City Council Meeting   11/7/2011

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Mr. Norris?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Yes.

Thank you.

We're going to start with a couple of announcements and I'm very pleased to start with announcing an award that the city of Charlottesville recently received from the Virginia Municipal League.

Last month, Charlottesville was recognized by the Virginia Municipal League with platinum level certification for being a green and sustainable community.

The Go Green government challenge encourages local governments to reduce energy usage, reduce carbon emissions, and promote environmental sustainability.

It is well understood and appreciated that efforts throughout the city have contributed to this success.

Charlottesville earned VML's Platinum Level Certification, which is the highest level for local governments based on achieving 180 out of 200 possible points.

This is the fourth year in a row that the VML has recognized the city as part of their Go Green government challenge program.

And we joined Alexandria and Arlington as the only three localities who earned the highest level of certification.

The majority of points were earned through ongoing green city programs and practices that focus on energy efficiency, green buildings and vehicles, land use, air and water quality, as well as efforts pursued in concert with Charlottesville City Schools.

We have the Charlottesville Area Better Business Challenge, the local climate action planning process, of course our local energy alliance program, EcoRemod, expanded farmer's market, various green building projects,

active urban forest management, bicycle infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera.

So we're very pleased to receive this honor.

And on behalf of all the great work that our city staff have done in helping us to get this certification, I'd like to present the plaque.

This is from the Virginia Municipal League Green Government Challenge.

I'd like to present the plaque to our city manager in recognition of his leadership in this effort.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, I appreciate this.

You know, obviously our efforts when it comes to the environment and protecting the environment and making Charlottesville a more green city becomes from the City Council and the vision that you set forth many years ago, it has now become part of our culture whenever we're doing a new project or a building.

Great.

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

Other announcements?

Yes.

I would like to announce the next in our series of Our Town, Charlottesville community discussion meetings.

The next one with the city council will be on the road with a lot of our staff as well.

We'll be at Charlottesville High School on Thursday, November 10th.

That's next Thursday.

Or this Thursday.

and it is for the Greenbrier, Locust Grove neighborhoods.

My neighborhood is the Locust Grove neighborhood, so I hope that all my neighbors will represent out there.

It's in the high school, the first meeting area to the right as you enter the front door.

And I regret to say that I will not be there.

I'm going to be at the National League of Cities meeting.

We joined the National League of Cities this year.

and I'll be learning about other ways we can do green cities initiatives, economic development, infrastructure, and families and children initiatives.

So I hope to come back with a lot of good knowledge.

But in the meantime, I hope that everyone will come who is in the Greenbrier and Locust Grove neighborhoods to the high school on Thursday at 6 o'clock.

I want to announce that

Our transit system will be providing free service on November 8th for election day.

So Tuesday, November 8th, Charlottesville Area Transit will offer free service to all buses.

As you know, buses go within three blocks of all the precincts' locations.

There's also a UVA bus which goes to Alumni Hall, which is also free.

So there will be free bus service available.

I also want to announce that

Carver Precincts, which has been temporarily located at 1414 Westwood Road, Virginia School of Autism.

So that will be, hopefully everybody will use bus, it will be easy to use, it will be free.

Other announcements?

Just a reminder to parents, the first grading period has been completed.

You should have a report card from your children in the mailbox if you haven't received it already.

Charlottesville High School report cards are out.

Fair warning.

I think that's the best ammunition to make sure that graduation and just being successful will take place.

And actually the parent-teacher conferences are taking place tomorrow.

I have a couple of announcements just to piggyback on what Mr. Huja announced regarding tomorrow's election.

The precinct boundaries, some of the precinct boundaries have changed and so if you are not sure where you're supposed to vote tomorrow, please you can go online at www.Charlottesville.org backslash or forward slash vote.

or you can call 970-3250.

Hopefully the word has gotten out to all the voters about where you need to go to vote.

Our dialogue on race has a couple of events coming up regarding the efforts to honor the Charlottesville 12, which were the first African-American students to integrate our Charlottesville City Schools after massive resistance.

We have a ceremony on Friday, November 18th,

Starting at 1030 AM at Venable Elementary, we'll be unveiling a historic marker at Venable and at the Albemarle County Office Building, which of course is the former Lane High School.

The following day, Saturday, November 19th, we have a program beginning at 11 AM

at Venable Elementary, Reflections, Stories of School Integration with the Charlottesville 12.

That's a public event.

Both of those are public events.

If you have any questions or would like to attend, please just come.

Or if you have any questions, you can call 970-3115.

We're very pleased to announce that after our call for a donation of our

2011 Community Christmas Tree.

We have a very generous couple, Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Parks, who live at 107 Greenbrier Terrace, who have offered a 20-foot Norway spruce.

It will be decorated for the Grand Illumination on November 25th from 5 until 7 p.m. on the Downtown Mall's Central Place.

And I've got lots of holiday activities to come.

Hearing none, we will open our matters by the public.

When you come forward, please state your name.

We ask you to keep your comments to three minutes.

We do not allow members of the public to stack their time and cede it to other people.

So each speaker has three minutes.

And when you come forward, please state your name and give your address.

That's our longstanding.

Mr. Ho, our longstanding policy is speakers are allowed three minutes.

Mr.

I'm going to ask you to please be quiet so that we can hear our first speaker.

My name is Alicia Bowler Lugo and I live at 515 Brown Street.

And I'm here tonight to ask council to consider my comments about my community, the black community in Charlottesville.

Listening to Amos in Chicago saying cellophane.

Cellophane, you look right at me, you look right through me, and you never know my name.

And that's how members of the black community frequently feel in Charlottesville.

We're not consulted.

We're not asked for our opinions.

We're cellophane, cellophane.

And so tonight, I want to quickly tell you a few things about the black community here.

With honors of being passed out in this community, there are lots of people left out.

Ingrid Fagan Smith, she will put her arms around you when your mother is dying and just comfort you.

Emma Bowles will give you a ride if you don't have another way to get around.

Mary Nicholas Nightingale who has single handedly with her little committee kept the legacy of Burleigh High School alive and every five years has a remarkable reunion for Burleigh.

Jimmy Hollins of the Burleigh Varsity Club who works great with the county trying to remember the coaches and the winning teams.

Nobody asked him from the city what they were trying to do, but he's had an awful lot of counsel with the county.

Karen Waters whose telephone never stops ringing.

Monday through Sunday she is on the go 24 hours a day for people who need help, want help, and know that she can get it for them.

The churches, the black churches in Charlottesville that do so much and get no credit for it.

They have after school programs, they have food programs for children, they have tutorials, they have little honors that they give them.

Never gets mentioned in the press, never gets mentioned in this chamber.

Our own groups, such as the NAACP,

100 black men of Charlottesville, men of Fraternal Council, and the African American Cultural Arts Festival do a good job of recognizing our own.

They still remain unable to be recognized by the larger community.

For the first time in my memory, we don't have any black leadership other than on the school board.

The majority party

through the eminently qualified Paul Garrett under the bus.

You talk about things like wanting to fund organizations that have goals, objectives, and measurable achievements, yet African American groups

that are led by blacks don't get that same consideration.

They have goals, objectives, and measurable results.

When city council has dithered and bickered over roads, water, and McIntyre Park,

which was originally dedicated to the white citizens of Charlottesville by Mr. Paul Goodlow McIntyre.

Our neighborhoods have been gentrified and a thousand of our population have been displaced.

We have a black city manager, a dialogue on race, and a very nice apology for Venica Hill.

but black people continue to be economically, academically and electorally disenfranchised, cellophane.

We need employees, employers who will hire us, government officers who will consult us

Nobody ever asked me what I thought about the water supply and what we should do about it.

And anybody who's black that I know didn't get consulted either.

I want to say to you tonight, we're cellophane.

We're cellophane.

There are members on this council I've never seen before.

And I have been a loyal contributor

citizen of this community for 70 years, 70 years.

But nobody consults those people about what's happening to them.

We continue to build what we're calling affordable housing.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Again, I say,

You look right at us, you look right through us, and you never know our names because you don't care enough to ask.

Thank you, Ms. Lugo.

My name is Fred Quarles.

I'd like to ask that you give my three minutes to John Hall.

I'm sorry.

We have a lot of people that need to speak tonight, and we have a very clear limit.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Evan Abenberger with Veterans for Peace.

I'd like to start with, again, the recognition of the Native American people whose land we are using and already occupying.

And also, I want to point out, I'm speaking on my own behalf, not on the occupation's behalf.

That being said, there's been a lot of talk going on about the future of the occupation.

The current permit is supposed to run up about Thanksgiving time.

And there's a couple of different schools of thought on that.

Right now, it seems like

Most of the people don't want to leave.

So I would hope to ask you to please go gentle on them and try to engage them and work with them.

I'm personally going to leave on November 17th and I won't be back.

These are really good people.

They have this fire in them of compassion and caring for social justice.

I mean that's a very abstract thing to be so passionate about.

and they're young people mostly and they're just, they're very, as a group they're beautiful to me.

I just, and I hope you guys get to see them the same way that I do.

Good evening.

Mark Cavett, 400 Altamont Street.

I'm here tonight speaking on my own behalf, not as president of the North Downtown Residence Association, as I was not able to hear from a majority number of our board members.

I will be reading an email that was authorized by our board and written by Colette Hall in response.

Dr. Brown, one or two years ago, you had concerned that the haven might bring in a large number of people to it.

Guess what?

You were right.

I believe based on the emails that I've seen that our board does not, does have a concern for the homeless in central Virginia.

I know that I do.

But we have limited resources and our concern is basically of the influx of out of town and out of area people to the downtown mall, north downtown.

I'm actually going to pass out this so you don't have a hard copy.

I'm going to read the email now and I'm going to read Collette's

We heard in the city manager's meeting for the neighborhood reps last night that the Haven is no longer allowing the homeless into the Haven in the afternoons unless they signed up for a class.

We're quite shocked about this new development.

When you came to the NDRA meeting a year ago, you said the Haven was a low barrier situation for the homeless.

Does this mean that they would be forced back into the library and to residential sections of the neighborhoods?

What about Packham?

I thought the Haven was going to be their intake center starting at the end of October.

Is this still true?

I am seeing Lieutenant Lewis as she recently had a meeting about the SRO and one of her board members attended it so he could report back on the increase in unsafe homeless activities in north downtown.

A response before October 27th would be appreciated as that is the date of our next neighborhood meeting when we will hear a report on Lieutenant Lewis's meeting and CATEC's response.

Thank you so much for reaching out to find out more on our recent programming shifts.

First, some background.

The Haven has two missions.

One is to provide a low barrier respite care to people in desperate need.

The other is to help people move out of homelessness.

Frankly, the amount of need has exceeded our capacity to continue to operate as we have.

We anticipated serving 35 people for breakfast and 55 people throughout the course of the day.

But we have opened to an average of 65 people for breakfast and 85 people throughout the day.

We wanted to find a way to continue to serve all these folks in need and help those that are asking for resources and support to change their lives.

So we decided to split our days in half.

In the mornings we open as a low barrier respite based day shelter offering showers, breakfast, laundry, storage, computers, mail service and telephones.

In the afternoon we are open for Haven partners.

Haven partners have agreed to sit down for formal intake with our staff so you know their stories and their needs.

During this intake we ask them to identify some concrete goals.

We ask that they agree to three hours of peripheral activity a week towards meeting these goals and community service.

The Haven through cooking or cleaning.

We expect The Haven partners to assume ownership over The Haven, acting like leaders in this space and holding themselves accountable.

Since we're kind of running out of time here, we are sensitive to our role in the community and seek to be a positive resource.

I believe a new structure will help us do that better.

As always, I welcome your input and thoughts and I'm pleased to attend one of your neighborhood meetings again, should that prove to be helpful.

Signed, CATEC.

So I just want to bring this to your attention.

Thank you, Mr. Kavett.

Mayor Norris, Honorable Councilors, in the interest of promoting First Amendment, I'd like to yield my time to Mr. John Hall.

We have Carol Thorpe signed up.

Good evening, Brandon Collins, 536 Meade Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have a daughter who also lives here, who has lived here her entire life, who also could have done much better on her most recent report card.

And now I'm going to point her to the city website so she can see me telling you all about it.

I'm actually, I'm here, you know, I was really touched by what Miss Lugo just said and, you know,

I almost feel like an apology for me is needed.

I've actually been encouraged to go speak with Ms. Lugo in the last few days, and I just have not been able to do it.

And everything she just said is all stuff I've been hearing as I've been out campaigning.

As you all know, I'm running for city council.

Tomorrow's the big day.

And there are a lot of folks out there who feel like they have not been listened to.

When we talk about the Vinegar Hill apology, that's really at the root of it.

And I, you know, I'm very happy to see this apology.

I'm very worried that as the city proceeds on without a person like Holly Edwards around to make sure that we don't make these kinds of mistakes again, or this kind of devastation happen again, that this apology has

the possibility of becoming meaningless.

So I really hope when you're talking about this tonight that you take it super seriously and you hold this with you for the rest of your lives and for the rest of your time in city government.

You know, when we look at redevelopment of public housing, this is a frightening process for the people that live in our public housing neighborhoods.

This is their homes.

This is their community.

and I really hope you respect that and consider these folks as real human beings and real communities and our neighbors.

Also, as I've been out talking to people, one thing that I've learned is we need to recognize that in Charlottesville we have a crisis.

We have a housing crisis, an affordable housing crisis, and I really hope you begin to really start talking about that in meaningful ways.

I have stuff on my website about it with some ideas.

I hope you'll look at them.

You might not agree with them.

You might not agree with all of it.

You might agree with some.

but something really needs to be done.

This is a crisis and it needs to be said that it is.

I know there are some on some of our boards and commissions that have resisted using that term and we need to use that term.

It is a crisis.

It's awful.

We have a homeless situation here in Charlottesville.

A lot of folks, it's become visible to them because of Occupy Charlottesville and I'm concerned about the new SRO.

I've heard information that

it is now going, you will need to have some kind of income to be able to live there and I thought the understanding was that this was a way to transition homeless folks into housing so that they can actually move up the housing ladder and when you require that income requirement that's not really suiting the goal.

So I hope you'll consider another SRO and using surplus funds to immediately build a homeless shelter as Mr. Paul Long has brought up many, many times before this council.

That's it, three minutes.

I will say no Palm Station and Woollen Mills.

Don't ever do that.

And you're going to hear more about that, I'm sure.

Please do not build on our critical slopes, which is on your agenda tonight, and yes to industrial hemp.

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council.

My name is Connor Pratt.

I am in fact a County of Albemarle resident.

I don't know whether that affects my standing to speak, but as I understand it is a public forum.

Thank you.

Yeah, I live at 563 Shady Lane in Ivey.

I was also asked by Mr. John Hall to give my time to him.

Obviously I realize that will not be happening, but I understand he plans to present a

plan of modification to the city code under which the homeless would be permitted to stay in tents in designated parks contingent on their abiding by

I have not read his proposal in detail but certain rules for public health and their comportment of themselves and I think that given especially given as we heard three speakers ago that the haven is becoming increasingly swamped and I'm sure that we have all noticed

people on the downtown mall hanging out there.

I'm sorry, I wasn't really prepared to speak tonight.

I was just recruited because I was outside the county building.

I believe that it is a proposal worth considering.

Like I said, I have not read the details, but it seems to me that perhaps

Even though we do have The Haven and it is a shelter, perhaps some of the homeless, I know that at least one person that I've spoken to, feel that if there are only designated places like that, they're allowed to stay in and when they are not,

Yeah, I guess when they feel that they are ostracized from parks, even though they are ostensibly public parks, it can engender a certain degree of alienation from the rest of the community.

And perhaps that is part of the problem, certainly not the only problem.

Obviously there are substance abuse issues, there are lack of income issues.

and so forth, but perhaps by making people who are in a very difficult position feel more welcome and incorporated into the community that would strengthen their resolve to get their lives back on track and for that reason I think it is at least

worth considering an experiment worth performing, perhaps, to see whether or not that could actually bring material improvement to the lives of these people.

You know, I feel very fortunate because I – I'm 22 years old.

I have parents who have cared for me.

I, after going to university a couple years ago, had a very bad nervous breakdown related to OCD.

So mental health issue like that, you know, my family has a relatively high income and they could afford to keep me at home and take care of me and medicate me.

Otherwise, I feel like I could be in that sort of position.

So I certainly have sympathy for those who, you know, do not have those resources and could slip through the system.

So anyway, Mr. Hall will speak about his proposal in more detail.

Hi.

My name is Ed Zavada.

I live at 1421 Briarcliff Avenue.

I'm part of the occupation of Lee Park.

And I guess I wanted to make a couple comments.

The first thing was that we've heard sort of a back channel request that we consider vacating the part.

And this request supposedly came from you guys, the city council, indirectly.

And so what I wanted to do was, and the expression that we heard was that this was out of concern for the homeless with whom we share the park, specifically concern for whether they would seek proper shelter when it's winter and if they're allowed to camp there.

And camping out with them even for the very short time that I have

I've realized that the problem is very complicated.

There's a lot of substance abuse issues that make it very difficult to have many of them sort of get along with the rest of us.

We've done everything we can.

We really appreciate the support of the city and the police in particular in helping us work through this.

We've also seen some, I think, very impressive and hopeful transformations among some of the people who've gone from being belligerent drunk one night to three nights later actually helping us with security and helping keep people like they were three days before from causing problems.

We do feel like we're doing a little bit of good in that regard.

If there is some concern for

for the occupation actually causing injury to the homeless through not having them seek shelter.

We'd very much like that to be addressed directly to us.

I'm only speaking for myself.

We operate by consensus.

So in order to have any kind of discussion like that, we would have to have that in our general assembly.

The other thing I wanted to say is if there is some, I have read Mr. Hall's petition all the way through and am familiar with the details of it.

I think in general it's a pretty good idea to be able to have the parts available for homeless people to pitch tents if they need to.

I'm concerned that it might not work quite as well as he hopes it will, but it's still something.

However, I'm also concerned and I didn't sign the petition because my concern is that the strict requirement that the tents be gone during the day could be interpreted as an additional excuse to remove the occupation.

And as far as that goes, I wanted to add that we are engaged in a protest where we're trying to communicate certain information to the public that the public has a really hard time seeing.

It's not easy to do one-liners about the complexities of international banking and finance.

Our occupation is intended as a show of determination for getting out our message and our determination to see some change.

And that's one of the reasons why it being an ongoing thing that goes overnight is so important.

So I'd ask you to consider if there is some consideration of shutting us down at some point.

I want to echo Evan's comments that these are good people and that the Virginia Constitution specifically is very strongly worded in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Good.

Thank you, Mr. Taylor.

Hello.

My name is Shawna Murphy, and I've been in Charlottesville for quite a while.

So when I heard that city council had concerns that the homeless would be risking their lives out at the camp by not seeking proper shelter, I went and talked to some of the elders in the community and went and talked to my neighbors since I'm down at the occupation.

I found out that there are optimistically about 150 beds in that program that was mentioned.

And I also found out that there's probably about 300 homeless people.

I have concerns that, one, the sobriety requirement of the community program that they have in place right now will exclude a lot of the people that probably need the most shelter with the weakened immune systems that they have.

Seeing them go out into the cold on the streets during the winter, abandoning them is not something that we want to send, not a message we want to send as a city, I believe.

and definitely not in sync with our values.

So I'd like to know if or see city council potentially consider this.

I mean, I'm not exactly sure about transition in terms of the occupation because it is run by consensus.

I represent myself.

However, being asked to leave them

Okay, with the potential death around the corner, I can't even tell you how many terminal illness cases are out there combined with the disease of alcoholism that makes life very difficult, very difficult.

And I as an occupier feel extremely responsible for the community out there.

And I'd like to know if city council

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well said.

Paul Long.

Paul Long?

Not here.

I'd like to start with a prayer.

Dear Lord, help me to say the things that need to be said to get the city code changed according to my PACE petitions.

Amen.

I wear this volunteer foreign wars cap tonight in honor of all homeless American veterans past and present, disabled or poverty-stricken.

You now know the faxed and emailed content of my PACE petitions with 340 signatures.

The PACE petitions provide for night only camping and sleeping in government issued tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses with inflation canisters according to posted rules.

law enforced and designated parks year round for our poor and homeless people.

People who we have recently seen abusing each other for they have been abused.

People who have no liberty, such laws will help rehabilitate park campers.

I too am a man who has lost his liberty and I have been abused and hurt

like the poor and homeless, except that it has been through no fault of my own.

I am now a mature man, a public servant.

Thank you, Mr. Hall.

Good evening, Victoria Dunham, 1419 Chesapeake Street.

I'm coming to you regarding the pumping station.

For decades now, the Woolen Mills, one of Charlottesville's oldest and most historic neighborhoods, has been subjected to noxious odors from the RWSA sewage pumping station.

located in our neighborhood immediately adjacent to a large number of houses and to the city's Riverview Park.

Over many years, the residents of the Woolen Mills have asked and demanded that the RWSA address these problems, but have never been successful in effecting lasting changes.

Recently, due to the proposal of a new greatly expanded pumping station at the same location, attention has finally been directed at this chronic problem.

It is time now to move the sewage pumping station out of the Woolen Mills.

The pumping station handles sewage and storm water infiltrate from the city, UVA, and the county growth area stretching as far away as North Fork.

It is unfair to ask the Willin Mills to carry the entire burden of the sewage generated by this large area and the neighborhood has resolved that the station will be moved to another location away from residential development.

While we would fully expect our city leaders to support us in requesting that the new pumping station be built outside of our neighborhood, option D or E, we do not enjoy the support of the county in this effort.

On November 22, 2011, the RWSA board will have the final vote on the options.

We have no guarantee that they will vote the way we would hope.

We hereby call upon the City Council to pass a resolution removing option A from the table entirely.

Such a statement will place the City on record that they will not allow the construction of an inappropriate piece of infrastructure in a residential neighborhood, on a flood plain, in a park, in a historic district.

This statement will also comport with the City's stated goals promoting fairness and environmental justice for all its citizens.

I'd like to thank the Greater Charlottesville community for all their support, calls and emails regarding this issue.

Throughout this process, they have encouraged us to keep fighting and not give up.

Will all the people present who support the Woolen Mills and our people in this effort please raise your hands or stand?

Thank you.

Hello, Stratton Salitas, 704B, Grave Street,

So I will ask the question as well, why is it that we do spend so much time talking about a road through our Central Park and a dam for Ragged Mountain Natural Area when both are not only not needed

but very destructive to the actual needs of the people here in Charlottesville.

The Meadow Creek Parkway would actually increase traffic in Charlottesville.

It is a part of a plan from 1959 for a road that would go through what was then Vinegar Hill and through our Central Park.

And this plan was drawn up in 1959 before there were any calls for urban renewal of Vinegar Hill.

And when Vinegar Hill was

Demolished, there was no urban renewal for 15 or 20 years but Ridge MacIntyre Street was put in right away and then shortly after the Meadow Creek Parkway was proposed and I would argue that if instead of

spending a lot of money and city assets and time on these things which are not only not solutions but as I said are actually detrimental to the interests of Charlottesville citizens.

We could spend a lot more time and money on things that really do matter to people here like housing and child care and public transportation and other actual needs that people have.

The kinds of

When I say that these things aren't needed, the information that we have to work with is largely make-believe.

When we talk about this dam, we're talking about how much water we think we're going to need in 50 years.

And when we talk about how much water we need in 50 years, we assume that it keeps going up and up, but yet the water use has actually gone down even as the population has gone up.

And yet we spend all this time

trying to build a dam that we know that the information is completely made up.

And when we talk about the Mormons and how much water the Mormons River should have, we just pretend like we know how much water it needs because we look at the Meachem's River near it and say, oh, well, it should probably have the same amount of water as that.

Why don't we just actually look and see how much water flows in the Mormons before it gets to the dam?

Well, RWSA doesn't want to do that.

It would rather have the pretend information rather than the real information to work with.

Mr. Huja, you said something.

I mentioned that Nestle

that our water plan, what is called our community water plan, was drawn up by The Nature Conservancy with a grant from Nestle.

You seem to not believe that.

So I encourage you to look it up.

Nestle, The Nature Conservancy, Charlottesville.

Just Google those three words and you'll find a press release from Nestle and The Nature Conservancy announcing that grant.

And I'm not saying that that means that Nestle would own the water, but

What I understand here now is that we're talking about building a 42 foot dam and then with no way to fill it without the pipeline, but not only that, without the new pipeline, we cannot distribute the water to 80% of the system.

So we would have the water just sitting up there, thank you very much, for 20 years and so we would be in a position to have to sell that water or do something with it to cancel out our debt.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

John Fink.

Not here.

My name is Bill Emery.

I live at 1604 East Market Street.

I just wanted, Victoria had done this basically.

covered the waterfront awfully well from the point of view of me and many of the neighbors.

But one thing I did want to mention is to date the reports that we've gotten on these various pumping station options haven't really reflected the human costs, the damage to the social, economic and cultural fabric at the

Foot of Monticello Mountain, the impact to the trail, to the park users, and the damage to a neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Henry.

Take your time, take your time

Thank you, Mayor Norris and Councillors, for the opportunity to speak this evening.

My name is Carol Thorpe.

I'm here on behalf of the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

Among many things, the Jefferson Area Tea Party advocates for sound, responsible governance and equal protection under the law.

Unfortunately, it's our opinion that both have been sadly lacking as a result of actions taken by City Council, City Manager Maurice Jones, and Parks and Recreation Director Brian Daley,

in relation to Council's stated political kinship with Occupy Charlottesville and its actions related therein.

For the record, let me be clear that the Tea Party has never, nor does it now, opposed the occupiers.

In fact, truth be told, if we were to sit down at a table, I would imagine we'd find several areas of agreement in terms of our concerns with our country.

that their free speech rights should be protected and they should receive the same treatment as any other group that has preceded them.

But that right does not include suspension of ordinances and public safety measures to enable their specific style of demonstration.

In our opinion, City Council's actions have sadly created an ongoing public safety hazard in Lee Park.

And we can talk about ongoing issues in terms of the homeless and also for those who want to express their opinion.

But unfortunately, several incidences have happened where we have great concern for public safety.

First of all, the suspension of the park curfew, which is in place because at some time the parks were deemed unsafe for public night hours, overnight hours has been lifted.

The parks did not suddenly get safe, and were they any safer when Mr. Jones gave a verbal directive to the police department to refrain from enforcing park curfew even before their permit was issued.

Now the organization of Occupy Charlottesville does not meet the requirement of providing the million dollar liability insurance policy typically required of organizations using the parks.

They also do not have the temporary food permit which is there for public safety for proper food refrigeration, storage and sanitary conditions.

They're inviting folks to come and eat meals at the park with them but will be responsible if someone contracts food poisoning.

Fourth, fires have been allowed to burn in Lee Park without a fire extinguisher or water hose available.

This causes us great concern with dry autumn leaves, cloth covered furniture, and tents nearby.

It would only take one brisk autumn breeze to whisk sparks or flames away from the fire and start ablaze, and frankly a gallon or two of water will not suffice to put out such a fire.

Fifth, there have been multiple disturbances and arrests and we've heard this evening for some of the reasons why that's been happening and we certainly do empathize with those in our community who for whatever reason have substance abuse issues or do not have a roof over their head.

Again, that's another conversation for another day.

But as pertains to this particular demonstration, we have great concern when we hear about three homeless men and two juvenile girls in their company that were heavily intoxicated, the girls transported to UVA Hospital for treatment and observation.

Last Saturday night, a homeless man was arrested and charged with attempted arson for pouring lighter fluid on a tent following a fight.

And a request for a donation of 100 rape whistles certainly did not make us feel any better about the situation of the safety of our citizens in the park.

In fact, as reported by Reuters, organizer Zach Fabian stated that some females expressed concern for their safety due to the camp's open nature.

He said, quote, safety is an issue at night when we have every drunk person in the area strolling by and threatening to start fires or burn down tents.

Again, this is Zach Fabian's words, not mine.

We are worried that it could turn into something more serious.

I'll wrap this up.

So frankly, so is the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

I'm on record as having warned of some of these possible situations in my remark at our October 21st rally.

And even an editorial in the Daily Progress on November 3rd stated, quote, what we find interesting is that these kinds of problems were predicted by the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

So I ask you here this evening, with all respect to the occupiers and the homeless in the park with concerns of public safety, how long are you going to wait to reinstate the curfew and end the encampment?

Will it take someone getting beaten, raped, burned, killed, or for someone to file a lawsuit before you end what we feel should have never been started by allowing a nighttime occupation of Lee Park?

During the day with people leaving before curfew hours is one thing,

allowing them to stay at night to police themselves, which obviously they're incapable of doing, is unfortunate and we think that should stop.

Thank you, Ms. Dorff.

That is the last person who signed up to speak.

We will have another comment period at the end of our meeting.

We do have a lot on our agenda tonight, so we're going to proceed now with council member responses to matters by the public.

And who would like to get us started?

Sure.

Ms. Thorpe, I'm glad you stayed this time.

And I think that, you know, I think a lot of people are concerned about the things you're concerned about.

I think the reason that I personally continue to support the right of the Occupy Charlottesville group to be there, and I don't speak for all of council either,

is that I really do believe that it's a First Amendment issue and I think that the First Amendment isn't limited to certain times of day.

But I understand your concerns and I appreciate your sharing them with us.

I guess I've probably commented on a lot of these other things before, so I won't take time to do them again.

I was interested in Ms. Murphy's concern about the

I think that there are real issues and I think that the SRO is one way that we're trying to address some of that.

I think that the Haven is one of the ways that we're trying to address that.

I think the growth in homeless that people are seeing, I don't believe, as some people do, is because we have the Haven or because we have the Occupy Charlottesville.

I think that we are in a time when our economy is

you know suffering and I think a lot of people even people who have always worked are unemployed and whenever we have that sort of economy the people who are sort of our canaries, the people who are the weakest and the least able to care for themselves are the ones who fall out of the bottom and I think we're really seeing that in our community but ours is not the only community that we see that in.

So somebody asked the question, did city council ask us to leave?

So I, for one, did not.

Although I know winter is coming on, and I know that there are other ways that some of the organizations in other parts of the country are occupying, like once a week.

But I'm not proposing that.

I think that you have the right to be there.

And let's see.

Ms. Lugo, I appreciate your comments.

Thank you.

The first comment, I don't know whether or not our making comment during the public comment period really gives the time we need to talk about the homeless and some of the things that we've done or continue to need to do.

So I'm trying to decide whether I want to talk now, whether that's something I want to bring up on the other business because when we had the initial presentation by the occupiers, the concern that I had was just this.

and I'd like to see this as perhaps as an opportunity for us to explore even further what it is that we can and need to do because I've always felt as if we needed some sort of comprehensive plan, a holistic approach because ironically enough, whenever we talk about what to do about the homeless, they're never here and so unless they are really going to be

a part of the conversation to find out how can we become successful as a community in helping people to move to the next level in their lives regardless of where they start.

It has to be a joint responsibility.

And so, and I know that the city manager has been working on a couple of things.

I don't know if you want to comment about it now to the end or

How are you going to do that?

Because I know we've gotten a lot of emails about, so what are you going to do?

Would you like to engage in the discussion now or wait for other business or maybe a presentation on a future council meeting?

There are a number of things that obviously have been talked about tonight that we've done to try to address some of the issues surrounding homelessness in Charlottesville, including the SRO.

We have

began to bring together a group of folks internally as kind of an internal task force to try to do exactly what Councilor, Vice Mayor Edwards has talked about, taking a holistic approach to addressing the needs of the homeless in our community and finding different ways to address that.

And so, I mean, that's the hope of this internal task force.

Right now it's internal but we'll be working obviously with our community partners to address those issues and try to find some different solutions.

As Councilor Szakos mentioned, the downturn in the economy has without question resulted in more folks who are stressed when it comes to the economics and we're willing to work and find different ways to help address that.

There are limitations as to what government can do and we really do need our community partners to step up as well.

But these are tough economic times across the board for non-profits as well.

And that's the concern that I have.

We do have a lot of nonprofits, and we do have a lot of nonprofits that provide outreach.

So there has to be a better way to connect the outreach services to those that need it and connect that to the funding.

Because I know that

Everybody is struggling in some way, so I'm not advocating the idea of providing new money, but maybe we need to think about how we allocate the money and funds that we do have for programs that will specifically be successful in the kind of outreach that's going to be necessary.

because how many nonprofits do we have in town?

700.

700 plus.

So we could match one nonprofit organization to each homeless person and still have, what, 300 homeless?

So there has to be a better way just to connect people to the resources.

And granted, I'm always saying it's important to meet people where they are.

That includes our homeless constituents as well, but I think this is an opportunity to look at how we can do things differently.

And to Ms. Lugo, when you said cellophane, what came to mind for me

was Paul Laurence Dunbar.

We wear the mask.

We wear the mask that grins and lies.

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.

This debt we pay to human guile with torn and bleeding hearts we smile and mouth with mere subtleties.

Why should the world be over wise in counting all our tears and sighs?

Now let them see us while we wear the mask.

We smile but oh great Christ our cries to thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing but oh the clay's vial beneath our feet and along the mile.

But let the world dream otherwise.

We wear the mask.

Dr. Brown, you want to try to follow that?

I guess I'd like to first talk a little bit about the homeless.

And, you know, Mark Cabot's right.

When The Haven was proposed, one of my concerns was, is this going to address the issues of homeless in the wintertime, being in the library, not really having a comfortable place or a place to have showers, and is it going to deal with the needs of our homeless?

Or could it also be a place that attracts people to other places who also were in need of

of services or homes.

And I don't think there's any doubt that it has done that.

I think if you talk to the people who are asking for money on the mall, you'll frequently hear their story.

They came here from somewhere else.

And so we got a very compelling email this week from a downtown resident who feels unsafe.

I don't know if that's an accurate perception, but I think we have to figure out how can we serve the needs of our homeless

and even the Charlottesville Albemarle homeless without creating an environment where Charlottesville has a reputation for a good place to go if you're transient.

And I think we are struggling with that and I think we should figure out ways of directly addressing it and directly addressing issues of the north neighborhood downtown area.

I'd also like to say that in terms of city council being concerned about the homeless issues in the occupied Charlottesville, it also wasn't something that I was part of a conversation on, so I'm not sure where that comment came from.

Secondly, I'd also like to thank Alicia Lugo, she's been

sort of a firebrand in the community for a long time and has served as a conscience.

And we do have on here tonight an apology for Vinegar Hill, but I think it's really important that people not get the misconception that that's where our problems in this community started.

That was a tragedy that occurred, but

but it's a longer and more painful history than that.

And so I'd just like to thank you for taking the time to come.

And then finally since Carol Thorpe is here, I'd also like to publicly apologize to her for my comments that were quoted in the paper last week.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to comment on Mr. Salidas.

Usually I don't comment on his remarks because we just don't agree.

He has a different perspective in life than I do and a different VC fact differently.

But his question about Nestle's grant and seeing a newspaper article about that, I'm aware of the newspaper article, but I would suggest that you ought not to believe everything which he reads in the newspaper.

You ought to call Nature Conservancy and find out from them.

My understanding is they never got that grant.

Even if they were gotten a grant, it would never have been equal.

Alright, I want to start by also thanking Ms. Lugo for coming forward tonight with your very stirring and heartfelt comments and I think we all take them to heart and you raise a critically important issue about the way we treat people or mistreat people and not adequately consult with members of our community who have a lot to offer and so hopefully we will all

Redouble our commitment to making sure that all the voices are heard, including and especially yours.

You have a lot to offer and appreciate you coming forward tonight.

Thank you to folks who spoke about the pump station.

We are going to address that later on on our agenda, and I fully support the request for a resolution removing option A from the table, and we'll get to that

Mr. Collins, you're absolutely right, there is a housing crisis in our community and I really commend you for, you've given a lot of thought to it and I for one have read your entire platform and there's a lot of good stuff in there.

I did want to make a small correction though.

The SRO was never meant to be free housing.

That was never the idea.

There is a minimum rent.

It's very modest.

I believe it's $25 or $50 a month.

But they don't turn people away.

If you walk in the door and you don't have $25 or $50, whatever it is, they will not turn you away for that reason.

They will work with you and help you either find work or if you're unable to work, they'll help you get signed up for disability.

They will work with people so that they can meet that minimum rent requirement.

Pacham, in terms of resources for the homeless, I'm very familiar with at least one of the organizations in our area.

I did confirm this week that with the director of Pacham, they still have empty cots.

So if anybody in the community is homeless and needs a safe and a warm place to sleep tonight or any night from now until April,

Pacham will do everything they can to provide them and they even have an overflow site if they fill up with their existing site.

So the beds are available, the resources are there.

There is no sobriety requirement.

That's the nature of Pacham was it was established to be a low barrier shelter.

You cannot drink on site, but you do not have to be sober.

in order to stay there.

And I can tell you, for at least the five years that I ran the place, we routinely, every night for the five winters, had people who were struggling with alcoholism, who were struggling with mental illness, who were struggling, period.

And that's what it was designed to do, is to provide a shelter of last resort for people in our community who had nowhere else to sleep at night.

So the resources are there.

Do we need more resources?

Do we need a better way to target resources?

Absolutely, and particularly when it comes to addressing issues of mental health in our community, substance abuse in our community.

I mean, the state's been shedding its obligations, cutting funding, cutting people from their roles.

So that's not an issue necessarily we can solve, but we need to do more as a society to strengthen our safety nets so fewer people fall through the gaps.

And I think that's something where

the city, the Occupy Charlottesville, we can work together and come up with some really, I think, some good proposals and solutions to help strengthen the safety net, at least here in the city of Charlottesville.

But with regard to extending the occupation, if you will, at least the overnight occupation, I think I mentioned, I made a comment in the newspaper, which I stand by, which is

At a certain point, and I'll take something of an exception to Ms. Akus here when she said, you know, it's a First Amendment issue.

I do think, I've strongly supported your right to be in the park, but I do think at a certain point, when you extend the occupation to a certain point, you're starting to talk about changing the very nature of Lee Park.

from what it is now, or what it was before, which was a neighborhood park that did have a curfew to a 24-7 free speech zone, which is a different beast.

And I'm not to say here tonight that it shouldn't be that way, but that's something that requires more of a community conversation about what do we want for Lee Park.

And I don't think that's something that we can expect the staff to decide.

I don't even think it's necessarily something that we can decide without some community input and so that's where I may disagree a little bit with those who say we should be able to stay in the park as long as we want because it is a neighborhood park and we're here to try to balance the interest between the interests of those who have a legitimate desire to stay in the park as long as they can.

It's a great location.

You've been very respectful of the park and of the community and those in the neighborhood who

who have enjoyed it as a neighborhood park with, at least for the last several years, with restrictions on overnight usage of the park.

But we have time to have that conversation between now and Thanksgiving.

We have time to work this out, so that is, as Mr. Knappenberger said, not an abrupt transition, and I look forward to working with all of you on that.

Okay, we will now, thank you.

We will now move forward.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move the following appointments to our boards and commissions.

To the Board of Architectural Review, Whit Graves and Preston Koiner.

To the Citizens Advisory Panel, Peter Jenkin.

To CDBG, Marnie Allen.

To Chart, John Faltz.

To the Dialogue on Race, Chris Atwell.

To Jaunt, Kitty Pickett.

I would just like to offer the discussion that for the CDBG task force, which if you don't speak alphabetes, is Community Development Block Grant Task Force.

We have several vacancies, and I find it distressing, especially in light of Ms. Luca's comments earlier, that we really need to hear from people in the neighborhoods that are targeted by CDBG.

It's predominantly lower income neighborhoods that this funding is designed for.

and the board of that is intended to have membership by people who are in those neighborhoods.

We have not been getting applications.

I understand that there's been some effort to beat the bushes.

I think we're probably not doing an effective job, but I also encourage anyone who is watching, if you know people in, let's see, what are, sorry, it's several pages long here, but

If you know anyone who lives in those neighborhoods, who's concerned about those neighborhoods and wants the voices in those neighborhoods to be heard, please encourage them to apply for the CDBG board.

All right, thank you, Ms. Szakos.

We have a motion on the table that's been seconded.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

And it carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

On our consent agenda tonight, we have item A in the minutes of October 17th, item B, an appropriation, fiscal year 2012, Friendship Court sponsorship agreement, second quarter, $22,130.50, second of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation grant award from the Virginia Department of Forestry, Azalea Park biofilter project, $7,500, second of two readings.

Item D, an appropriation Victim Witness Assistance Program Grant, $157,143, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation Runaway Emergency Shelter Program Grant, $222,222, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation Statewide Information Sharing Strategic Plan and Pilot Geospatial Visualization Project, say that ten times fast, $1 million, first of two readings.

Item G, Resolution, Charlottesville Albemarle Health Department carryover request, $15,642, first of one reading.

Item H, Resolution on industrial hemp, first of one reading.

Item I, Ordinance, grant of easement near Brandywine Drive and Greenbrier Drive to Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, second of two readings.

Item J, an ordinance, regulation of pneumatic air-powered guns, second of two readings.

And item K, an ordinance, reauthorization of the technology zone, first of two readings.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

And it carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

We have a series of public hearings tonight because of a, well, I won't even go into it.

Anyway, we have a series of public hearings tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council.

Back in the summer we extended, you extended the lease that we had already given five years ago to the Virginia Discovery Museum for the area right around the carousel and in looking at the use of that area we have worked with them and think that it would be good to expand the area out a little bit further

so that we could have an area where the folks that come to watch their children, watch their grandchildren on the carousel can have a place to sit and be there and the Virginia Discovery Museum can help to keep the area orderly and clean and so we've been working with them and we bring you a proposal tonight to expand that area to 990 square feet

which would be essentially within the granite banding.

We'll reorder some of the seating in there and some of the flower pots to beautify it.

And it'll be basically from the Himalayan fusion cafe area over to the granite banding on the east side.

and we'd recommend that you pass a resolution increasing that lease area.

No, so there's not a cafe in that area.

There was an old drawing, there was one that was reserved, but nobody would lose cafe space.

Any questions, other questions before we open the public hearing?

Alright, thank you Mr. Tolbert.

We will now open the public hearing on this matter.

Is there anybody who would like to speak on this issue?

Hearing none, we will close the public hearing.

I do have one comment.

You mentioned that if that space was larger that public seating would be outside of that area.

and that we would make sure to have public seating outside that area.

What we plan to do is to take three of the four benches that are on either side, face them towards the post office and leave those there.

The ones that are facing east and west, we would move those inside the area and those would be four people that are watching the children on the carousel.

But we wouldn't lose any seating

We can surely look to see if we have room to do it.

I feel that at that end of the downtown mall, well really every part of the downtown mall now, the seating has been taken out for one reason or another in various places and now unless you're ready to

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

And it carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Tolbert.

Second item, public hearing resolution regarding 600 Preston Place special use permits before us tonight.

And first, the one reading Ms. Ebony Walden.

Hello, all.

NHI seeks a special use permit for the addition of seven bedrooms

to the addition of five bedrooms to their existing seven-bedroom fraternity house at 600 Preston Place.

The occupancy would go from approximately 10 persons to 14 persons.

Sort of their proposal, it's a three-story rear addition and the site plan includes parking and landscape improvements.

On October 31st, the Planning Commission had their public hearing on this item.

They discussed the use of the site, noise and trash issues, appropriate occupancy, and how to buffer the site, buffer the outdoor patio area.

Four members of the public showed up from the Venable Neighborhood Association to speak against it.

You all might have received some of this correspondence, I think, directly.

and those issues related to noise specifically I think about parties.

and undue density from increasing the number of occupants and fraternities specifically in that area.

In regards to that meeting, the Planning Commission decided unanimously to approve this application with about six conditions, including that there would be somebody designated to the city from our property management, I mean, property maintenance perspective, that we would have a contact, there would be bicycle parking,

Thank you, Ms. Walden.

I have two.

Sure.

Yes, so what they were

They weren't necessarily asking, but they said they were going to have 14 occupants in their application, and no more than 17.

What I recommended was no more than 22, because that would give you two persons, no more than two persons per room, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

And the other question is that by right in that neighborhood, if there were no special permit given, what's the maximum number of people who could live in that building if they renovated it?

40?

If there were no restrictions on it, if we, this doesn't have to do with zoning, but more so building code, if it's, I think it's one person per 500, I'm sorry, per 50 square feet of room, which would give you 40 persons.

Reasonably, what do you think they might be able to go up to?

I mean, if that were sort of the maximum, but nobody would ever do that.

It sounds to me that one of the concerns is that people in the neighborhood are concerned that there will be instead of 10 people there, there will be possibly 17.

But if you didn't do this permit, there could possibly be more.

No, so what they have right now is 10.

They would remain at 10 if they didn't

That's what the special use permit is for, is for the addition so they can have more people and more space.

If they didn't do that, then they would remain at the 10.

I think one of the issues that we were talking about in the Planning Commission meeting was that we calculate density on units per acre.

Technically, this is one unit, but if they could do a multifamily housing here and for multifamily housing, you could do

at least seven units, and each one of those units could have about four bedrooms, so that could give you about 28 people that could be there by right, and so that was the nature of our discussion.

For this particular application, they couldn't, per building code, they couldn't have more than 40 people.

If we just stuck to the zoning and they didn't do anything, they would just have the 10 people there, and so the special use permit is so they can increase their space and have 14 people, but up to 17, so between 14 and 17,

The Planning Commission wanted to give them leeway in that.

I recommend it no more than 22 because that would give two persons per bedroom since they were 11 bedrooms.

So they decreased that some.

My question for you.

No, it was all of the fraternities that were existing here, they were grandfathered in.

So all of the existing fraternities.

This fraternity house has been there since 1968.

So all of the fraternities in this area that are not new fraternities are grandfathered.

So if they wanted to increase the number of occupants, which would be increasing the intensity of use, then they would have to have a special use permit.

If they just wanted to increase the space, they could do that without a special use permit.

But we look at the intensity of use, which is the number of people, residents living on the site.

And so that's what trips a special use permit.

So they want to increase that in their space.

So the city does have discussion

Other questions for Ms. Wallen before we open public hearing?

Okay, thank you Ms. Walden.

We're now going to open the public hearing on this matter.

We have a few people sign up to speak and if you have not signed up, you'll still be able to speak.

When you come forward, as always, please state your name and address and we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes.

Thank you.

My name is Richard Crozier.

I live at 624 Preston Place.

I'm a 30 plus year resident of that neighborhood.

And I oppose granting a special use permit.

We've had a lot of trouble with fraternities over the years.

They're not a good fit in our area.

It's a very delicate balance at the present between

permanent residents and the transient population that fraternities represent.

I've had to call the police many times at two in the morning.

I know they don't like to come.

I don't like to call them.

I pick up trash there continually.

I dodge the kamikaze people that run the wrong way down Preston Place on a regular basis.

We fight for parking.

It's just one problem after another, and we also realize that

The University is going to add 1,000 students by 2018, I believe.

The pressure on this neighborhood is going to continue.

We're going to be back to see you again about Sigma Chi.

Sigma Chi wants to add as many as 10 bedrooms to their fraternity house, which is right next door to Theta Chi.

I think we're becoming a high-density neighborhood.

in spite of all of the promises that this will not happen.

And I'm just very, very concerned about this.

Thank you, Mr. Crozier.

Good evening.

My name's Beth Turner.

I live at 630 Preston Place.

I live in a historic house.

It was designed by Eugene Bradbury in 1920.

My family and I live there.

We've lived there for the past four years.

It's a historic, we moved in, we bought our property assuming that it had a historic overlay, which I believe to be true, that it's a residential neighborhood, that it has proper zoning, and that it is protected as a residential neighborhood with a historic overlay.

I believe that is what the city government has established and I believe that that's what we expect.

We cope with the noise and the trash of the fraternities.

We do not believe we are heard.

We believe that the city commissions are not listening to us.

We believe that by increasing the density

You will not be preserving these historic houses.

You'll be disfiguring them.

You'll also be destroying our neighborhood.

We have a family here.

We have families here.

It's a wonderful school district, the Venable neighborhood is.

We hope that you will preserve this as a neighborhood for families.

and we hope that you will hear us because we are pleading with you not to let this wonderful neighborhood be destroyed.

We are good neighbors.

We expect the fraternities to be good neighbors.

Thank you, Ms. Turner.

Good evening.

My name is Mike Bevere.

I'm at 712 Rugby Road, which is quite close to the subject property.

And I'm here on my own behalf, as well as on the behalf of the Venable Neighborhood Association, specifically Erica Goldfarb.

You have a letter from her representing the views of the association.

I want to make it clear that we are not against rehabbing the fraternities and as you will remember some 20 years ago we established this historic district in this neighborhood really expressly to assist the fraternities in their rehab.

It allowed us to qualify the structures as historic structures under federal law which gave them tax credits and then we gave the plan to the university which would permit, well not permit, but would

encourage the fraternities to syndicate those tax credits to their alumni and use the proceeds to rehab the fraternities.

And more than half the fraternities in this area were in fact rehabbed under that plan.

What we learned from that experience, though, is that however much money you put into the structure and into the landscape, that the project does not work unless there is good management.

and it's not enough, bike racks are not enough.

The buffering of the bushes is not enough or fencing in the dumpster.

None of that works unless the property is properly managed.

We believe we have good evidence that the Theta Chi fraternity has not been properly managed.

And because it's had weak management, it has expressed all of the ills that we unfortunately have come to associate with fraternities, the congestion, the noise, and the trash.

Key requirement as you know of the special use permit is that it be harmonious with the neighborhood.

The Theta Chi's at their current occupancy are not harmonious with the neighborhood and they're asking for a 70% or at least the way in which the Planning Commission at least passed it is a 70% increase in the number of boys resident in that house.

And the management problems do not get easier with more boys, they get more difficult with more boys.

We think you should

refused to grant them this special use permit.

until such time as they have demonstrated an ability to manage the property with the occupants they currently have.

Thank you, Mr. heavier.

Anybody else like to speak on this matter?

Good evening, council members.

My name is Will Tez, T-E-A-S-S, of Tectonics Design Group.

I'm the applicant for this application.

I'm also a graduate of the University of Virginia, as well as a member of Theta Chi Fraternity.

I wanted to first commend Ebony Walden for her assistance in guiding this application through.

We actually go before the Planning Commission, before the Board of Architectural Review.

Currently this structure houses five bedrooms in a main house and two bedrooms in an accessory structure that was used as a garage.

We're proposing two additions, one on the east side which will add about three, well, it will add three bedrooms.

and then an addition on the south side which we'll add to.

Both of these additions we consider relatively modest.

We're one of the smallest houses on grounds.

And really to take a step back, one of the reasons that we're here is because of the long-term maintenance and rehabilitation of the structure.

This project started about a year ago with a new board and it's encouraging to hear

Management is a key issue being raised by the neighbors.

The fraternity is under new management.

There's a board who has become a lot more vocal and involved with efforts to improve the structure.

And this really came out of a discussion about how do we improve the existing structure.

The economics are such that the corporation that owns the property derives income from the rental of bedrooms.

There have been a number of deferred maintenance activities that occurred over the past that have led to a condition to the house that you see today, which is quite frankly leaves a lot to be determined.

One of the strategies behind increasing the number of bedrooms is to increase the revenue stream by which the property can be properly maintained, which is I think a key aspect that you're hearing from the neighbors.

I'd also like to point out that we are in terms of density on the north side of the site bounded by another fraternity, on the east side of the site bounded by a sorority, and to the west a large four-story apartment building.

So we feel that the structure and the property is certainly harmonious with the surrounding development.

In terms of the process, we have

undergone an outreach campaign.

Several of the board members personally volunteered their time to walk around with letters of introduction and explanations of the project.

We actually had a very fruitful discussion with a couple of neighbors regarding the traffic flow.

The current traffic is such that you enter Preston Place.

It's actually a one-way loop.

You enter on one side and exit onto Grady at the opposite side.

One of the aspects to our site plan is that we're adding a curb cut onto Grady.

and actually coming out of the discussion with the neighbors we've reversed the flow of traffic on site so that we're actually eliminating all the traffic on Preston Place except for a very small portion in front of the structure.

We also got some feedback regarding DEC on the south side and there was a Planning Commission member who made an excellent suggestion of

lowering that and providing an additional buffer.

In summation, we are here this evening to ask you for approval of the special use process.

We've undergone and undertaken a significant fundraising effort.

We've gathered momentum for this project.

Deferring this for a year is not something that will assist our efforts to improve the property and ultimately be of benefit to the neighbors.

Thank you very much.

We may get back to you in a minute, but let me make sure there's nobody else that wants to speak from the public.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council.

My name is Art Kaiser.

I live at 1872 Edgewood Lane in Venable neighborhood.

I'll be very brief.

I agree with what my fellow neighbors have basically presented to you tonight.

One additional thing, I drove on the street, I biked down the street this afternoon at five o'clock and did a rough count of cars parked on the street or at one of the houses.

There's seven residences, here's the apartment building, the two fraternity houses.

and another structure, I'm not even sure what it is, a boarding house or something like that.

There are 85 cars there at 5 p.m. tonight.

It's a very small street, a very short street.

And, you know, despite the fact that you have a curb cut on Grady, I don't think you can confine all this traffic to Grady.

They're going to be using Preston for their convenience to get in and out.

So traffic is an issue, noise is an issue, trash is an issue.

I just think that this is, you need to realize you have to take them as they come as I believe the Planning Commission said but in fact I think you're going to be presented with a similar proposal from the attorney next door in the short term and so you know whatever the precedent is established here you're going to have to live with that there and it is not harmonious with a family residential community.

Thank you, Mr. Kaiser.

Anybody else from the public like to speak?

All right, we will now close the public hearing and open it up to council member comments, questions, and the applicants available to answer questions.

I have a number of comments which I'd like to make.

I'm a little familiar with this neighborhood in the attempts to improve fertility and sororities.

I think some of them have made some improvements, but I think increasing this density at this time or any time until the institution is better, I don't think it will be very harmonious with the neighborhood.

It will be, one of the criteria is a very delicate balance right now.

I think if you expand the fraternities, you're going to destroy that balance.

I have a feeling that it is already being destroyed.

I think if you have to live there, yourself, as Mr. Kaiser mentioned, 85 cars, I think you'll realize that it's not a good place for... Balance is off balance right now.

I think we need to make sure that we don't... What would happen in my mind is if you prove now this one,

You mentioned new management, new board.

I'm here tonight actually with Grady Lewis, who is one of the board members and has agreed to serve as a local contact.

And Grady, I think, may be better suited to discuss the rotation of the board members.

But Grady is a member from last fall, I believe, along with the majority of the board.

Well, I just really was looking for kind of a time frame, because you mentioned it, and that was.

If I may, I'll start with 2010.

Sure, go ahead.

And actually I have a question for Ms. Walden as well.

And I meant to kind of check on this and have it.

I don't have that at my disposal now.

That's something we could get for this area.

because it seems that it's pertinent to the discussion how well this fraternity has done in trying to be a good neighbor.

And I understand that new management is great, but I would like to know some kind of documentation of what that looks like before we start talking about adding more people to see how the people who are there are comporting themselves.

My initial comment is that

You know, I think the Planning Commission was unanimous in recommending this as a special use permit.

I think we need to look really carefully at for what reasons do we reverse the Planning Commission.

It's a lot easier to reverse the Planning Commission if the Planning Commission is pretty split, if it's 4-2 or whatever.

And so I think in terms of us framing whether we, you know, where we are on this, I'd like to, if other Councilors are interested in denying this, like Mr. Huja is, I'd like to hear something about what's the reason that we're reversing the Planning Commission, besides saying we disagree with them?

I guess I would answer that and I'm not I don't know yet kind of where I would sit on that because that is to me a very compelling argument that you know that's what we have a Planning Commission for.

On the other hand usually the City Council

is at Planning Commission hearings and we weren't and so I feel like we weren't part of that initial discussion so it's a little different than it usually is.

But also the Planning Commission makes recommendations and it's the Council's responsibility to make the decision.

Five bedrooms and four people, but the Planning Commission allowed up to seven people.

Because four people doesn't seem like we're talking about a whole lot to me.

And seven people is a little more.

And you have the option to limit that.

The Planning Commission placed a 17 person limit.

In my mind it certainly sounds and I believe the neighbors when they say they've been faced with some real challenges regarding trash and noise and traffic and I think there's legitimate concerns there.

The question though is if you have neighbors that are

not willing to be good neighbors, that's going to be problematic whether there's five people there, 10 people there, or 15 people there.

And so I think it's a good point that people who are disrespectful, it's amplified when you add to their numbers.

I almost feel like there's two separate issues here.

One has to do with fraternities being good neighbors regardless of how many people are living in a fraternity.

And whether or not we approve or deny this recommendation, I think we've got to get a handle on that.

And then there's sort of a separate question about what's the

what's the right number for, what's the right size and scale for this particular project.

interactions between people increase geometrically as you increase people

example between two people there are two possible interactions.

I can hit you and you can hit me.

At least there are two possibilities.

Between three there are six.

Geometrically increasing relationship.

For me, I don't see that that part of the information is, I don't think that's what we need to make the decision.

the neighborhood's going to be unaffected by adding four more people or up to seven more people or it's going to be adversely affected and that's kind of where our decision should come from.

We can get great reports now and in three years the managing board can drop the ball and the character can change one way or the other.

I don't think that kind of status report necessarily gives us information but I think the issue is

Does this satisfy the criteria for a special use permit?

Do we agree with the Planning Commission or do we have good reason to overturn the Planning Commission?

I think my opinion is, and I'm very sympathetic, I think there's an enormous amount of stress from the university, from the fraternities and the other households impacting the Venable neighborhood.

But the issue to me is does the addition of four additional

students in that particular location impacted one way or the other.

The other issue that was raised that we haven't addressed, and I'd kind of like to ask the city attorney about it, is there a link between this project and other future projects in that neighborhood?

I think you have to be consistent in your reasoning, but I think frequently they're distinguishing characteristics and different properties.

I have a question for Mr. Brown as well.

I have to say I was very, I found the idea

somewhat compelling about waiting a period of time to see whether the situation improves in terms of the interactions with the neighborhood instead of relying on a promise, but to see whether there's actual improvement.

I'm inclined, at least on the low end, to support the request, but

The one concern I have is

and I don't want to give anyone ammunition for kind of, I don't mean extortion in a criminal way, but is that if we did deny this and the fraternity were to move out and to say we can't operate here, then whoever bought that building could conceivably make it into apartments and put a lot more people there.

Granted, they would not be a fraternity that's likely to have keggers every weekend and so it might be a little different atmosphere.

And it may be that if we do ask for this information about complaints against this fraternity that we find out that, hey, all the trouble was from some other fraternity and these guys have actually been gens the whole time.

That would certainly change the way I look at it.

Because I think it's true that if we're, you know,

By the very nature of a special use permit, you're asking for something that's outside what would be allowed by right.

And so I think that a history of bad behavior

to me doesn't sort of pave the way for that well.

And I understand that you're trying to change that and I really appreciate it and I think that's great.

All right.

Well, I'm not hearing a majority of counselors who are prepared to vote for this tonight.

I'm also not hearing a majority of counselors that are prepared to vote against it tonight.

Mr. Huja?

I'll wait for you just a minute.

Is there a second to that motion?

Any discussion on the motion to defer consideration?

Please indicate your vote.

All right, passes four to one.

Thank you very much.

So we will ask staff to bring back some more information on police reports, citizen complaints, building code, anything that you can provide that talks to this issue of interactions with the neighborhood.

And we'll take it up again at a future date.

Thank you, Ms. Albemarle.

Next item on our agenda, the public hearing and ordinance regarding critical slopes and plain unit developments before us tonight.

First, two readings.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

This is an ordinance dealing with the plain unit development ordinance section of our zoning ordinance.

The code as it reads right now prohibits development on three areas, floodway and floodway fringe, wetlands, and steep slopes.

When the PUD ordinance was passed, there was no definition of steep slopes.

It was left up to the Planning Commission and ultimately City Council to decide what constituted a steep slope in each PUD that came before them.

Subsequently, we have passed the critical slope ordinance in 2007.

Along with that was a definition for steep slopes.

As the code currently reads, there is a prohibition on building in steep slopes in all PUDs.

just a complete ban basically on doing it.

Staff recommends removing this section from the PUD ordinance recognizing that all PUDs are still subject to the critical slope ordinance.

In fact, some of the other modifications we propose here are dealing with how a PUD that does propose to impact critical slopes, how they proceed through the process by submitting a waiver request to the Planning Commission.

in concurrence with their rezoning request.

So they would not have to, PUDs would not be subject to a more strict regulation.

They would be subject to the same restrictions that every other development in the city is subject to.

And that's all I have.

I'll answer any questions you may have.

So it seems to me that it is really a technical problem that

Yeah, it is.

Other questions for Mr. Halaska for you in the public hearing?

Thank you, Mr. Haleska.

We'll now open the public hearings.

Nobody's signed up to speak.

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

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

Collette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

Loosening the tighter steep slope ordinance is a joke.

Yes, I am cynical.

The Planning Commission has rarely, if ever, made a steep slope request for a PUD that it hasn't wavered.

Not only should we keep the steep slope ordinance for a PUD a 25% grade, but I would favor tightening to a 15% grade.

Acre by acre, the city is losing green space and natural habitat to development and increased density.

I wish all those magazines and organizations that vote Charlottesville as best, fill in the blank,

would see how the city is really treating the environment.

Please do not think citizens are not interested in the steep slope issue.

I personally have spoken in front of the Planning Commission four times regarding the steep slope ordinance.

The Planning Commission public hearing was on Halloween.

Halloween, a day for trick or treat.

If the ordinance is relaxed, the city residents surely get another trick.

Citizens right now are focused on other issues like unemployment, mortgage default, student loan payments, the election, and so it is a good time to sneak through this request.

If you vote approval for this change, then please also eliminate your council vision of a green city since it becomes meaningless.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Anybody else like to speak?

Brandy Collins, 536 Meade Avenue.

You know, it seems to me if we have an ordinance and you can already waive what the regulations are about our critical slopes, why go and make it any easier for people to get those waivers?

If that option already exists for people and that decision is up to the Planning Commission and ultimately you, the way the ordinance stands right now is working.

It's fine.

There's no reason to weaken it.

And this is a big issue with a lot of folks in this town.

It's kind of hard to understand, I think, for a lot of people.

But I do not think there's any reason why we should take an existing law that is not necessarily working for our environment the way it was maybe intended already and making it any weaker.

Thank you, Ms. Collins.

Bill Emery, 1604 East Market Street, Charlottesville.

I tend to agree with Dr. Brown regarding the Planning Commission's recommendations to you guys.

They really work hard on this stuff.

I mean, just pouring over the data for hours and hours and to just sort of, well, you have to be careful not to further dishearten them as a board when they do

worked so hard to try to give you good recommendations.

The one thing that's curious to me about this proposal, and I actually like it in a way, I mean typically in the past couple of years the Plank Commission has approved the PUD of zonings first, the zoning request, and then the PUD is already approved and they come along afterwards and approve the critical slopes because

you know, in a way it's like if you were approving up zoning and then there's like $5 million that's going to be spent somewhere in the city of course you're going to approve the critical slope waiver so I'd like the fact that the PUD request and the critical zoning or the critical slopes request are going to be considered concurrently but my question is, and I hope that maybe you guys can ask

Staff some questions to get to the bottom of this.

How do you do both of those things at once?

Our current critical slopes ordinance is very complicated.

There are all these different sort of waiver criteria.

How do you fold that into a zoning hearing?

It's beyond me.

That's a good question, Mr. Emeigh.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Peter Kleeman, 407 Head Street in the city.

I too would like to support the comments of Dr. Brown.

I know about two months ago he said he felt uncomfortable the first time he was agreeing with me on a comment I was making over his seven and a half plus years.

And I agree with him, but I would like to extend his comments just a tiny bit or suggest an extension.

I don't speak for Mr. Brown.

But I think it's very important to recognize that the appointed committees do provide a great value to the board, to the council.

And not that the council shouldn't overrule them from time to time, but it should be for reasons outside the purview of the board.

So if the board is limited to their looking at an issue based on the

certain sections of code and building practice and just standard procedures or whatever is in their purview and the council finds that that's a great recommendation on those bases but there are other bases that are important that relate to other issues in the community and at that point I think that

It is the council's job as the arbiter of these various interests to make a decision.

And I would agree with Dr. Brown that you should have a good reason for overriding, especially a unanimous vote, saying that they have done their due diligence.

It looks like this is the right action given the code.

And I think they do a fabulous job in many of these boards.

And that I think unless there's some really overriding

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kleeman.

Anybody else like to speak?

All right.

I think Mr. Kleeman just made my comment for me, that I think in our previous discussion that that was exactly what

My concern was something that's outside of the purview, but more about quality of life, which is part of what we're called to pay attention to.

In looking at this, I think that I certainly believe that the Planning Commission is committed to paying attention to steep slopes.

The section of the code that we are proposing to add is

There's two sections.

These are under the requirements for submission.

One is that in the event that the plan indicates any critical slopes will be disturbed, the applicant shall submit a request under the critical slope ordinance for a waiver.

along with the rezoning.

And then it goes on to further say that in the event that they have submitted that, the Planning Commission will basically review it simultaneously with the rezoning.

I think when it gets down to it, what we would like to see as a planning staff is we'd like to see the Planning Commission recognize that there is a disruption of that, consider it at the public hearing, debate it and make it clear through the consideration of that waiver and the rezoning that

We understand these areas are being disturbed and we are approving this plan with those disturbances in there that we've taken account of that.

I think Mr. Emery does indicate that in the past it may have been a situation where it was rezoned and then

I think the changes which are proposed makes it very consistent, UDL and other cases.

So I think it is worth following this kind of recommendation.

Any other comments or questions?

Motion to approve.

I'll move the ordinance.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

It's before us on the first two readings so that will carry forward to our next meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Jalisco.

Okay, these are two what we would consider to be housekeeping changes.

Great.

Questions for Ms. Creasy?

We will open the public hearing.

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

Hearing none, we'll close the public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

We'll carry forward to our next meeting on second reading.

Thank you, Ms. Creasy.

Premier and Members of Council, as you are well aware, Vinegar Hill was a predominantly African-American neighborhood that was raised during what was termed as urban renewal back in the 60s.

Hundreds of folks were displaced, including businesses, a sense of community and opportunity was certainly lost at that point.

It was one of numerous injustices that African-Americans have had to endure here in the Charlottesville area.

Our city council over the last couple of years has made it a point to acknowledge the mistakes of the past and we believe that this apology for the city's role in Verdigar Hill does just that.

It's a symbolic step but a powerful acknowledgement of the mistakes that were made in the past and I believe also it is a commitment from the city to ensure that this type of thing does not happen again in the future.

Do you mind Mr. Jones?

I have to pull it off.

Sure.

Okay.

Resolution of the City of Charlottesville apologizing for the destruction of Vinegar Hill.

Whereas the neighborhood known as Vinegar Hill was also known as the black business district for the Charlottesville area from the 1920s to the late 1950s, and whereas Vinegar Hill, a self-supported community considered the hub of black culture that included a cross-section of residents from all economic backgrounds in Charlottesville, where businesses, schools, churches, and homes comprised the predominantly African-American neighborhood.

and whereas businesses such as the progressive Billiard Parlor, Jefferson Inn Furnished Rooms, Wing Foot Shoe Shop, and Inge's grocery store provided the goods and services to African Americans who were in many cases unable to receive those services in other areas of Charlottesville as a result of segregation laws and discrimination and whereas these business owners in Vinegar Hill faced intense racial discrimination in Stark,

as they started growing and maintaining their businesses, and whereas the Federal Housing Act of 1937 paved the way for Charlottesville to begin consideration of public housing in this area, and whereas in January 1954 City Council adopted a resolution establishing a housing authority to deal with the unsanitary and unsafe inhabited dwelling accommodations that existed in the city,

and whereas on June 14, 1960, the citizens of Charlottesville voted through a referendum to proceed with redeveloping Vinegar Hill under the Federal Urban Renewal Program and whereas the attempt to create a fine modern business section for the slum area of Vinegar Hill and a decent standard of living for the African American residents led to the displacement of close to 500 people and the destruction of close to 40 different businesses and churches

and whereas the Vinegar Hill neighborhood was demolished, many of the displaced were moved to new public housing, I'm sorry, whereas when the Vinegar Hill neighborhood was demolished, many of the displaced were moved to the new public housing community of West Haven and whereas some who lived in Vinegar Hill welcomed improved housing opportunities for the residents of the neighborhood but felt overlooked and unheard during the decision making process that led to urban renewal,

and whereas urban renewal affected not only Vinegar Hill but homes and businesses along Garrett Street as well and where some residents of Charlottesville still feel the negative consequences of urban renewal and continue to distrust the city government as a result.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the undersigned members of the Charlottesville City Council, recognize the African American owned businesses, homes and property that were destroyed or damaged by the razing of Vinegar Hill.

Acknowledge that the events leading to the destruction of this neighborhood did not adequately include those who were to be affected.

Mourn the lost sense of community caused by the demolition of this neighborhood.

and for the harm caused, we do hereby apologize for the city government's role in the destruction of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood and affirm that the lessons learned from the city's actions will be remembered.

Ms. Edwards, you were sort of the instigator for this.

Just to echo the comments of Dr. Brown that this is long overdue.

There are a lot of people that are still angry.

A lot of people are still grieving.

A lot of people are missing their family members and neighbors that were alive during that time that aren't here to hear the resolution.

Symbolic.

I hope this is just the beginning of more substantive activities that can take place as a result.

of this.

There's so much that we've learned from this.

So much that we still need to continue to learn.

And I'm hoping that in some way this will be the beginning of providing some healing for a lot of the pain.

And for some people that's just not ever going to happen.

And I acknowledge that.

And I appreciate my council team in supporting this idea as it was, one of my bucket list ideas.

And so I'm glad we're, even though it is long overdue, we're acknowledging it and we're taking responsibility for it right now.

Thank you.

Any other comments or discussion or a motion to approve the resolution?

It's been moved.

I just wanted to make one comment also.

As Ms. Edward mentioned, we can't change the past, but we can learn from the past.

And I'll repeat it again and again for other cases.

I agree with all that's been said.

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

It passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards, for bringing this item to our attention and to Mr. Jones and Ms. Green for your work on this as well.

Next item, a report on the Rivanna Pump Station update.

Thank you Mr. Mayor and Council members.

In May, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors voted to continue

We work on three potential alternatives for increasing the capacity of the Rivanna pump station.

The goal, as you've heard it before, is control of sanitary sewer overflows, which is a very important environmental goal.

The means in terms of how we get there is the open discussion.

Staff's not taking a position or recommendation on any one particular option.

The Rivanna board I believe is interested and I believe Mr. Jones is interested in your views to take to the Rivanna meeting on November the 22nd and presumably the county is doing the same.

I know the Albemarle County Service Authority will

will be taking this up at their meeting this month before the Rivanna meeting as well.

Some of you in the room have seen the presentation that was made to the public on October the 20th or at the Rivanna board meeting.

I am prepared.

If some of you who have not seen it want me to go through that tonight, I'm prepared to do that.

I can go through it fairly quickly, but there's a lot of slides.

I've seen it twice.

Oh, I could see it again.

I think we want to make sure everybody's well informed about their options.

Yes, it is.

Can we dim the lights right here?

I will be using the pointer during this presentation.

I need to comment for those who may be watching this at home on their TV set.

They will not be able to see the pointer, and I apologize for that, but I think it will be beneficial to those who are in the room to point out a few things as I go through the slides.

First, the objective, again, which I just mentioned, very noble environmental objective.

There is a deadline attached to this, December 31.

The city is aware you're under a consent order with DEQ, so is the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and there is a deadline to pick the preferred alternative from the three available concepts by that date.

I mentioned in May three concepts rose.

There were initially, the consultant developed four initially.

One, concept E was actually added through public comment, which I'm very grateful for the amount of participation that we've had from the public on this discussion.

Two were eliminated, much of that with help from public comment, leaving us with three to study in a little more detail on a site specific out in the field basis.

This table summarizes those things that can be easily quantified.

There's several criteria here.

The red indicates the higher or more troublesome.

The green indicates the most favorable.

As you can see from looking at this that after further investigation, there were a number of things discovered about concept D that are somewhat problematic.

I'll take them in the order of going D first.

This shows over here State Farm.

The existing pump station is here.

This is the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

The siting was on the northwest corner of the State Farm property just above the floodplain near the river.

Some pipes would have to be constructed through Riverview Park in order to reconnect to where the pipes are located right now at the existing pump station.

As our consultant looked at this alternative further, they found topography and geology, basically the things at the site that are inhibiting development as some of the things that made this site very difficult.

As you can see from this picture, the slope here is very steep.

They found through borings that there is a significant amount of rock in the area that would have to be excavated in order to site a facility on this side of the river.

This shows a view of how much excavation will be needed if you trace the dotted line.

The dashed line is the existing topography.

This is the scale of the pump station that would need to be excavated underground.

The rock

Excavation is so deep that the consultant was concerned that it would leave possibility for landslides or even the possibility because the bottom of the pump station has to be deeper than the river to receive a pipe going under the river that it actually could flood the workway during construction which could create a number of issues.

Access to the site is also very difficult because of the topography.

This is a road that's proposed to get there and you can see there's quite a bit of excavation to provide a slope to the road that is safe for transportation.

They did look at this way, which is to the road, which is shorter.

If you know how to read topographic lines, you can see that that's challenging.

If you took the trees out of this hillside and put this in Arizona, they'd probably call it a canyon.

That's how steep it is.

The landscape architects who looked at how to restore the site after the pump station was built acknowledged that because of the very steep slopes through here, it would be not possible to reestablish vegetation immediately.

It would have to grow back naturally.

and they indicated that for trees to start from nothing on a site that's predominantly rock and mature could take as long as 30 years.

So they didn't have a lot of hope for restoring the beauty of this site very quickly after construction.

The architect also did do a couple of renderings.

These show the trees have been properly regrown, which I just mentioned could take some time.

This is a traditional approach.

Another alternative they call a contemporary design approach would give this appearance.

And again, the cost, the price tag on that option is $54 to $55 million, which is a significant amount of money.

Let's move now to concept E.

The map here, this is the existing pump station.

When we were talking about D a moment ago, we were up here.

So we're looking the other way.

I'm going to start at the wastewater treatment plant, which is existing, which is located here.

This area of the site is available and has been chosen as the site for the new pumping station.

And then draw a straight line from there back to the park to connect to the gravity sewer line that exists up here.

And this is the route of the tunnel.

This shows a profile view of the tunnel.

The work shaft, which is on the wastewater treatment plant property, is here.

And this is about 40 feet deep in the ground.

The tunnel would proceed in this direction, this being the tunnel right here, to the exit shaft in Riverview Park, which would be about 25 feet deep at this location.

The geotechnical information that was gathered indicate this gray area here is hard solid rock which the tunneling machine loves and is able to penetrate.

Over here you see some rock on the bottom of the tunnel but you see a sandy color here which represents sandy or soils which are not rock in that area.

So there's some pretreatment that would be needed to complete the tunnel in this area which I'll go to in a moment.

This is some pictures showing up at the upper right hand corner where it says shaft construction.

That is what the work shaft would look like that's on the wastewater treatment plant site.

Once that tunnel is finished, that shaft would be a part of the excavated material for the new pump station.

The exit shaft on the lower right is a smaller shaft.

is where the tunnel machine would exit after the operation is over and that would be in the park area.

Over here in the lower left hand corner is a picture of the machine itself that is lowered into the shaft once the shaft's ready and it tunnels from one end to the other over a period of several months.

The cutting tool is rotary.

It looks almost like wheels sitting here of a variety of patterns.

This works by grinding at the rock rather than blasting the rock and by doing that there's minimal vibration.

If you were standing on top of where the tunnel were progressing and it were 60, 70 feet below you, you would not feel that there is that kind of activity going on below you, which is a neat thing.

But it does have to have hard rock through the entire distance in order to be able to navigate with that method.

The preconditioning is illustrated here.

The area I mentioned that is close to the park where there's some sandy soils in the path of the tunnel

Those sandy soils would have to be hardened with a jet grout.

That grout is injected by a truck that looks like this.

It actually drills holes in the ground and then here's the truck with the grout in it.

It's pumped into those holes under pressure so it squeezes and pushes out through the cracks or the pore spaces if it's in the sandy areas.

This grout does not have to be all the way to the ground surface, meaning you can re-establish after this is over topsoil in this area and sewer safe trees can be planted in that area.

This is just a before and after for the exit shaft in the park, a picture of what it might look like on the left during construction.

At the end, the area is back filled and all you see is a manhole, which means that you can restore the park site after the work is done.

Not much on concept E was attention was paid to architectural since it will be at the wastewater treatment plant site, it would simply match the style that's already existing at the plant and actually county, this is in the county, the plants in the county and county zoning conditions would require, architectural requirements would require that we adopt a similar style to what already exists to keep it in harmony.

Concept E, the price estimate from the consultant was 38 to 40 million dollars.

And then the third alternative that the board asked us to take a closer look at, as you know, is Concept A.

This was challenging to try to find a way to fit a significant size structure in an area adjacent to the neighborhood.

This is Riverside, Chesapeake.

This is the entrance to Riverview Park.

This is the existing pump station you can see up close in this location here.

The blue, both the medium blue and the light blue are structures as part of the new pump station that would be above ground.

The dark gray and the light gray here are structures that would be entirely below ground and would be hidden after the pump station is built.

One of the challenging issues with concept A, the height of the building above ground for the equipment itself, which is predominantly electrical equipment, is only 15 feet.

And the roof structure is two and a half feet.

But in order to get the electrical equipment above the floodplain, which, as they learned in Japan, is essential, you have to actually start with a floor elevation 17 feet above the existing ground.

So that makes the total structure

34 and a half feet, which is challenging.

Some things, if this were to advance, some things that would definitely be done, odor control would be state of the art.

It would be as good and better to the extent we can in what's available now.

Also, it would be totally enclosed within the building, so you would not see odor control systems on the outside as you do now.

All the mechanical equipment,

would be inside an enclosed building which is very good at getting rid of the noise.

The consultant shows a natural gas generator rather than diesel generator which eliminates trips to supply diesel fuel plus the hazards of having to store a significant amount of diesel fuel on the site.

And then the architectural features which the next few slides are going to discuss in a little more detail.

This is the architect's rendering of what an aerial shot may look like if the pump station were put here.

This is the two above ground structures right here.

One of the things architects I know labored with significantly is how to make a structure of this nature fit within this area and be in harmony.

And one way of potentially doing that is to make it seem to be a part of the park area.

They've provided several suggested ideas for improvements.

A low entry wall that's between knee and waist high.

in front of the pump station that could be built from reclaimed stones from the river dam and then a berm behind that that would house a row of birch grove trees.

Also the opportunity here to improve park signage which is a way of beautifying the entrance to the park and drawing the eye and the attention to the park itself.

Furthering that, restroom facilities could be provided in Riverview Park and some additional amenities including improved river access which is something that we've heard is significantly of interest.

We did have conversations with the Parks and Recreation Department with the city in working with this idea.

And then third, this green area right here is necessary as a bioretention area for stormwater controls related to the construction of the station.

Rather than just have it as a bioretention area, you know, one possibility is to include some trails through here, maybe even a boardwalk through this area in here.

Again, tying the improvements to the park.

These are a couple of profile views of how the pump station will look in comparison to other structures within the neighborhood.

This is from north to south with Market Street being right in here.

This is from west to east.

This is an existing house in the neighborhood.

And then this is the park area where I just talked about the trails with the river being on the far right.

This is a little bit more close up view.

You can see the wall that was discussed is only about knee to waist high.

This is the berm that I'll talk about why it's needed in just a second.

Our architects came up with some renderings of what this might look like.

This is an existing condition.

This is Chesapeake.

This is the existing pump station.

You can see the piping associated with the over control facilities here.

First thing they did was take that away.

This particular tree here actually sits on neighboring property and not on the property of the pump station, but they have made it transparent so you can see what's going on behind it.

And then they've added the structure.

This is one concept of how the architect would work with this.

They call it the sculptural

idea which uses corrugated metal screen on three sides, all but the backside.

This is what this is right here from a distance.

This material allows the sky and the surrounding trees to be reflected through the area of the building and also allows light to pass through, giving an illusion that the building is not as large as it actually is.

And then this is with the birch grove trees added to the front.

This shot shows in the summertime when they are in leaf season.

They would be a little more barren during the winter season.

Up in the, if I direct you to the upper right hand corner, that's what the corrugated metal screening would look like up close.

And then the other pictures here were the pictures that the architect took of other applications of this material.

You can see the light reflected through and you can see that the buildings aren't given appearance of not being as large as they actually are.

Architect also came up with a second idea, this one using a wood material, and they call that their architectural approach rather than the metal material, but similar in effect.

Here, the louvers, this is actually an intake letting air into the building, but it's designed in a way to reflect how neighborhood doors and windows might look in the area.

This is the wood screen and trellis I mentioned.

The structure behind that is actually concrete but the wood screen reveals only part of the concrete structure so it takes the eye off of what might otherwise be unsightly.

And then again here with the trees in front of it.

Examples of the wood screening.

This is actually a house that's in the neighborhood now.

This is the city's aquatic center.

So there are a couple applications of that in the area already.

Some elements in the architectural features common to both design approaches very quickly.

All of the access, the utility areas, that's where the operators would work, are in the back so that none of that is facing the neighborhood.

The berm you can see up here screens the base of the building, which is part of what gives the building an appearance of not being as high as it actually is.

There's a strong horizontal line right here that is below the actual top of the roof.

Again, another feature that helps give the illusion that the building is not as tall.

And then with the screening material, whether it's the wood or the metal, it allows for light to pass through and other things that give subtle changes in appearance in different weather conditions or different seasons.

And the last one I'll leave up here for discussion is the by the numbers table.

That concludes the presentation.

Thank you for bearing with me on that.

Thank you, Mr. Frederick.

Just questions or comments?

I got to say, I sat through the thing at Lane Auditorium that had kind of a even more detail than the architects made their presentations.

And I got to say that the architects' efforts spent on the building at the current site were heroic.

They used an amazing number of creative ways to make an incredibly monumental, gigantic building

blend.

And I think they did as well as could be done.

I can't imagine anybody being more creative than they were, and yet it still appalled me how big it was for that neighborhood.

As I mentioned earlier in the meeting, I think all members of the council have already said that we were opposed to Site A.

Let me ask you a question following up on that.

Of course the first decision within the next month is the Rivanna board's decision on the preferred alternative, but looking ahead with all the options as to what type of other approvals would be required later, there is a specific special use permit that would have to be obtained for the city of Charlottesville to implement concept A.

Similarly, to implement concept D would require a special use permit from Albemarle County.

At the last meeting that we talked about this, I held out some hope about option D. It just intuitively seemed to make sense to me.

And I think that one of the things that was asked and answered at the public meeting that wasn't part of this was why you had to go so far upstream from where the current site is?

Why did it have to be so long?

Why couldn't it just be straight across?

and I guess the answer was that the slope there is like this and to get out of the floodplain.

Can you answer the question?

Because it made me realize that it wasn't just sending it further down to make it more expensive so we wouldn't like it.

Anywhere along that east shoreline

Two sites were presented to the Rivanna board, I think it was like June or July.

When the decision was made to study three, then we took each one and looked at it and said okay how do we make each

cite individually as good as we possibly can, overcome the negatives of that feature.

And who do we need to talk to?

Who's impacted by that to help make some decisions?

With respect to D, we met with State Farm.

They expressed that they didn't want it on their property at all.

If it had to be there, it would be better on the north end than on the south end.

We took that information back to the Rivanna Waters Board of Directors.

and they decided to honor the wishes of State Farm and look at the northern site.

We did, after the cost estimate came in and the information that we now know about the site came in, we did go back and ask our consultant, would it have made a big difference if we'd gone back, if the decision had gone the other way and we'd gone back to the other site and said no.

Because that was my question.

I understand a property owner not wanting it on their property or near their building.

I think we have neighbors who feel the same way in one of these plans.

It would still be significantly higher than the others.

This question has come up several times and it's something of a rhetorical question but I think there is some sort of substance to it as well.

Are there other instances that we know of where a pump station of this nature has been located in or immediately adjacent to a residential neighborhood in a historic district at the entrance to a park in a flood plain

Okay, thank you.

My impression is that the sense of counsel is that we're in favor of option E and completely opposed to option A.

I guess the question for me is how affirmative do we want to be on this point that option A needs to be taken off the table?

I don't think there is any indication right now as to what we said.

I was just going to say I don't think we could

I don't think we could say that we will not do something in the future.

I think we can say that for the purposes of the meeting coming up we're completely opposed to this option A and the only one that we will support is option E.

I mean, can we say that future councils will not approve a special use permit?

Legally, you cannot.

One other step, and this may be a question for Mr. Frederick.

I think Rivanna's current site is a little less than half an acre, and I see up here under

Concept E is one acre plus.

Does that mean Rivanna would have to acquire city property?

Yes.

So that's, you know, it's not just a special use permit.

This council would have to make a decision to either lease or sell Rivanna additional property.

I mean, I think if we wanted to do some type of resolution, we could couch it in language saying that this council

That is a separate issue.

I would second the motion if someone made that motion that you just seemed to make without the words.

And I'd like to have this comment as part of the record for the minutes.

It's actually an excerpt from a letter from Bill Emery dated September 30th, 2010.

And

On January 21, 1958, Council considered issuing a $500,000 bond for the construction of what we now know as the North Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

At that time, I do not think that Council envisioned that 50 years later, wastewater from Crozet to Camelot would be treated at this plant.

The smells emanating from this plant impact the health and quality of life of residents on the east side of town.

It is imperative that Council's representatives on the RWSA Board continue to be vigilant in working to interest their constituents.

The plant was cited years before Executive Order No.

12898, which states,

Federal actions to address environmental justice in minority populations and low-income populations.

The President Executive Order 12898 of February 11, 1994.

No group of people including racial, ethnic or socioeconomic groups should bear a disproportionate share of negative consequences resulting from industrial, municipal and commercial operations with execution of local programs and policies.

City and county governments should incorporate consideration of potential environmental and public health impacts of land use decisions into the fabric of their planning and zoning activities to prevent excessive levels of pollution, mitigate environmental and other impacts like noise, odor, traffic, especially lower income and people of color communities.

As influence from outlying areas of the county increases, efforts to reduce the impact on Charlottesville residents must be increased as well.

All right, well, so we have a motion on the table to put Council on record as supporting, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the motion is to support option E and noting that Council does not support option A, would not support sale of city land or approval of permits necessary to affect option A.

It's been moved and seconded.

You can borrow, but you can't borrow future counsels on that.

Absolutely.

And it passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to our friends in the Willow Mills.

Thank you, Mr. Frederick.

Okay, next item on our agenda is, let's see, where are we?

No, we have two more items.

Thank you.

The Mayor making criteria for Ms. Shaughnessy to speak.

What's that?

Well, you know, I don't have a lot to say usually, so I should be happy.

Yes.

Well, while I'm waiting I just want to

Thank you all so much for your support of John over the years.

It really makes a huge difference in what we do.

I was very pleased that you tonight just reappointed Kitty Pickett to our board.

We have some great board members appointed by the city, including Ray Herron, who is the president.

He's from the city and is in the audience tonight.

Bill Watterson is a very able board member and as well as Phil Jones who gives us a whole different perspective having been a driver long ago and he also came to our most recent blood drive on our little street that John was putting together along with a couple of neighboring businesses and gave blood so we know that his heart is in the right place in terms of John.

And we lost him.

Okay, great.

Well, I don't have an obvious idea at all.

What am I looking at?

So if you all have your, not everybody has iPads in front of them, right?

I'm looking to see our great photos.

Yay!

We're going!

Okay!

Alright, now I just have to make this move.

I can just use this.

Yay, all right, all right, woo.

Okay, this is a chart just, I'm gonna start out and talk about Jaunt overall, just so you can see, because you know, it's not just Charlottesville.

We've got Charles, I mean, we've got Albemarle, Louisa, Fluvanna, Nelson, and Buckingham as well, as well as a little service that goes outside those boundaries.

So I'll start out talking about Jaunt as a whole and then get to some more city-specific information.

but this is our total annual ridership since we began in 1975 when we just celebrated our 35th year.

You can see it's been a general trend upwards over the years.

The ups and downs, although they look pretty dramatic, one of those is because we had one nine month fiscal year and others are because we have different agency programs but the public, use of the public

ridership has gone up consistently over the years as you'll see in this next slide.

And this is broken out by county.

You can see that Charlottesville started out as the more Charlottesville riders than anyone else and just only recently surpassed by Albemarle a few years ago.

But all the counties have continued to increase in general over the years and we just added Buckingham back in 2007.

One of the things that we're proud of is our on-time performance, which keeps getting better and better.

And we work really hard at that, which is very challenging because we're dealing with people and people have issues and things go wrong and they lose their keys and they're frail and there's a lot of information like that.

And that's why I tell my board every year, it's not going to get any better.

We can't do any better than peaking people up 90% of the time.

on time, but this year we actually just topped that.

What I can say also is that we get 100% of the people to their appointments on time, which is one of the most critical things we can do.

It's 99.8 or something.

It's pretty darn close.

Something that people may be not aware of is how huge our call center is.

We handle a ton of calls and one of the reasons that John is unfortunately a bit expensive is not just because we're paying for individualized service with the drivers serving people, but also because we have to take so many calls.

We did 300,000 trips and it's pretty clear that we need at least one call for every three trips that we make every day.

People are making reservations.

They're changing throughout the day.

Doctors are calling to say people are ready and those kinds of things.

So we have a huge call center.

We're highly technical in terms of having GPS and AVL and all that stuff is done via computer and computers in every vehicle.

Just to give you a sort of switch to financial stuff for a minute, this is just our operating revenues this past year.

So you can see that local money is a critical piece to what we do.

Forty percent of the money that we get to keep operations going comes from the local governments.

Federal is staying fairly steady as is state, but as the service grows, we're seeing a bit of a diminishment there in terms of percentages.

And it was $5 million that we took in this past year.

If you look at the local funding shares, you can see that Albemarle is now our biggest donor, although Charlottesville is not far behind.

And I'll point out that that 5% share of Nelson, half of that actually comes from Wintergreen to support the service that we provide to the resort to help people get to work.

Total expenses this past year, and this includes capital, was $7.5 million.

We did spend quite a bit of money replacing 32 vehicles over the past year, so that really does drive up the cost.

Special projects are just smaller grants that we operate.

We have a mobility management program, a few other things like that.

One of the things we did this year, the same thing that CAT did, had a transit development plan prepared for us by some state consultants just to help us plan for the future.

It's a state mandated plan that we were happy to comply with, but one of the interesting products for us was to get really good mapping, which we have on our website now and we can talk to people about where we go.

in terms of our commuter routes.

If you zoom in on Charlottesville, you can see that the routes, many of them are landing at their final stop, UVA and downtown.

So those are our two primary stops.

But we do go all over the urban area as well as we're bringing people into Charlottesville from the rural areas.

In terms of our overall mix of services in the city, this is all, now we're talking about city stuff.

As you can imagine, the ADA service, which is, we provide in lieu of CAT service, is the biggest percent of what we do, 61%.

And then the Human Service Agency service makes up about a third, and I'll talk about those in a minute in more detail.

We also do some link service so that people can use that in the Greenbrier neighborhood to meet up with CAT.

Our ADA service, which is the thing that most people are thinking about when they think about jaunts in the city, certainly is, you know, it's for people with disabilities and

We have to meet very stringent federal requirements in terms of what hours we need to operate, what the fare can be, when we have to be open to take reservations.

and you can see that that service has been fairly steady over the years but it's grown and we think it's leveling out at this point, although that could always change.

One of the things that the federal government mandates is that we not turn down any requests for service under this program and that's a real challenge because people can call at 449 on

Wednesday for a trip at 6.30 in the morning the next day and we have to find a way to squeeze that into the schedule.

So that's one of the reasons we have a fairly large reservations and scheduling crew because they have to, basically we have to turn the whole fruit basket over every day and reinvent what our schedules are going to look like from day to day.

So we were really proud of last year, we only turned down six.

requests for service and that's a heroic effort by the staff to make that happen.

And this is one of our great passengers and former board member Martin Powell getting on the bus just last week.

The human service agency side of things, John got started originally as a coordinated human service agency provider back when so that every human service agency didn't have to have their own bus and their own drivers and figure out how to provide safe service and so we were the centralized dispatching unit.

Over the years that portion of our service has dwindled as the public has grown but it still makes up a significant point part of what we do.

Half of the service we do is for Medicaid riders.

Head Start makes up a big point portion and of course Pacham and that's kind of a hot topic right now but that's a significant portion of our riders especially in the winter as we're taking them to the churches.

We also do service for Parks and Rec and lots of smaller agencies.

And we try to be really responsive to agencies when they call with an issue and I'll talk about that in a second to show you some of the more interesting things we've been doing along those lines.

The commuter routes to Wintergreen, we started a new one just this past year from Charlottesville to Wintergreen.

The old ones used to go from Nelson and Amherst up to Wintergreen, but Wintergreen needs people.

The International Rescue Committee needs jobs for people.

So it was a great match.

The service is supported both with federal money and with funding from Wintergreen, which is great.

And building on that success, we started another service to Shenandoah National Park to take people to work up there from the city.

and that also has been pretty successful.

It's just ending now, it's just a summer service.

We're really happy to be able to leverage some corporate contributions along with federal dollars to find solutions to some people's mobility issues.

A couple other things to brag about for this year.

We work really closely with Java.

They helped provide a match for a shopping grant so that we can take seniors.

We've been taking them to farmer's markets, to produce stores so they can eat, have a more healthy diet, and that's been a really successful venture.

And then, I'm really excited, our driver won the statewide rodeo, so I thought I should put his photo up there and brag about him a little bit.

Every year we do a survey of all our passengers.

These are just the responses from the city riders.

We can separate them out.

So we're really proud of this that 100% of people said they received prompt courteous service and that the drivers drive safely.

98% said the drivers make them wear their seat belts.

I don't know who those other 2% of people are, but we'll find them and make sure that they get that message and that the drivers make sure that they do that because that's really important.

I talked a little bit about the transit development plan producing the commuter maps, but they also have lots of plans for where John should go in the future.

Most of them, there's not a lot of change expected in the city, but as we expand in the urban Albemarle, if CAT routes expand there, we need to expand as well.

That would be an Albemarle expense, not Charlottesville, but

you'll be seeing more buses as we come in and out.

For instance, recently we started a service bringing people to Charlottesville medical centers from Culpeper.

So that's with funding provided by the federal government and from the folks in the Culpeper area.

And then we're hoping in the future to add some more commuter routes from every direction and also more midday services from the outlying jurisdictions.

We just started another one coming in from Nelson County to bring people to doctor's appointments here.

And this is my last, well, second to last slide.

We have a nonprofit, as many folks know, and Kristin, thanks for your contribution.

So we do, we just celebrated our 35th year by raising $3,500, and we do ticket scholarships, because even though our fares are really low, there are still some people who can't afford that very low fare.

So last year we distributed 98 books of tickets.

So that's what I have to say.

And this is only a small portion of our staff because we can't ever all get together at the same time because we run service 24, well not 24-7, it just feels that way, but seven days a week.

And so it's hard to gather the whole crew together at one time.

How do you determine what the ratio is from the different localities?

And is that Albemarle County

because rural federal funding is much richer than urban federal funding.

But what we do is we say, here's how much it's going to cost to do the service, here's how much we expect to collect in fares, here's how much state money we can apply to this based on the percentage of service, and then here's how much federal money is available.

So whatever's left is the local share.

So, Nelson County, for a given amount of service, would pay slightly less because the federal dollars are much richer.

Presumably our trips are also shorter and maybe a little less expensive.

That's right, that's right.

We can cover more of that, I think.

It was a very informative presentation.

Keep up the great work.

All right, thank you so much.

You have our strong support.