on Tuesdays from 3 to 7,

Meade Park on Wednesdays from 3 to 7.

And I'm so excited that behind this was another announcement about city launches goat initiative in a park near you.

If you have not been to Penn Park to see the goats, you have really missed out.

So get a chance to get over there to see how productive and resourceful the goats are.

The first I have is announcing Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, which is tomorrow, May 3rd.

And you might notice that some people up here are wearing these green ribbons, and these are to signify observance of Children's Mental Health Awareness Day.

And I have not enough for everyone here.

This is all they had.

I managed to snag these.

So if you would like one to wear tomorrow, take one and we'll see how far they go out there.

while I read this little thing from Safe Schools Healthy Students, which is an initiative here locally.

One in every five young persons is affected by depression or mental illness before they reach adulthood.

Wear a green ribbon to raise public awareness for children, adolescents, and families whose lives are affected by mental illness.

Why green?

Green signifies new life, new growth, and new beginnings.

Through continued education, outreach, and accessible affordable service provision,

We can better the lives of children with behavioral and emotional challenges.

So that's tomorrow.

And the other announcement I have is the next, I believe the sixth, Our Town Charlottesville Community Discussion Series.

which will be at Johnson Elementary School on May 12th, Thursday.

That's 1645 Cherry Avenue from 6 to 8 p.m.

There'll be dinner provided for free and fun supervised activities for the children.

It's a great opportunity to come out and tell city council what you think.

I'm sure that we'll hear some, it's generally for the Fry's Spring neighborhood and I'm sure that we'll hear some things about bridges and traffic and access there.

But there I'm sure will be lots of other issues that people have as well and we look forward to hearing from you.

We'll have department heads there and counselors to have entirely public comment period.

Vice Mayor, in other business today I'd like to kind of update council, myself and the city manager on things that have been going on with the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority regarding the pump station and possible locations.

Okay, thank you.

Do we know that?

If there aren't any other announcements, I'd like to move on to matters by the public.

I'll just remind everyone that you do have three minutes to speak.

Madam Vice Mayor, Councillors, Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown, my name is Peter McIntosh.

I live at 624 Davis Avenue in the city.

I come before you as the Vice President of the Board of the McIntire Botanical Garden.

Our vision is to promote a public and private partnership to establish gardens, trails, and other natural amenities on the east side of McIntire Park.

We ask that you move forward now on the master planning process for this park.

The McIntire Botanical Garden has spent three years studying the potential for this green space, informing members of the public about this opportunity, and building a list of interested citizens that now exceeds 900.

We recently conducted an email and a mail survey to see what citizens think of and want in a botanical garden.

This information will be very useful in the master planning process.

It appears now that we're finally

at a time when the city can begin this long awaited process for studying this incredibly valuable green space in the heart of our city.

As reported in the media, the contract for the city portion of the parkway will soon be entered into and construction should begin shortly.

We are not starting at ground zero in this process.

At least four times in the past, plans have been produced for the city proposing uses for the east side of McIntyre Park.

With a copy of my remarks are copies of the landscape plans for each one of these proposals.

The first one occurred in 1972 when Mitch van Yerries was mayor of the city.

The second occurred sometime in the early 90s.

I was not able to put a date on it.

were proposing an arboretum for the east side of McIntire Park.

In 2000, Will Riley presented the city manager with plans for use in the master planning process, and in August of 2004, the city master planning committee delivered its report to council.

This committee was chaired by Karen Firehawk, contained members from the Parks and Rec Advisory Board and staff, a city councilor, members of the planning commission, among others, citizens.

The report was the culmination of several years of work and meetings.

This report recommended an arboretum, gardens, trails and pedestrian access over the parkway and the southern railway tracks.

And within the past four years the city has conducted a needs assessment and trails and passive recreation were among the most requested amenities.

We recently learned that the pedestrian access from the west side of the park to the east side of the park over the southern railway tracks is going to be a reality.

It will start sometime this summer, we understand, from Mr. Jensen, and will be completed in the summer of 2012.

Thus, people going to the west side of the park will now have the ability to walk across those tracks and get into the beautiful east side of the park.

So we urge the city to proceed now with the master planning process.

Joanna Salides Hello, I'm Joanna Salides and I live at 129 Goodman Street.

Last week I read a column in the Washington Post by Eugene Robinson whose work I like.

This column was on the birther conspiracy theorists and Eugene was commenting on the sad absurdity that our president has to deal with them when there is so much important work to do.

Eugene attributes the birther phenomenon to two things, racism and quote, an increasing tendency for facts to be treated as personal accoutrements as easily adopted or discarded as the newest model smartphone.

It was the column's focus on the dispensability of facts that reminds me of our current

events in Charlottesville regarding the water plan and other infrastructure projects.

As Eugene says, if a fact is, tongue in cheek of course, if a fact is inconvenient, just ignore it, put it aside.

Surely there is someone out there who's selling a version that might be more to your liking.

So what are some facts in our water supply debate that are being put aside?

Well, here's a good one.

We can get as much water from dredging South Fork Rivanna Reservoir as we can get from building a new dam at Ragged Mountain with a 30 foot rise.

Same safe yield, same water amount available for the rivers.

Liz Palmer of the ACSA and Tom Frederick of the RWSA say so.

To be clear, Tom Frederick actually refuted the claim of equivalent capacity at the last RWSA meeting.

But he said, almost quoting, one, that the 30-foot rise would provide more safe yield in the short term before South Fork silts in, two, that it replaces capacity at South Fork if it is never dredged, and three, that it builds a foundation to easily and at low cost greatly increase capacity.

To me, those three statements say the same thing.

We could get just as much water by dredging South Fork Rivanna Reservoir as we can by building a new dam.

Furthermore, I would add, we can have the very same laudable flexibility for greatly increasing capacity in the future by repairing and widening the base of the old dam at Ragged Mountain.

Here's another fact.

Safe yield is safe yield.

I hate to point out the equivalency of equivalencies, but somehow this most obvious fact has been turned on its head by proponents of the new dam and so far allowed to stand by city representatives.

As far as I understand it, the County Board of Supervisors insists that if dredging occurs, the capacity gained will not count as water.

The capacity gained, the capacity of water will not count as water.

Therefore, dredging is only recreational.

Therefore, they don't have to pay for it.

Therefore, we need much more storage at Ragged Mountain and have to build a new dam.

I do not understand how you all can sit at meetings and listen to this doublethink with a straight face, let alone allow negotiations to continue under this premise.

Here's another essential fact.

Proponents of dredging first and proponents of a new dam do not disagree over whether we should meet our water needs in the future.

We all agree that it is essential to meet the region's needs as it grows.

What we disagree on is the way to meet those needs.

Maintaining our infrastructure by dredging is the most environmentally and financially efficient way to enlarge our water supply.

I also want to point out that the online petition at SevilleWater.info, that's Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, has been doing, has more and more signatures, now 441, plus we have 70 signatures on paper.

Good evening.

I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

I'm coming here to discuss a topic we presented, the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park presented about one year ago concerning the possibility of having construction begin

in McIntire Park as part of the McIntire Road Extended Project or the Interchange Project before the legal considerations of whether the federal funding for that project is appropriate.

One year ago, council asked your city attorney Craig Brown to work with us to develop a resolution that could come before council that would recognize that destroying the park in a

untimely manner where the road may not ever be completed would be disadvantaged to all in the city and we worked forward to try to come up with a resolution.

At that time it was determined by council, I believe, but it was communicated to me by the city attorney that council had chosen not to

to proceed with our resolution, but that we would have an opportunity, apparently based on the calendar time schedule at the time, to have our legal claims considered in the federal court.

Last week in the newspaper you clearly saw Parkway about ready to be constructed and we were concerned that we would have to come file another lawsuit in order to have the opportunity for an injunction on the McIntyre Road extended project and I went back and reviewed the note that was sent me June 7, 2010 by

City Attorney Craig Brown.

In that it says that the resolution was designed to ensure that we were designing to ensure the coalition had an opportunity to challenge the determination of the Federal Highway Administration regarding impacts of the interchange project.

And it also stated that City Council certainly understands and respects the desire to avoid any irreparable damage to McIntyre Park if there is a sustainable

if there's a substantial likelihood that opponents to the road project will be successful in court.

After the newspaper article, counsel Szakos mentioned that she supported the notion that building in the park prior to having a resolution of the issues on the interchange was a good idea, that we should not destroy trees among other resources in the park that may just, they're not repairable after the fact.

And then the final note in this letter that I got said,

quote by Craig Brown that I believe city council will consider the coalition's resolution if the timing on the two projects changes such that VDOT is ready to begin construction prior to the coalition's having the opportunity to promptly seek preliminary injunctive relief in response to the FHWA determination.

So I request that the city reconsider passing a resolution to ensure that no construction activity takes place that would destroy irreparably resources in the park.

And John Cruickshank took some photographs of construction work that's actually going on in the park at this time doing subsurface borings associated with the interchange.

So in fact, there is some construction work that's being paid for and doing some damage to the park

today in the park.

So I would request that council ask through your city attorney or otherwise to meet with the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park, draft something that would be appropriate, that would reflect the power that you have in this decision, and hopefully reflect the fact that council does recognize that destruction of the park is not

Good practice, good public policy if that road may not actually be built.

So I would certainly entertain meeting with anyone on council or the attorney to discuss further how we could go with this project.

Thank you.

Scott Beyer, 2556 Summit Ridge Trail.

Good evening, Council.

I've noticed the downtown mall has had some recent closings and in general hasn't been as crowded as it could be, but what I found even less utilized is the quarter mile radius around the pedestrian mall.

If you walk any five minutes in any direction, this is going to become evident.

The area around the Omni Hotel

and Carver Rex still consist largely of unused parking.

Both Lee and McGuffey Park are nice aesthetically but they lack users.

The lot across from Guadalajara was unable to support a gas station.

Water Street was unable to support OXO.

and the corner of Avon and Levy has two restaurants that don't even stay open for dinner right now.

And these are not anomalies.

They're consistent with an overall downtown atmosphere that at times lacks vitality.

And you can contrast this with Barracks Road, which almost always seems packed.

And the odd thing is that to many people, downtown has nicer businesses.

And I think that to everybody, it has a nicer, more tasteful streetscape.

So there must be something causing it to attract less customers than Barracks Road, and I think it's the difference in the availability of free parking.

With that said, I think it's time the city made more parking available for free downtown, either by leasing large portions of both garages or by building a free parking garage on a city-owned lot on Water Street.

I know that would be expensive,

but I think it'd be part of the basic infrastructure the city must provide downtown businesses if they're going to compete with strip malls like Barracks Road.

For those who think this would create congestion, consider now that downtown has the opposite problem and that people avoid it because they don't want to pay for parking.

They're the exact people.

We lose the Barracks Road and they're a lot of the reason that downtown at times can feel empty.

There's also an economic concept that I know applies in other cities and it may or may not apply in Charlottesville, but I could see how it could.

When free parking is added downtown, it causes existing paid flat lots.

to lose business, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you consider who usually owns flat paid parking lots.

Usually they're owned by developers who are sitting on their lot because they don't want to take the risk of building it.

So they convert it to flat paid parking in order to still gain revenue so that they can pay property taxes.

But if an influx of free parking makes this process less lucrative, then it incentivizes developers to build those lots.

And when developers build on flat lots, they're eradicating the very thing that makes downtown feel empty in the first place.

Sure.

One other topic.

Right now there's a bunch of chairs and tables beneath the pavilion that go unused except during concerts.

They were put there to make the pavilion a public space but haven't because the pavilion is too removed from the mall to ever become a public space.

I think if we move those chairs up by the community chalkboard or we move some chairs by the community chalkboard

Ma'am, gentlemen, Madam Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, excuse me.

I'm Bob Fenwick, 901 East Jefferson Street.

A few questions for Maurice to start.

What is the status of the RFP, the request for proposal for dredging the Rivanna Reservoir?

And when can we expect to see a dredge in the reservoir?

And what are the total preliminary cost estimates for the new dam, the new reservoir, and the new nine-mile pipeline?

Several days ago, Tom Frederick said these figures were on the RWSA website, but they are not.

We will never in our lifetimes have another boom time like we had the one that ended four years ago.

Five years ago a standard house in a subdivision north of the city sold for a half million dollars.

Its value is now about half that.

South of town minutes from the downtown mall

A four bedroom condo was advertised five years ago for $250,000.

It just sold two weeks ago for $67,000 and it was in excellent shape.

Four bedroom condo.

I know this because I worked on both of them.

This is bad news, good news.

Bad news in that the market has bottomed out.

The bottom has fallen out of the market.

Good news in that investors and first time home buyers are recognizing that the prices and the interest rates will never be better.

It used to be a custom in our community for house hunters, young and old, to visit houses for sale on Sunday afternoon.

They would be guided by small open house signs that would lead them to the house and these would be placed in the median strips of the roads.

Then the city banned the sign, viewing them as merely clutter.

Every time a house or a business is sold, up to 15 or 16 jobs happen.

Realtors, brokers, painters, plumbers, hardware stores, insurance brokers, up to about 15 or 16 of them will find work.

And of course the city gets taxes and recording fees.

In these tough times, I urge this council to suspend the restriction on these small signs.

Let the realtors make a living by removing restrictions on their business.

At the very least, suspend this restriction for the spring and summer and see what happens.

This coming Sunday could mark the beginning of the revitalization of the real estate industry in Charlottesville.

show the business community that this community truly is business friendly.

Good evening, Mr. Vice Mayor, Councillors, Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown.

My name is Jim Shea.

I live at 301 Monte Vista Avenue in the city.

I'm a member of the dialogue on race action team on the re-entry of ex-offenders and also the governor's steering committee, re-entry steering committee, but I'm not here tonight to represent either of those worthy groups.

I'm here as a concerned citizen who happens also to be an ex-offender.

I have two reasons for coming before you tonight.

First is to commend you and thank you for taking up the cause of ex-offenders and their families, for declaring back in December that Charlottesville is a city of second chances for ex-offenders, and then for staging the recent re-entry summit.

The idea for which I believe arose with the Vice Mayor and I commend you all also for placing the job of organizing and producing this event in the able hands of the Director for Human Services for the City, Mike Murphy.

The event was indeed a memorable day.

It brought together over 200 people of various points of view, including ex-offenders and their families.

service providers, ministers, employers and various other concerned citizens who had a chance in this day long event to get to know one another a little better, to hear various points of view, observations, criticisms, complaints and I think that there was a great spirit in the Holiday Inn that day and one of the things that emerged was

the distinct sense that it's possible for us to put together a broadly based movement, community movement to address the problems of ex-offenders and their families from many vantage points.

I think that many people who were present at the summit got that idea if they didn't already have it and have some enthusiasm for pursuing it.

and that brings us to the point where we are and as I say again I commend the city for its playing such a key role in bringing us to this point.

However, we're now at the place where we've got to figure out how to go forward and that's not so easy to figure out and there is no consensus on how to do that.

So my second purpose in coming before you tonight is to urge the city, urge council and the city staff to continue to play

a key role in taking us to the next step.

We have no laws to rest on yet but we can get them if we work at it and so please continue to use your influence, your authority, the resources including the skills of the city staff to help us build the movement that will

that will enable us to bring some justice to the people who need it, will bring us to kind of the results that we all want and that elements in our community deserve to get.

Good evening.

My name is Rebecca Quinn.

I live at 104 4th Street here in the city.

I realize utility rates are no longer on tonight's agenda, but knowing you'll take this up at a later date prompts me to make a request.

When I saw the notice of Rivanna water and sewer authorities' proposed water and sewer rates, I was surprised that it didn't list both the current rate as well as the proposed rate.

How can the public know what the impact is

or really even plan for it if we're not told what both current rates and proposed rates are.

Yeah, I know they could take their water bill or they could take their sewer bill and they could figure it out, but I don't think that's what openness should be.

So I have a simple request.

In any public notice that you publish or that you or your representatives approve or publish, please be sure to list both current rates

as well as proposed rates.

Good evening, everyone.

Victoria Dunham, 1419 Chesapeake Street.

I'm the president of Owen Mills Neighborhood Association.

First off, I would like to

Thank you all publicly for taking option A of the pumping station off the table.

That was the vote that you all took a while back and I really wanted to thank you very much for that.

I also would like to encourage you all to consider the resolution that I wrote you about, about passing that resolution about selling park land for a pumping station so that option A can never rear its ugly head again ever.

We know that that won't happen.

Option C was the option that was chosen the other day at the RWSA board meeting.

Option C is still in the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

I think that there's a misnomer out there that that is moving it out of the neighborhood.

It's not.

It's actually putting it firmly in one of the most historic parts of the neighborhood.

The location that was chosen by the RWSA for option C is extremely problematic to the closest neighbors.

most particularly the mill and the mill condos.

Not only is that area extremely historic, it's also environmentally fragile and it requires the acquisition of a lot of really tricky easements including one for CSX.

Because the most expensive option has been chosen, there's going to be a lot of pressure to cut costs and we stand a real danger of ending up with a bad option C.

I ask that you continue to push for a solution that doesn't harm property, historic resources, or the environment.

In doing so, we need to make sure that the dialogue remains ongoing and completely transparent with the neighborhood.

Should you end up supporting option C in the end, then a thorough and neutral study must be conducted that evaluates all potential archaeological and environmental impacts.

Thank you very much.

That was the last person signed up for public comment and there will be an opportunity at the end of the meeting.

Did you have one?

Yes, you may.

Vice Mayor Edwards, Councillors, Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown.

My name is John Fink.

I live at 1901 East Market Street.

I've lived there for 21 years.

I served on the Charlottesville City Planning Commission from 2003 to 2007.

and was a neighborhood president for many years in the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

When I looked at the pumping station that's been there since the early 80s, current zoning would never allow this any place in America, in any city, any place.

We have an opportunity to move this across the river on uninhabited land and to get it out of the neighborhood.

and I would ask that you partner with our neighborhood to do this.

In fact, it's incumbent on you all.

No neighborhood should have a 53 million gallon per day pumping station.

No neighborhood for any reason.

We have an opportunity to mitigate a situation that was brought 30 years ago.

And I applaud you for taking option A off the table.

That was a great move.

We need to move it out of the neighborhood.

There's an option D. There may be an option E. There may be an option F. But I would encourage you to reach across city county lines, to reach out to RSWA, to keep this dialogue extraordinarily transparent.

We're counting on you to be partners, not only as taxpayers, but as our representatives.

We need to get it out of the neighborhood.

Mr. President, there will be an opportunity at the end of the meeting for further public comment.

I have two comments.

We have not set a date to begin that in that process but at council's direction we can we can do that if it's councils will we can do that probably beginning this summer what we would probably do is come back to council with the guidelines that council passed

I think it was a few months ago that would allow us to begin the process.

I would like to see it as soon as we can do it because I think we need to do a master plan for the facility.

Second question related to parkway by Peter Kleeman.

I must say I don't quite agree with Peter at all.

I guess I would also like to respond to Mr. Kleeman.

It's true that I, where are you?

There you are.

It's true that I don't think that we should start building when we don't yet know kind of that all the permits are in place and all that.

I was actually very disappointed when I heard that your group chose not to ask for an injunction because I think that was the understanding in that letter that you read and I think that had you asked for an injunction then we would have a chance to wait for that hearing but I think to ask council to wait for

you know, two years or however long it takes for that to kind of slowly wind its way through the court is not the spirit of that initial agreement.

So that's kind of my sense on that, that I, that was how I understood that letter.

In fact, you quoted that part in this seeking injunctive relief, which was in that letter from our attorney.

To Mr. Beyer,

although there were things that I would take issue with I guess about, you know, I hate to pit downtown against Barracks Road because they're both in the city, you know, they're all our city businesses and I think, you know, we don't want to take away from one to give to the other.

I was intrigued by

your idea of having seating by the chalkboard and in that area.

I think that that is sometimes an area that doesn't have a whole lot of, and the few seats that are there always have someone in them.

It's obviously a place where people like to gather and meet.

So I think we should look into that.

So I would echo that myself.

To Mr. Shea, thank you.

I was so sorry I was in Iowa and I missed the summit.

I heard it was wonderful.

We have a report coming later in the agenda, so thank you for

speaking up and also that report offers several items for action and follow up and I think that we need to stay on those and make sure it doesn't just become a nice meeting but instead a call for action.

To Ms. Quinn, I agree.

I would love to see

anything talking about rates, taxes, anything, have the old one and the new one just because it's really hard to know in a vacuum what something is if it's up or down or better or worse or easier or harder to pay.

And to the folks from the Woolen Mills neighborhood, I agree and I really appreciate our city manager and our public works director,

I'll also agree with Rebecca Quinn.

I think her comments were a good idea to try to help people understand rate structures.

It's a good thing to include the old rate.

I'd like to thank John Fink and Victoria Dunham for their thoughtful comments.

And I'd also like to – I'm not sure if Scott Beyer and I hang out at the same downtown mall, at least not on Fridays.

And I'm also not sure if free parking

is the kind of solution I want to see us have.

I mean, I think we think about the downtown mall as being a place where we encourage walking and transit and not necessarily try to encourage people to just get in their car and drive on down here.

And I'm also not sure if people choose one way or the other because of parking.

Mr. Finlegan asked a couple questions about the status of RFP.

I don't know if you were prepared to answer those or another time to address that.

Right now the Rivanna staff is working on the RFP.

We've asked them, they said that they could have it come back to us in June, the Rivanna board.

We've asked if they could try to move that, expedite that process and try to get us an RFP to review in May.

And they're going to try to do that.

I'm not sure if they're going to be able to.

Okay.

and I also agree with the suggestion made by Rebecca Quinn and I know we're going to have a discussion about option C toward the end of the meeting but I'd like to also suggest that we actually have a field trip because I've looked at some of the maps so I think it would really be helpful to actually plan an opportunity to walk around

and to simply to see what's going to be impacted.

I think actually being there will help to kind of put things in different perspective as well.

And I'd just like to thank everyone that spoke this evening and moving on with the agenda.

Sure will.

The consent agenda for May 2nd.

Item A is in the minutes of April 18th.

Item B is an appropriation of $41,884,000.67 for the aquatic facility rental revenue for the Crow indoor pool.

Item C is an appropriation of the fiscal year 2011 additional transit revenues.

That's the second of two readings.

Item D is the appropriation of $1,500 to donation towards the purchase of the Azura sculpture.

That's the second of two readings.

Item E is an appropriation of $5,625 for the downtown mall directional signage purchases.

That's the first of two readings.

Item F is an appropriation of $22,840 of the settlement from Nautilus Insurance Company for the City Hall window damage.

That's the first of two readings.

Item G is an appropriation for $22,500 for the Police Department for reimbursement of overtime.

That's the first of two readings.

Item H is a resolution adopting the Emergency Operations Plan.

Item I is a resolution for the approval of the Fiscal Year 2011-2012 Annual Action Plan.

Item J is a resolution for the approval of reimbursement for employee legal fees.

Item K is a resolution for the acceptance of an extension of Brookwood Drive and the Brookwood Development.

Item L is the approval of the 2011 analysis of impediments to the Fair Housing Choice Report.

Those are all first of one readings.

Item M is an ordinance for the amendment of the noise ordinance.

That's the second of two readings.

And item N is an ordinance for the zoning of two unzoned properties.

The next item on our agenda is a public hearing resolution issuance of series 2011 bonds.

Good evening vice mayor, members of council.

The resolution before you authorizes the city to sell general obligation bonds up to 20 million dollars.

The bonds were part of the adopted capital improvement plan for 2011 and prior years.

A summary of the projects to be financed are included on page one of your docket memo and there's more specific information about the projects on page three.

We have met with our rating agencies to rate this bond issue and we expect to maintain our AAA bond rating and we are expecting to get that final report by the end of this week.

The sale is currently scheduled for mid-May with closing anticipated in early June and being a AAA rated community we expect to get excellent rates.

The general for public schools we'll be bonding $750,000 for transportation and access improvements $2,754,000

I have just a question of my own ignorance of bonding.

When bonds are sold, they're all sold at the beginning, right?

So the rate that you get then is the rate that it stays?

That's correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Did anyone sign up for the public hearing?

Is there anyone here that would like to speak to this topic?

Colette Hall.

Good evening, Vice Mayor Edwards and Councillors.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

Once again, you are requested to vote permission for the issuance of municipal bonds.

I am not here to argue the merits if the recipient of these bonds, for example, sewer renovation, is or is not a worthy goal.

I fear that in 2012 you will be requested to issue bonds for X and 2013 bonds for Y.

and in 2014 bonds for Z and so it goes.

The taxpayers will hear that there will always be needs that can't be covered by the General Fund or the Capital Improvement Fund.

The minimal truth of the matter is that in the current recession, Charlottesville has been spared the worst effects of a spiraling economy.

probably due to the university's presence and yearly the city receives millions of dollars in revenue sharing from Albemarle County.

Nor am I here to argue the merits or the lack of revenue sharing.

We must get our spending under control.

With the issuance of bonds comes the most serious obligation of repayment of those bonds in a timely manner to maintain our AAA bond rating and therefore continue to enjoy low interest borrowing rates.

Are you tired of my constant reminder on this issue?

Good.

Many, many residents are not aware or even care of what I speak, but you as elected officials are legally liable to act in a responsible fiduciary manner for the residents and the taxpayers.

Thank you.

Rebecca Quinn, 104 Fourth Street.

I'd just like to, and I apologize, maybe it is accessible in that I think for my benefit as well as those who are watching at home, she listed three million for water system improvements and six million for sewer system improvements.

We just talked about water and sewer rates.

I don't know how those fit together, but if you could let us know is there a readily accessible way we can understand how those monies will be used, I think we would all appreciate it.

Was anybody else that wanted to speak on this topic, the issuance of serious 2011 bonds?

and that the public hearing is closed.

I guess one thing that I have understood about bonds is that we try to keep in Charlottesville kind of a steady amount.

So we're paying, always paying some off every year as we're taking new.

So we're not really increasing our debt.

in this except we're maintaining our debt.

And there is a percentage of that that's expected of cities to do.

Is that about right in that the bonding agencies kind of

that that's considered sort of the normal way of doing business because if we were to pay for a three million dollar fire station out of general funds it would mean we wouldn't be providing social services or sidewalks that year and it's a way to spread that out over time.

Is that, I'm just, is that, okay.

And so I guess I'm not tired of hearing from you because I think it's important that we remember that this is debt but it's not

I guess I feel comfortable that it's not increasing debt.

It's not going kind of further into debt.

It's kind of keeping that level that is the cost of doing business.

So anyway, I just wanted to make sure that this isn't an increase in debt.

It's just the same amount or the same percentage of our budget.

To clarify, we are issuing more debt, but it's part of our overall plan.

So, you know, we are maintaining a budget when we pass the CIP and we plan these projects.

It's not because we just couldn't pay for it.

Exactly.

The money is being used for

But just to follow up on, I do think we're actually, this is a bigger bond issue than we've done in recent years, which means it'll probably result in an increased amount of annual debt service resulting from it.

So I don't think we should take this lightly.

I think it's, you know, we talk all the time about maintaining our infrastructure, and I think this is exactly how we do it.

I think what it means is, and I don't disagree with Ms. Hall because it could be that in the next couple years with state budget issues and federal budget issues we may find ourselves having to take a much closer look at the city budget but I think this is the kind of stuff we need to do and you can only do it through bonds.

Can I say a second?

I'll second.

This is the first of one reading so we just need to, do we need to vote then?

Can I respond real quickly to Ms. Quinn's question?

The projects for the water and sewer should be in the capital improvement program budget, so you can find it there or we can give that information to you as well.

That is online.

Next on the agenda is the, oh, thank you.

Vice Mayor Edwards, members of council,

I think as you all know the first phase of what will be Hillsdale Drive extended has been built off of hydraulic road between Kmart and what will soon be the new Whole Foods market.

That road was built by the developer of the Whole Foods site with a portion of the cost

provided by the city through the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority.

That funding was provided with a couple of conditions.

Primarily, number one, that the roadway would be built to comply with all city and state standards.

And number two, that it would be dedicated to the city as a public street because it was being built on private property.

The first of those conditions that we built to city and state standards has been met.

The second condition that it be dedicated to the city as a public street has not been done despite the fact that the site developer, Meadowbrook Creek, would like very much to dedicate it.

And the reason that it has not yet been dedicated to the city is that well after the road was under construction and

fairly close to being completed, Kmart Corporation filed a lawsuit against Meadowbrook Creek alleging that the property where the road was built or at least a portion of it was within the boundaries of Kmart's lease and somewhat of an irony, Kmart's landlord is Meadowbrook Creek, the developer of the site

Meadowbrook Creek has attempted to resolve that with Kmart.

The city has made an offer to Kmart of what we believe the fair market value of that leasehold interest is after having it appraised.

Kmart has acknowledged the receipt of those offers, but they have not accepted or rejected those or made a counteroffer.

We would like to move the process forward and allow this to be dedicated to the city as a public street and to that end, staff is recommending that council authorize condemnation proceedings of that portion of Kmart's leasehold interest which is within the Hillsdale Drive right-of-way.

To do that, council is required to adopt a resolution authorizing the initiation of condemnation proceedings, which is in your notebook, and to do that following a public hearing.

Staff's recommendation is based on, I think, a couple of factors.

Number one, this road is a very high transportation priority for the city.

and number two, it's already been built.

So it is not a question of taking property which is dedicated solely to private use and converting it to public use but rather taking property which de facto has a public use now which is as a road and making that legally official.

Are there any questions for Mr. Brown?

And if not, this also requires a public hearing.

Public hearing is open.

Does anyone sign up to speak on this?

Is there anyone here that would like to speak on this topic?

Paulette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

I would ask the city attorney for further clarification of what he just said.

I didn't understand.

Just to reiterate what he just said?

A little clarity.

Kmart's interest in what has been improved as Hillsdale Drive extended is a leasehold interest.

The underlying ownership of the land has already been acquired by Meadowbrook Creek.

Meadowbrook Creek also has a landlord's interest in the property which they are willing to dedicate to the city.

The only portion, the only interest

that is preventing the dedication, preventing the property from being given to the city is Kmart's leasehold interest.

They have alleged that that roadway is within the area that they are leasing and I believe that lease has another six or seven years on it.

I might defer to the representatives of Meadowbrook Creek that are here.

I believe the complaint alleged that there were 110 parking spaces.

Meadowbrook Creek's response, I believe, is that through restriping, reconfiguration of the parking lot, that loss of parking spaces can be reduced, I think, to 40 some.

And they can certainly correct me if I've misstated those numbers.

And I'll be glad to answer any other questions from Ms. Hall.

I don't know if that was an adequate clarification or not.

I don't think I answered or asked the question correctly.

Yes.

The request of city council tonight from staff is to pass a resolution which would authorize

Condemnation or eminent domain proceedings for the portion of Kmart's leasehold that is within the Hillsdale Drive right of way.

And again, I think historically

My experience has been this council has been very reluctant to authorize condemnation or eminent domain proceedings and for that reason it's fairly rare that we bring these to you.

It is in the public interest.

Was there anyone else present that would like to speak on this topic?

What I was trying to say was that it is in public interest, it is an important transportation artery which benefits the city and also benefits the K-Mart actually.

It gives them better access to their own property.

Kmart just didn't respond on this issue.

With regard to the most recent offer that I conveyed, their attorney responded and acknowledged the receipt of the offer and said he had passed it along to I think their corporate headquarters in Chicago and there was no substantive response to it.

Substantive in the terms of we accept, we reject, or here's a counter offer.

Meadowbrook Creek made their offer I believe in October of last year.

As you recall, I discussed this with council previously as probable litigation in closed session and it was right after that that I contacted Kmart's attorney and told them that it would be on this agenda.

I had already made the offer or made the offer again at that point.

Are there any other comments?

It was my hope that the entities would provide some sort of a compromise but I'll have to agree with Ms. Hall on this because I just don't feel comfortable with the condemnation proceedings.

And I'd just like to comment that I also am very uncomfortable with condemnation.

I do think that this is sort of the very narrow construction for which it was designed that can be positive.

And the only reason that I'll vote for it is that I feel like given six months to respond and Kmart hasn't responded, they don't accept these terms.

And they are being paid fair value.

OK, councils, will you vote, please?

And the resolution moves on.

Next on our agenda is a public hearing ordinance with abandonment of storm drain easement.

This is the first of two readings.

Vice Mayor Edwards, Members of Council, this is what I would describe hopefully as a routine matter.

The city a number of years ago acquired an easement for storm drainage facilities across property on Hanover Street.

As is sometimes the case as years go by and circumstances change and properties develop, the need which originally prompted the acquisition of the easement goes away and that's what has happened in this case.

As a result of the development of the Patton Street PUD by Habitat for Humanity, the storm drainage facilities have been relocated and there's no longer any need for the easement which the city acquired in 1993.

For the city to give up that easement which we no longer need requires council action.

Council have any questions or comments?

Did any of them sign up for the public hearing?

Open the public hearing.

Is there anyone here that wanted to make a comment on this?

Public hearing closed.

Any other questions or comments?

So this moves on to the second reading.

Next on the agenda is the sale of 409 Stadium Road.

And that report by Kathy McHugh.

You have perfect timing.

I am here to talk to you about the sale of 409 Stadium Road.

This was last discussed at our February 7th meeting of council at which time the council gave directive relative to the sale to Woodrow Properties LLC and specifically it was requested that we combine the lots

and take out an IPP status for both of them or individually protected property status and to not construct anything but rather to clean up and turn the vacant parcel, which now belongs to the city or which is 409 Stadium Road, to turn that into like a tree, green space, landscaped, similar to or akin to a pocket park

and so went back and had worked with Francesca and Mr. Jones' attorney in developing an agreeable or draft agreement for the sale of the property and in looking at it, it was recommended and ultimately decided that we could accomplish council's objectives by taking a little different approach but we'd end up with the same results.

So that's why I'm coming back to you tonight

is to tell you what we changed, but Woodrow II LLC is agreeable to the IPP designation on the Stonehouse property, but instead of combining the lots and going through the effort of doing that, they would prefer to keep 409 Stadium Road separately and through the use of a deed restriction, restrict that property

and the manner in which the council had directed us to February 7th meeting.

So that is what is proposed and the wording is basically that the purchaser or Woodrow 2 LLC

would remove the weeds, trim trees as necessary, take up the fallen limbs, remove the trash, and implement landscaping measures which would lend themselves toward creating this tree green space that the council had envisioned.

An action that would be required tonight would be to authorize the ordinance that is attached, which essentially

I just wanted to comment that I think this is a good solution for this property.

It will keep the trees, it will keep open space, and still you will be able to sell it at a reasonable price.

I have just a question.

deed restriction that says akin to a pocket park but with no rights of the public to use any portion of this private land as a park or for park purposes.

It's my understanding, no, that they would not

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

You read my mind.

The original motion and the second of the ordinance from Mr. Huja was that the lot be combined with the Stone House property.

And I think for reasons that have been explained

We're recommending that that not be a condition of the sale but I think it is what's being proposed is consistent with Council's wishes.

I move for the amendment.

That requires a vote and then following that vote we can have a final reading, second reading vote on the amended ordinance.

Okay, there's been a motion, it's been seconded.

Since the amendment passes what is before council now for second reading is the ordinance that was in your notebook.

Okay.

Should the record reflect that that was a 4-0 vote on both?

and moving on with our agenda.

Good evening, Vice Mayor Edwards, Members of Council.

Well, thank you for your support of the reentry effort, first of all, and thanks to Vice Mayor Edwards for her vision.

and a number of community volunteers, some of which have stuck with us here tonight.

I want to acknowledge workers from the Dialogue on Races Reentry Workgroup and the Reentry Steering Committee locally and community organizers who did registration drives like Daryl Jones here, Miss Johnson,

and Kevin Millett, especially.

We had over 200 citizens at the Holiday Inn two weeks ago.

who joined in dialogue about a number of issues facing folks coming home from incarceration and we had two headline speakers I'll say, Mr. Darrell Hunt from the state of North Carolina who runs a reentry project.

there, his interest being to help folks as they come home, as he himself had to do after being unjustly incarcerated for 19 years and convicted twice by juries, and also Virginia's new director for the Department of Corrections, Mr. Harold Clark.

We had four panels with citizens from Charlottesville talking about key issues here, about housing and financial obligations, education and employment, access to health and mental health and substance abuse services, and also social reintegration.

We were able to honor former counselor Blake Caravati for his work in this area.

We gained a lot of new volunteers from the community for future efforts.

and we will be offering on Channel 10 very soon the opportunity for citizens to see parts of the day, particularly our two main speakers as city staff from the Communications Office did a great job capturing the day on video and we'll also be offering podcasts of the audio for the entire day soon.

in your packet you also received some evaluation results.

Most of the day was very well received as you could see and certainly as always there's things that we can continue to work on in the future.

Right now we're in the process of getting back to all of the citizens who volunteered for different work groups.

We're hoping to bring together two key groups in our community, the Reentry Steering Committee and the Dialogue on Race Reentry Steering Group.

because one of the biggest things that we learned during the day was the need to, as one of our speakers said, connect the dots and talk about engaging in the community conversation that will allow us to bring together all of the groups who have some ownership of this issue to better

coordinate and collaborate and reduce duplication of services and come together about what the gaps are.

So we're also endeavoring to include citizens in a broader reentry council meeting that will happen on May 11th, which is an existing group that comes out of the governor's office where we're meeting some statutory requirements.

In your packet you know that we talked about a number of next steps that could be occurring and certainly we're welcoming the input of counsel towards that end and in particular

You all have already appropriated over $30,000 for a work program and we need to discuss at some juncture what agency that should be housed in and you know what role that the council and staff should take in the future.

I don't have any questions, but I'd like to thank you and thank the vice mayor for kind of pushing this idea forward.

I think it's an important work for the community.

I was really pleased to see former city councilor and mayor Blake Caravati honored.

I mean, not only did he push this issue when he was a councilor, but in his professional life as a builder, he has helped a lot of people get their way going again in their life.

I guess I would, if you would indulge me, just like to read out a few of the results and next steps for those at home, for people in the audience.

Just some of the ideas that came out of the summit of people who participated and I think as well as the speakers for things that we might consider going forward.

I may miss some because I underlined them on my iPad here, which I love, by the way.

The programs and services must be better coordinated to promote collaboration, effective communication, and avoid duplication.

Therapeutic communities within the jail appear to have played a key role in the stories of many participants.

Support for this methodology and possible expansion should be examined, encouraging the development of peer support networks for offenders and their family members, and increasing efforts to recruit and develop mentors.

Family connections are important.

Efforts to repair relationships and promote reunification must start pre-release.

The need for stable affordable housing, the possibility of CRHA to look at their policies banning people who've had felony records imprisonment, continuity of care in all forms of treatment is a concern for people coming out.

Employment related programs are important.

And I think that there's a number of community members who welcome some guidance on what that next step is, and

Are you chair of that board?

I am chair of that board.

Are you requesting that now?

This goes down a line.

I guess I do have a couple comments.

Mike Murphy, you worked very hard on this conference.

I just appreciate all the hard work and just how intentional you were and just how much you were sweating that morning.

But when I think about Next Steps, I think this is really an opportunity to do what our speakers kind of echo in different ways, but to have creative

and Common Sense Community Collaboration.

And maybe this is an opportunity to have another discussion about poverty in a broader sense and how it impacts different aspects of our community.

And we did have an initial poverty work session, and then we had a follow-up with the Bank On program, and I think we're going to have an update on that.

We could revisit the poverty discussion and just broaden how we are able to provide services and opportunity across the spectrum in our city.

So I want to give that some thought.

And I was trying to frame this as the first annual reentry conference.

And so that there'll be a second annual re-entry conference to start thinking about plans for next year.

And another thing that really was clear during the course of the day was the importance of mental health services.

That came across the board.

And so to think about how we can engage Region 10, which tends to be the primary player in our community for that.

And I'm not sure about the next step for the funding that we made available for workforce development.

Yeah, we're planning to come back to you in early June and talk to you a little bit about getting some direction on where you wanted to go with that and who you wanted to partner with.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Well, thank you.

Next on the agenda is a report for the Spring 2011 Job Fair.

Hello, Council.

I would just like to say a very quick thank you for allowing us to provide this brief overview today of the job fair which was held last Wednesday on April 27th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at John Paul Jones Arena.

We had over 90 employers participate in the job fair, which is the highest number that we've had since we started this.

Combined, they had over 1,500 open positions.

For the first time we had a lot of representation from employers with entry level positions.

We had employers like Chick-fil-A, Hardee's, Omni, DoubleTree that were all there with entry level positions.

We also had about 12 community resource agencies there offering job seeker resources and providing information about the services that they offer.

For example, the Virginia Workforce Center was there, Focus Women's Resource Center,

and also the Adult Learning Center were all there.

We estimate that between 1,800 and 2,000 job seekers attended the event, so turnout was about as expected.

The job fair is sponsored by the City of Charlottesville in partnership with a lot of workforce development agencies and organizations in our community.

Collectively we make this work.

Some of our partners are Virginia Employment Commission,

The Department of Rehab Services and Jason Ness from OAR is here tonight.

He is a big player in the logistics piece of the job fair.

So it's really a collaboration among many community partners in order to make this work.

One of the things that we really focus on as far as the job fair is concerned is making sure that job seekers are as prepared for the event as they can be, giving them the resources that they need to actually go out and approach employers and have a good shot and be competitive of actually getting a job.

We do this two ways.

We offer pre-job fair workshops and then we also do on-site resources as well.

As far as our pre-job fair offerings, we partner with the Virginia Employment Commission to offer workshops on topics related to the job fair, like interviewing and resume writing and dressing for success.

We also partner with the Workforce Center to actually set up an image room on-site

the entire month of April and people can actually come into the Workforce Center, get advice on how they might, you know, improve their appearance for when they go to the job fair and they can also get free professional clothing and this year we partnered with FOCUS, Women's Resource Center to actually have a clothing drive and get that clothing donated.

As far as on site the day of, we have a resource room that's set up and job seekers can come in and they can get help with their resumes, they can get help with online applications, doing an online job search because a lot of that is done online nowadays.

We had about 100 people that we served the day of at the job fair and we heard from one of our volunteers at the OAR that she received a phone call after the fact from a job seeker thanking

her for the assistance that she received and she felt like it really benefited her when she went out and actually approached employers on the floor the day of.

We also take the image room that we set up at the Workforce Center and set it up at John Paul Jones Arena the day of.

We served about 130 people and that's close to 200 different professional outfits that people had a chance to have access to.

Anne Brown from National College, she also works with us to set up workshops the day of.

One workshop that was presented by John Halpin of the DRS was on staying motivated during the job search because that can be difficult when you've been unemployed for a year or more.

We also had Nora Gillespie from the Small Business Development Center that did a workshop on starting your own business because a lot of people were considering that nowadays.

And then also the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, who was an employer at the event, also did two sessions on finding and applying for jobs with the federal government.

So we really put a lot of effort on this because our hopes are that people are actually going to find a job and get an interview and get a job offer.

And in order to determine if people are getting jobs or getting interviews, we do employer surveys after the event and we do job seeker surveys as well.

In the packet that you all received we gave you the results from our fall event but we've done a real quick preliminary review of the results and employers suggested that they did 60 on-site interviews.

So we actually had some employers that requested private interview space and they actually interviewed people on the spot and we do know that some of that was going on.

Job seekers, we had about 350 that responded to our survey and

Out of that group, 160 said that they got an interview either on the spot or one scheduled for a later date.

When we asked our partners, which are our committee members, they said at least 15 of their clients had gotten interviews and one actually had already had an interview with an employer and she was going back today for her final interview and she thought it looked pretty positive.

and then we know of one individual who actually got a job offer for a job that pays about $60,000 a year.

So we were pretty happy to hear that, you know, just three days out from the job fair.

In the past we've heard from The Haven that their clients have, at least 10 of their clients received jobs from participating in the fall job fair.

We've also heard that

Mike Murphy went over his Rantry Summit and we had heard from that summit that at least one individual who was a panelist, he got a job and he's still there today and that was from the job fair we had back in 2009.

So we do hope that and we do feel that people are getting jobs and getting interviews and this is creating opportunity for them and employers as well.

Two comments.

And we appreciate the support of council very much.

I've just noticed that there's much better data collection now than it was in the past, and I really appreciate that.

Right, right, it's a learning process.

And also, Holly Lee, you are just a force to be recognized when it comes to planning a job fair.

I appreciate that very much.

I wanted to update people and get the city manager's help on the Rivanna pumping station issue.

A couple meetings ago at the Rivanna meeting that this discussion pretty much consisted of the city and the county arguing about putting the pumping station on city property under option A at the end of Chesapeake Street by expanding the existing pump station.

And so it was a pleasant surprise to see that the county actually no longer had that position.

Mike Gaffney after having a tour of the site.

And Mike I should point out is a joint appointee feels that his position generally is to not cast a deciding vote.

So if there's a difference of opinion between the two he doesn't.

But the county was very interested in making sure that its large employer State Farm and their option

said option D. They sort of felt like the same issues that we were pointing out for the Willam Mills neighborhood existed with that issue.

And so at the end of the day, we had a fairly lengthy discussion on

Was there any viability to option B which had been discarded early by the Rivanna board which included a more upstream location and I think was discarded for a number of reasons but perhaps primarily because it's underneath Dominion's transmission wires and they pretty much won't let something be built underneath it.

and so at the end of the day it seemed like of the options that are on the table that option C was the one that had the most viability and the least impacts.

Now that's not to say it's without impacts and I think that we heard from some Willam Mills neighborhood residents today regarding those and I think it's important we have a full discussion on that at the next meeting so we can

be clear on what those impacts are.

As Kristin pointed out, both Judy Mueller and Maurice abstained on this, not having clear direction from counsel.

In my opinion, the direction from counsel was to oppose

Option A and to me that at this point in time of the options that are on the table, option C is the one that seems to me that's doable and it is critically important we do something in this and I think we need to explore that more at the next meeting.

I think, Dr. Brown, I think you've covered most of the issues.

I think there are a couple of things to also consider here.

One, what the board voted on was for design, moving design forward on option C.

or C1 or a hybrid of option C to consider.

And so that's what they voted on.

And they said they did want to hear from city council as well.

So they made moving forward, stipulation would be to hear back from city council because there hadn't been clear direction.

I spoke to Mr. Frederick.

about having a presentation this evening and voting on this before council more I guess a more in-depth discussion two weeks from now and having a vote and whether or not that would affect the timing of this project and he felt that it would not so I think from a timing perspective we're

were in good shape.

One of the other discussions that came up was if we moved forward with option C as a design and then came back two months from now and realized that it wasn't going to work for whatever reasons, that would still give us enough time to consider other options before we have to really at that point start thinking about the deadline that we have before us.

I would like to make sure that next meeting we have a public hearing

I think I'm content to save most of the discussion for the next meeting, but I am concerned that as we sort of go into this that C is a lot more expensive than D was.

And I thought of the public comments tonight.

I thought the one that really was important was if an option is chosen that is expensive, will that lead to cutting corners in order to try to keep it under a certain budget?

Any other comments?

What I'd like to see would be kind of threefold and the presentation would be helpful.

And I agree with Council Huja that public hearing is essential.

And I'd still like to have a field trip.

Any other comments?

Well thank you Dr. Brown for bringing that up and bringing this up to date.

Good evening.

Dee Dee Smith, 2652 Jefferson Park Circle.

I'd just like to comment on the last item, the pump station.

And I just want to thank Dr. Brown actually for defending the city and interests in the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority meeting.

But I'd just like to point out that these estimates are extremely preliminary.

And so please do not make a judgment to go with something cheaper based on these estimates.

We've seen this happen.

Far too many times.

And I would also ask you to take into consideration the fact that this is really a golden opportunity to get a really inappropriate piece of infrastructure out of one of our very important parks.

And I would hope that you would keep in mind the greater value that could come out of relocating this pump station.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Darryl Jones.

I want to speak on about the re-entry summit.

I was part of helping my organized people in my neighborhood.

I was going around to different neighborhoods and stuff like that.

Now the question is I'm getting from a lot of people, and they're kind of getting impatient.

What is the next step?

We got a lot of people that's willing, that's interested in, you know, to move forward in this.

And as ex-felons, a lot of us know we're the ones.

We didn't put ourself in this situation.

We did it to ourselves, but now we're trying to make a change.

So we're not looking at the keep being held accountable, you know, keep being that used against us.

But I think it's important that we keep this going while we got the 500 because at that summit we got a lot of good stuff going on.

And people coming up to me right today asking me what is the next step, the people that I went to personally.

to get them involved.

I went to a lot of neighborhoods, most of all the projects, neighborhoods, First Streets and all this.

And I got a lot of people that was interested and I got a lot of people that ain't interested.

So now they are coming to me and saying, what is the next step?

I want to know how long it's going to be before we move on.

Because if we put all that energy on that day and don't follow up on it, then it was just sitting like a lot of mouth.

And another thing I want to speak on about the lady that was talking about the job fair, I went to the job fair that day.

I think what needs to be done at the next job fair is explain about this reentry, people getting together with all them employees, because I went to the people from Hatterbees, he didn't know nothing about it.

He told them the thing, he was like, thank you for telling me about this.

And a couple of people I went to

I'm not going to mention no names about, do you have ex-felonies?

One lady almost choked and didn't know what to say, but the other lady was like, came up, well, yeah, we do, but it depends on something.

So it's more or less, I just hope that we keep this thing going before it's too late.

And then one more thing, to the people who was opposing this, because there was a whole lot of negative comments that people posted about what they're still going to do on this.

For those people who are against it and stuff like that, you better realize, deal with it now before it comes to your neighborhood.

Good evening, I'm Peter Kleeman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

During responses to matters from the public, Council Szakos said she was disappointed that our group did not file for injunctive relief, but in fact I have the stamped, certified cover letter of the, or actually the first page of the complaint filed in the Western District Court of Virginia

in Federal Court in Charlottesville, actually.

And the title of that is complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief.

The item number one in the introduction says, this action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief for violations of federal law by the United States Federal Highway Administration in approving and providing federal funding for a highway project known as Route 250 Bypass Interchange at McIntire Road.

and then in the prayer for relief, which is page 14 of that document, of 15 I believe, it says, wherefore plaintiffs respectfully request this court to provide the following relief and item E under that says injunctive relief barring Federal Highway Administration from implementing any aspects of the final section 4F, which is parkland protection and the

Environmental Assessment or transferring federal funds for the project unless and until the violations of law described above are remedied.

Those would be the pages in the middle.

So I provided this for your edification.

In fact, we have been very responsive.

We had a six month period in which to file our claim after the federal action was taken.

We filed in approximately three months.

So we did a fair bit of work to get our attorneys together and

We filed a claim on February 22nd of this year.

The Federal Highway Administration has

replied or answered formally.

The judge, Norman K. Moon, in the federal court has issued a scheduling order to my understanding.

I haven't seen the order, but I have understood that our attorneys for the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park and the attorneys for the Federal Highway Administration are currently meeting, negotiating the administrative record, and are, in effect, moving forward trying to get a schedule on Norman K. Moon, who is the presiding judge's calendar,

but there are certain time periods in which the Federal Highway Administration has to produce the documentation for the case and there is no way we can expedite this matter without doing an emergency injunction to my understanding and

The emergency injunction is what you see on TV where you go knock on the door, the judge in the middle of the night comes out and the dog is barking and the judge signs the paper.

That's not exactly the way it works in civil cases like this.

So we are pursuing this case expeditiously and in good faith.

and we hope that the City Council will recognize that and recognize the value that is in McIntyre Park and we believe our claim will succeed and we would really dislike an outcome where we succeed but the park has been destroyed.

Thank you.

Before you before you remove the Cleve Hall 101 Robertson Lane

Before you removed the utility rate increase discussion from the agenda tonight, I had the old agenda sitting on my desk and I noticed it didn't say public hearing.

Now I know you removed it from the agenda, but my question is this.

I thought whenever there was going to be a rate increase on a utility, so this would fall within that,

It had to be a public hearing.

It could just be a report or a discussion or whatever.

So when that is rescheduled, I certainly hope, and I don't know if the mayor actually schedules that, if you do, Mr. Jones, but please make it a public hearing so that the public can be heard on something that will affect us directly.

It's already scheduled as a public hearing for the next meeting.

I just want to point out the difference between a preliminary injunction and an emergency injunction and an injunction for relief because an injunction, I believe, of the kind that was sought here is an injunctive

An injunctive relief at the end of the lawsuit rather than a preliminary injunction, which is not the same as an emergency injunction in the middle of the night.

Thank you, Mr. Jones, for your work in the community.

I know you worked hard to really assemble a lot of people whose voices were not ordinarily heard in venues like that.

Your work was appreciated.

As far as the next steps, we're still working on that.

And I know Mike Murphy is trying to figure out how best to coordinate some of the things that are taking place already.

But just to remind you, for you to remind people to remain encouraged.

And just to save the date, June 16th, there will be a panel discussion surrounding the book, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

And there were several books made available at the conference on June 16th, so just save the date.

I'm reading that book, it's really good.

Excellent.