City Council Meeting   12/19/2011

Well, from Gurney Island to the Sunset Strip Somebody's gonna make a happy trip tonight While the moon is bright He's gonna have a bag of crazy dogs To give the Gurney's ugly pearls and boys So dig, Santa comes on big

Eulogation, and action, and pressure, and pissing Carvings, and beauty, and time, and blissing But when you recall, most famous legend of all Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose

And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names They never let poor Rudolph

Rudolph with your nose so bright Won't you guide my sleigh tonight Then how the reindeer loved him As they shouted out with glee

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history

They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer game Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then how's the reindeer love him as they shout it out with glee?

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me Green polka dot pajamas and a Japanese transistor radio It's a Nakashuma On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me A calendar book with the name of my insurance man Green polka dot pajamas and a Japanese transistor radio It's the Mark IV model, that's the one that's discontinued

And it comes in a leatherette case with holes in it, so you can listen right through the case.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me A hammered aluminum nutcracker and all that other stuff And a Japanese transistor radio On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me A pink satin pillow that says San Diego with fringe all around it and all that other stuff And a Japanese transistor radio

And a Japanese transistor radio On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love, victory An automatic vegetable slicer that works when you see it on television But not when you get it home And a Japanese transistor radio On the 12th day of Christmas, although it may seem strange

Dr. Brown?

Here.

Ms. Szakos?

We're going to start with a couple of recognitions and awards.

First of all, just as a reminder, we will be accepting blankets for the SPCA and used books for the Senior Center throughout the end of the year in the lobby of City Hall.

Our SPCA goal is 2,000 blankets and we have already collected about 1,200 blankets, which is great.

City Hall is closed Monday the 26th and Monday the 2nd, but there will be normal trash and recycling service those days.

Southern Living magazine, we found out today, has named Charlottesville among the 10 tastiest towns in the South.

And the reason I bring this up is they have not ranked them from 1 to 10 because the final ranking will be determined on a popular vote.

And these are basically acknowledging cities with vibrant food cultures.

And so there is an opportunity for citizens of Charlottesville, if you want to vote and see Charlottesville named the tastiest town in the south, you can go to southernliving.com slash tasty beginning December 23rd.

and I encourage people to vote for that.

We want to mention that First Night Virginia is coming up once again this year, very excited.

And this year, First Night Virginia is partnering with our Celebrate 250 effort.

And we have a couple of representatives, I believe, from our Celebrate 250 committee, Steven Meeks and Drake Vandecast will be here to say a few words about what's happening with First Night Virginia and Celebrate 250.

So if you want to come forward.

Good evening gentlemen.

So first off we wanted to thank the City Council for your continued support and we are

honored to be celebrating our 30th anniversary this year and we are the kickoff event for Celebrate 250 so we just want to make everybody aware we have some new and exciting events that we're going to happen this year we have a 5k so if you want to try and bring in the new year with 5k and raise your fitness levels we'll start off with that we also are excited to have for the first time ever in the pavilion a laser show so this will be open to the public and because we have the laser show we are also

Excited to be able to show the UVA Chick-fil-A ball on a 30 by 30 screen down at the pavilion.

So that will be the first time we've had a live Comcast feed at the pavilion.

So we're excited about some of the first.

And in addition, it's always a family-friendly alcohol-free event, so we have something for everyone.

For those who want to shake a leg, we have dance music.

For those that want to enjoy, we have anything from gospel to bluegrass and a lot more.

Yeah, we're very excited to have had the opportunity to partner with First Night to kick off a year-long celebration of Charlottesville's 250 years of history.

It is the first of over 50 partnerships that we have been working on that will

helped broaden our reach in the community throughout the year.

We have various things going on during first night.

We'll be conducting a scavenger hunt that will start at the Discovery Museum and end at the Historical Society where Celebrate 250 will be unveiling its first of many portable mobile exhibits that will be rotating around the city throughout 2012.

We're going to have a few programs in this council chambers.

And we're also very pleased to be able to support the laser show this year.

And in case you have not seen it, behind you is a listing of all the specific events that Celebrate 250 will be doing on the evening of first night.

Thank you very much for all your support.

Thank you gentlemen.

It's exciting.

I have one.

I just found out at 1.30 this afternoon the White House announced that there were 15 recipients of Promise Neighborhood grants this year around the country.

There were over 200 applications from 45 states, the American Samoa and Puerto Rico, and of the 15 Promise Neighborhood grants that were awarded, Charlottesville received one of them.

It's a half a million dollar planning grant and it needed matching from local funds and organizations and about 25 organizations in the city are participating and providing some of that match and are committed to making this happen.

It's a, well let me just take off my glasses so I can read.

In announcing it,

Melody Barnes, who is the Domestic Policy Advisor to President Obama, said, I commend all communities that are put in education at the center of efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas.

The goal of Promised Neighborhoods is to provide the resources and support young people need to succeed while transforming distressed neighborhoods into communities of opportunity.

The Promise Neighborhoods program aims to address significant challenges faced by students and families living in high poverty communities by providing resources to plan and implement a continuum of services from early learning to college and career.

Plans include a range of services from improving the neighborhood's health, safety and stability to expanding access to learning technology and internet connectivity and boosting family engagement and student learning.

This grant is for a planning year, so the program is not anything set in stone.

The planning year will involve a great deal of community engagement, building community leadership in the design of this program.

So it's going to be an ongoing

implementation after this first year.

So I encourage people to find out more about it.

There will be a press conference with more details on Wednesday at 2.30 p.m. at Children, Youth and Family Services Office at 1000 East High Street.

And there will be a press announcement for those of you in the press.

But it's just something that we've been working on for a couple of years and I just wanted to thank all of the organizations and the residents who participated in making it come this far.

Well, I have a very sad duty tonight to read a couple of proclamations of farewell and of recognition of two counselors who will be leaving the city council.

This is the last city council meeting for Dr. David Brown and Ms. Holly Edwards.

I'm going to, what I'm going to do is read the proclamation for each, for Holly and for David and then if any of my fellow counselors would like to add anything or Mr. Jones for that matter and I know there's at least a couple people in the audience that would like to share some thoughts as well.

But I'll start with David Brown since he's been on council for eight years.

Whereas Americans are served every single day by public servants at the federal, state, county, and city levels, and these citizens perform the work that keeps our nation working, often without adequate recognition.

And whereas public servants take not only jobs, but oaths to be open-minded, fair, and equitable, and to represent all citizens in their locality.

And whereas Dr. David Brown was elected to the Charlottesville City Council in 2002 by the citizens of Charlottesville, and honorably served as mayor of the city.

This is

That's not correct.

The 2002 part was wrong, too, by the way.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry.

We're going to have to get this changed.

I apologize, Dr. Brown.

Dr. David Brown was elected to the Charlottesville Council in 2004 by the citizens of Charlottesville and honorably served as mayor of the city from 2004 to 2008, whereas Dr. Brown has worked tirelessly and without personal gain to see that the good work of the city was done with all opinions and points of view considered.

and whereas he has mentored those who desire to contribute to public service, encouraged citizens to participate and give voice to issues they feel strongly about and supported fellow councilpersons from their start on council to their exit from elected public service and whereas Dr. Brown has personally championed causes and issues such as bicycle and pedestrian safety.

I remember one point in the campaign somebody asked who's going to be our next bicycle counselor and he's known as Mr.

Bicycle Counselor.

The expansion of green space and recreational opportunities for children and families and the availability of affordable housing for lower to middle income families and whereas without public servants like Dr. Brown at every level, continuity would be impossible in a democracy that regularly changes its leaders and elected officials.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, the mayor of the city of Charlottesville, do hereby announce and proclaim to all citizens this 19th day of December 2011 that we formally thank Dr. David Brown for his years of public service.

All citizens are encouraged to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of Dr. Brown and to be emboldened by his service to work to make the city of Charlottesville a great place to live for all of our residents.

Before we present this special plaque to Dr. Brown, I'd like to open it up and I'll start just personally.

I want to thank you, Dr. Brown, David.

We haven't always agreed on every issue, but I've always trusted that you had the best interests of the community at heart and have been a voice of

on issues at times which needed to be done.

And we have disagreed, but he has disagreed without being disagreeable, which is very kind.

I think he has championed many issues besides bicycle.

I think in energy, another issue which comes to my mind, environment and energy.

So I really miss you.

I really miss you, your service.

One of the things that I learned about David Brown when I first came on council was that his first day on council, he also got elected mayor.

And so he was trying to learn to be a councilor and a mayor at the same time.

And having only had to do the former, I can only imagine what that took.

But I think that what it said, first of all, about his leadership is the fact that he was elected mayor at that point was pretty

But I think that what it taught him was the importance of colleagues in helping one figure out what one is doing on council.

And I have found him to be a very generous

fellow counselor with his time and his sort of perspective in helping me navigate the ways of being a counselor.

And it's not like, I'm kind of repeating what other people have said, we don't always agree, but I don't agree with everyone on counsel at any given, or you know what I mean.

I found that my first year on council was the most difficult and I really appreciated having a mentor because it was one thing that I just don't like to be, I never wanted to be surprised in the meeting.

So I always wanted to be real clear about what was going to happen next and how to just make sure that the agenda was what was going to be the plan for the evening.

And I just appreciate the time that you spent with me that first year.

and giving me just the information, the insight and the confidence to be able to do this.

I also just, also in terms of, you know, we didn't always agree on things and I really appreciated how you would help me to craft a way to disagree.

because there were a lot of things that we just weren't going to see eye to eye on, and it was okay.

It was okay.

And I must admit also that I've enjoyed all the times we've been able to

Maurice?

I just wanted to, one, thank David for his commitment and dedication to this city.

Eight years is a long time to serve on city council and you've done it admirably.

I personally wanted to thank you for the support that you've demonstrated to me over the years in several roles.

One is director of communications.

We worked very closely during that time and then as assistant city manager and now as city manager.

I hope that when you're looking back on these eight years, you look back with great pride, because you should.

Well, that was some awfully nice things that were said.

It does make me sound like I disagreed with everyone else a lot on the client.

This whole experience has been one I wouldn't trade for the world.

It is a lot of work.

It takes a lot of time away from your family.

One of the cool parts about my being elected to city council was my older son, the first election he voted in was the election, and I think he voted for me, when I ran for city council.

But I'd like to specifically thank my wife, Jean Hyatt, who's sitting out here today.

you know I'm

It's been a privilege to serve on city council.

I've made a lot of good friends.

I thoroughly enjoyed the people I've worked with.

The city has and continues to attract very high caliber people to city council.

The city has a fabulous staff and there's a reason why much as we struggle on one issue or another issue that we really are such a successful community and so thank you very much.

Okay, next we have our esteemed Vice Mayor.

and again it starts, whereas Americans are served every single day by public servants at the federal, state, county and city levels and these citizens perform the work that keeps their nation working often without adequate recognition and whereas public servants take not only jobs but oaths to be open-minded, fair and equitable and represent all the citizens of their locality and whereas Holly Marie Edwards was elected to the Charlottesville City Council in 2008 by the citizens of Charlottesville and honorably served as the vice mayor of the city from 2010 to the present

and whereas Mrs. Edwards is a community builder, peacemaker, educator and poet who has profoundly influenced the lives of many in our community and whereas she has worked tirelessly to give a voice for those in need and has been an inspiration to the community when it was needed to overcome challenges whether through words or sincere encouragement to her unique and inspiring oratory at public meetings.

and whereas Mrs. Edwards has been a champion for a strong and inclusive education system, a vocal advocate for unhindered access to quality health care and a reduction in the infant mortality rate in the city, a defender of the rights of ex-offenders and their contribution to a strong community, and an effective spokesperson for low wealth residents and the elderly.

and whereas without public servants like Mrs. Edwards at every level, the voices of thousands would not be heard or considered in the public decision making process.

Now therefore I, Dave Norris, the mayor of the city of Charlottesville, do hereby announce and proclaim to all citizens this 19th day of December 2011 a formal thanks to Holly Edwards for her years of public service as a Charlottesville city councilor and vice mayor.

All citizens are encouraged to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of Mrs. Edwards

and to be emboldened by her service to work with her to make the city of Charlottesville a great place to live for all of our residents.

I just want to add to that what an honor it's been to know you as a fellow city councilor and as a friend.

I often describe Holly, Vice Mayor Edwards, as the conscience of city council.

She brings issues to our attention that nobody else here does and she has such a quiet and sincere way of addressing sometimes fairly difficult issues in a way that I think helps people understand how serious these challenges are.

and they're heartfelt for her, they really are.

And so thank you, and I know we'll see you in the future.

I agree with all the conversation with Mr. Mayor, but I want to first start off with, I hope Ken would not object to it.

Well, I just want to tell you that I love your wife.

Did you get that, Graham?

She was a wonderful family, a wonderful person, and she was a great running mate for me when I ran for office first time.

It was really wonderful.

Holly brought tremendous amount of wisdom to this body, a lot of insights, and of course, she was our poet laureate, which I think you're going to miss it.

Somebody has to rise up to their occasion.

I really appreciate it and I hope that you will continue to be involved and our friendship will last forever.

I would actually like to read something that somebody else wrote, which expresses a lot of what I would say.

I may add something to the end, I may not, because I think that it was said very well.

Victoria Denham, who is the president of the Woollen Mills Neighborhood Association, wrote us a note, actually wrote it to Holly and cc'd all of us, and I'd like to read it out loud.

Dear Holly, the day has finally come for your final council meeting.

I'd planned to be there tonight to speak, but just found out that I can't attend.

There really aren't words adequate enough to express to you how very grateful I am for your service to the city.

Because your presence on council has been so profound, and you set the bar so high, it's incredibly difficult to envision a council without you.

You're one of a kind and utterly irreplaceable.

In a nutshell, here's what I'm grateful for.

You're intelligent, quiet, and humble bravery, which is actually quite powerful and ferocious.

Keeping the courage of your convictions on important issues and never wavering.

Your grace under pressure.

Your willingness to be alone, no vote.

Your deep caring, and that has never been in doubt for an instant.

Your perspective on issues is invariably unique, thought-provoking and refreshing.

Your willingness to drop a poetry bomb during a council meeting, which has always been a thrill.

When you tell someone you'll help or support them, you've always followed through.

Always.

Your warmth, sense of humor, and the intense way you've listened to constituents.

The many ways you've openly encouraged and helped inexperienced and voiceless citizens find their voice, and thus their power.

On issues ranging from injustice, the water supply, bad zoning practices, you have been an unapologetic champion for the people.

And last, but certainly not least, your wonderful fashion sense.

You mean so much to so many of us.

Here's hoping you enjoy the extra chunks of time you'll have every week.

Thank your family for sharing you with us over the last few years.

Well, it's true, as Holly said, that especially the first couple of years that Holly was on city council, she and I got together a couple times a month and spent an hour, an hour and a half, and talked about agendas and issues.

But it wasn't so much that she was in some way being mentored by me or learning from me.

It was really we were learning from each other.

I think we've talked a lot on city council about how to bring the community together and how to have people feel like they have a voice on city council who often don't feel like they do have a voice.

And I like to think I brought a little bit of that, having run a soccer program and gotten to know people like Ms. Gilmore.

through that program.

I think Dave Morris certainly brought some of that with his connections in Poucham.

But Holly Edwards has been a nurse in West Haven, has been involved in the entire breadth of our community, and I think her presence on council really has, I think, allowed a lot of people in the city of Charlottesville to realize that they really did have a voice on city council and access to city council, and it wasn't a club they weren't part of.

Vice Mayor Edwards, I've always appreciated your caring and thoughtful approach to each and every issue.

I think what is powerful about you is not only the compassion that you bring to your job, but also the determination that you bring to your job as well.

as evidenced by your very lengthy bucket list that has now become famous here in Charlottesville.

And like Dr. Brown, I hope that when you look at your bucket list, you're proud of what you've been able to accomplish in four years, because you really should be.

We've done a lot together.

This council's done a lot, and this staff is proud to have been associated with you for four years.

So thank you for everything that you've done for the city of Charlottesville.

And I'd also like to present you

with a key to the city of Charlottesville.

And one more thing real quick.

These flowers are presented to you from one of your many admirers, Miss Ida Lewis.

I'd like my daughter Kristin to come forward please.

I appreciate

I appreciate all the kind words, but you have to believe it was never about me.

It was always about serving.

We are now going to move forward to matters by the public and in keeping with this theme I'm going to have Karen Waters speak first because I believe she has something you'd like to say along similar lines.

My name is Karen Waters.

I live at 2305 Glen Court in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia.

And I'm here with Darryl Jones.

And we would like to invite everyone who is here to declare this a happy holiday to please stand.

I've been saying that to her all day.

Happy Holly Day.

I am proud to have the honor to speak on behalf of QCCFAR and the believers and achievers.

To thank you, Holly, for your service on city council as our vice mayor and particularly your commitment to reentry to being a voice for the voiceless and all those wonderful things that Dave said.

But I also want to acknowledge you for being a good mother to two sets of twins, a parish nurse who there are no sets of toenails that you are not willing to take a look at.

And for your

Your constant source of wisdom and your Solomon-like ability to really cut the chase and to negotiate.

You've been a wonderful, warm leader and a healer in so many ways.

So it's my pleasure to present to you a gift

This is a healing hand.

It was part of our logo at QCC and I found out during research that it's actually a universal symbol for healing.

And so we've got one of these for you.

It's handmade in the USA.

And so in honor of your ability to heal, that's for you.

And this is a frame from the believers and achievers for you to keep a memento.

But you also were a leader on counseling.

You reached out a lot to your colleagues.

Thank you, Holly, for when I came to you for certain issues that was going on in the neighborhood.

You just didn't sit there.

You came and investigated, and I appreciate you for that.

And I thank you for getting this ball rolling on the re-entry.

and I remember one time I was so frustrated what was going on with this re-entry and stuff like that and you were one good woman because I've never seen you get mad.

I know you're on the controversy and I was just going crazy and crazy and you said, girl, I believe in you and don't worry about that, all of that other stuff and you're very humble and I appreciate it.

And everybody's talking about we losing a good African American representative but we losing not just an African American for the whole public at all.

The whole race is not just African Americans, it's for everybody in Charlottesville.

And I want to say to Mr. Brown, I know you've been a good

Thank you very much.

Very well said.

Good evening.

I'm Pat Napoleon and I'm a resident of Charlottesville North downtown neighborhood.

During the last council meeting, I expressed disapproval for the city's lack of smart oversight in allowing an illegal encampment within our public park.

Two weeks ago, I highlighted the facts for a failed and dangerous experiment in Lee Park.

Following the last city council session, there is more, more bad press.

The extraordinary statue of Robert E. Lee has been targeted and desecrated in the name of Occupy.

Sadly, there are those in the field of historical preservation who have confirmed paint residue remains even after cleaning.

Bad things happen as a chain reaction when people are allowed to disrespect laws and rights of the public.

Two weeks ago, I suggested that two fine citizens in this community were deserving of an award as they predicted and warned for the dire consequences in the predicament Lee Park.

Tonight, it is my honor to personally sponsor and present an award to Mrs. Carol Thorpe of the Jefferson Area Tea Party and Mr.

Rob Schilling, former city councilor and brilliant radio host of the award-willing Schilling Show.

and Mr. Schilling have demonstrated Jeffersonian ideals of courage, truth, vision and enlightenment in 2011.

Many citizens have noticed and they are grateful.

Rob and Carol, would you kindly join me

and accepting copies of the Constitution of the United States of America, a document that you both respect and revere and also your certificate in remembrance.

Thank you for your ever-present service to our community.

Good evening, I'm Garnet Mellon, 1107 Calhoun Street.

I'm here to request you consider something that's on your consent agenda and to reconsider just passing it this evening.

I live in the Locust Grove Neighborhood Association and my son, a ninth grader at CHS, walks to school.

My daughter will walk to school at CHS next year and there's a whole bunch of kids who walk to CHS.

Some of the proposals for the Meadow Creek

Parkway conditions for public, however it's named, are I think are not in the best safety for pedestrians.

I know that the intention is to make the traffic from the opening of the county section of the Meadow Creek Parkway to make the traffic flow on to do something with it while the city section is not open.

but the problem is if you go and change your, the proposal is among one of the many pieces is that the intersection of Park and Melbourne be changed and that traffic coming from Melbourne away from CHS then turns onto Park uphill and that that

intersection, that corner be shaved back.

There's a sidewalk there.

That's where the kids walk.

And if you start allowing the traffic to flow more quickly and easily around that intersection, it's actually going to make higher capacity and faster traffic, which is not good for the kids walking.

And also, isn't the point to get traffic off of Park?

I mean, if you're going to go through all this to get traffic off of Park,

Why would you create a circumstance where you're changing the intersection indefinitely that will make traffic go on to park more quickly?

It doesn't really make sense.

So please reconsider the conditions of that opening for the Meadow Creek Parkway and consider how it's going to affect pedestrians and the kids walking to CHS.

Thank you, Ms. Miller.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane

The City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle may be one community, but they are two separate governmental jurisdictions.

In the past year especially, the residents and voters who live in the geopolitical entity called the City of Charlottesville have seen this council vote in favor of multi-million dollar projects that clearly favor the county's wants and needs over those of the City of Charlottesville residents.

For example, the loss of East McIntire Park.

Why is this?

Your first and highest legal fiduciary, and yes, even moral responsibility, is to the citizens that elect you.

That is often not apparent in your voting record.

In fact, at times there is no up and down vote, but a generalized agreement on some issue.

This is unfair and unjust to your constituents, the city's citizens.

Smarter and more topic researched minds than I have again and again pointed out when new data has changed the focus and methods of a water supply plan but new data has been ignored.

The Alliance of Neighborhoods had the vision of an integrated organization composed of city and county neighborhoods

Charter members of this organization went to both city and county neighborhoods and were told by both, why should we join?

We have nothing in common with, fill in the blank.

I challenge our three newly elected city councilors to heed these words and act accordingly.

If you are beholden to a political party, not only do you destroy your credibility, but you impugn your very personal integrity.

I'm not going to read the rest of my statement.

I'm going to take the time instead to say thank you for your service to Vice Mayor Edwards and to Councillor Brown.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Members of Council.

I'm David Toscano.

I live at 628 Evergreen Avenue and I'm very pleased to be here tonight.

I tell you, they never had cookies when I was the mayor.

What's going on with that?

I just wanted to offer a few words of thank you.

First of all to you, Mr. Mayor.

of the

to congratulate and wish well to folks who are actually leaving council, Holly and David.

You know, Holly has always amazed me with her warm smile, her great hugs and she's probably the best dressed city councilor that we've had here in a while.

You know, for her to do the job that she's done

with her family as it is with those beautiful children and to do it with such grace is just it's just wonderful to have had you on the council for these years and of course my dear friend David Brown who's been there a little bit longer than Holly and you know he served four years as mayor too and so he had to make that transition I'm sure he's going to be sending you

periodic emails giving you instructions.

But, of course, David has been in the middle of so many contentious issues and is really known for listening very carefully to what people have to say and taking his time and trying to make the best judgment he can to benefit the citizens of Charlottesville.

You're especially going to be missed.

You're both going to be missed.

And I wanted to come down tonight

and offer my congratulations.

And if there's anything I can do for you all, please feel free to call me.

And of course, if you need any assistance, and you guys too, just call me anytime.

Good evening.

I want to thank everyone on council for their dedication and the sacrifice that they make, the time that they put in.

Three weeks ago, I got my times mixed up and showed up here at a housing meeting.

Okay.

So at that meeting, there was some discussion about the need for food vendors at community centers to have insurance coverage.

And I want to state to everyone here tonight that David Norris occupied that meeting

with a statement, a suggestion that perhaps we were overthinking the issue, that maybe people have exchanged food at community centers, at churches, et cetera, since people have gotten together socially.

And when he made that suggestion, the lawyer in the room, I believe Bob Stevens is a lawyer, is that correct?

Well, you know, all it takes is one lawsuit.

And if that everyone fell silent, it was like the monster in the room that no one could argue with.

So I was struck by the flavor, the new flavor for me of the Occupy Movements, which was standing up

to the big talk of the corporations and the old boy networks in our great city, which I'm so grateful to be a part of.

Another concern I have tonight is that the closed-door meeting that occurred regarding the dam and the deal with the county

that perhaps our city's council was swept along with the tide of that monster of huge corporations and the old boy network in some way.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Ms. Curry.

This is about teaching privately tennis in Charlottesville, which I talked about before.

And I sent out an email to all of you.

I assume you all probably got that, and to some of the park and rec people and their board.

And a couple other things came up recently.

Tom Summon is a local tennis pro.

He was the head pro at ACAC for a while.

He does teach some privately in public courts like me.

He told me that about 30 years ago he had the same issue came up when tennis was a real craze around here.

John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors were playing.

Courts around here you couldn't get a court anywhere.

I mean they had monitors on the courts and it was very difficult.

I don't know if you were here then.

Dr. Brown, but I wasn't.

But I was in DC and I knew what it was like then.

It's not like that now.

There's lacrosse and soccer and all these other things going on.

But he said at that point in time they had that issue come up and the decision was that if you taught tennis you had to have a business license.

Now I don't know if that's still in the books or not because it hasn't been brought up.

When I first came here, I was told I should get one, so I got one.

Another tennis pro told me that, and so I got one.

So that's just one idea, but course space is not an issue at this point in time.

That's something we've talked about before, or I talked about.

So the other issue, the business license and the usage fees.

Right now I have a business license.

I pay $35 for it.

If I make less than $50,000 and I pay the $35 fee, if I make more than that, then I pay a percentage, which is pretty normal.

But the recommendation here is for us to pay 15%.

Now, from what I understand, local vendors

City market vendors, people, the vendors in Penn Park that go, every Tuesday they sell food and plants and all kinds of stuff.

They're paying 6%, so why are we going to pay 15?

I mean, that makes no sense to me.

So Dr. Brown, you said some of my court reservations and in my email I stated that the court reservations around here came about because the schools were taking all the courts at Penn Park and that was done so that there could be some courts open even if there's matches and stuff.

And so that's not an issue and it's really not an issue for people teaching private lessons as long as they follow the court procedures and give up the courts if there's people waiting.

So I don't really have too much more than that.

I had a couple recommendations in here.

The first one that I put in here was maybe people that teach in here, they have a business license, liability insurance.

If they were certified pros, they'd already had that because that's part of being certified.

The certified bodies, USPTA and PTR, there's all for that.

That's part of your certification and your yearly fee.

If you follow the rules of the court,

You have to go up to court within an hour.

If that's followed, we don't have an issue because there's nobody complaining about this.

So personally, I don't see a problem.

So I just give them my viewpoint.

I am concerned that both of you council members will be gone.

All right, thank you.

Good evening, Brandon Collins, 536 Meade Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

I have a teenager who's also lived here her entire life.

I'm going to get to the serious stuff first and then the thank you stuff after that.

I have been over the last few months really learning a lot about our housing situation here in Charlottesville and aside from my own personal experience of struggling with being able to afford to live in a home as someone who doesn't make a whole lot of money and who spends more than half of his income.

on rent.

I know it's an overwhelming problem, but I've been really trying to get out this concept that we are in a crisis.

And I think for most of the people who are in the same situation I am, they recognize we're in a crisis.

We've been in crisis for generations.

and we've been in an economic downturn for generations in this city and I really hope this council and the incoming council will acknowledge that we are in a crisis.

The Planning Commission

is looking at the CIP, the Capital Improvement Program and I was really excited to witness an addition to that program whereby they found a way to get some funding into a strategic housing fund.

I think this is a really smart idea that they could get behind and I really hope you take a look at that but you could really help out before that.

CIP comes your way by really pressuring the staff to get the full funding for that.

There was about $625,000 that could be available for that fund and I really hope that council might get involved in that and really push for the highest amount for that strategic housing fund.

Now that said, we still need a ton more money in affordable housing.

in Charlottesville and I know the CIP is coming your way but there is that economic downturn fund that I was really hitting on months and months ago and kind of gave up on because I didn't think it was really possible due to lack of response from the council on this issue but I'd really like to know what is the process

for getting at some of the funds from the Economic Downturn Fund and can we get another million dollars into the housing fund, into the CIP so that when you go into making your budget stuffs you can really make a meaningful approach towards addressing affordable housing here in Charlottesville.

It's part of your mission to get there and you know it's part of everybody's mission to expand affordable housing and it starts with the money and I really hope you'll take that seriously.

I also wanted to get some more information on the Dogwood housing units.

I was hoping to hear more about what the status of that is.

And then finally, you know, a big thank you to Holly Edwards.

Holly, I don't think, I've been meaning to bring this up for a while actually.

The first time we met was at the protest at the Lewis and Clark statue and you came out and brought us some water.

It was a really hot day and you were about to be elected.

when that happened and I think that's a really great example of the kind of personal attention and compassion that you've brought to people.

You know politically you've made a great deal of difference here in Charlottesville and for a lot of people I know

and for me personally and then I think on a human and moral level you've had a great effect on a lot of people and I was thinking about specific instances in council but there's just been too many to really list.

You know, every time I've seen you come down from here and give someone a hug or chase after teenagers and make them get up here and speak is just an amazing thing and we're really going to miss you.

You know, the Section 3 program to me is huge.

The re-entry summit was huge, dialogue on race, and all these smaller acts of compassion and understanding.

You know, how often do you get chills up your spine when somebody's talking about a road or city planning, and that's just amazing to me.

Elizabeth, Libby, is it Ferrer?

Fier?

Good evening, my name is Libby Fier.

I'm a senior at Monticello High School.

With me is Chris Brady.

He's also a senior.

And in order to graduate, we have to do this thing called CAT Project, which is Community Action Project.

And our genre specifically is on civil rights and civil liberties.

and we became focused on the Occupy Charlottesville movement here at Lee Park specifically and have been thoroughly following the movement from the beginning to its end until stuff is still happening on today.

Basically what got us into our research at first was the fact that it was a nationwide issue when it came to Charlottesville and the fact that the city had

made the permit and actually extended it, waived the fee, had done all that.

And at the end of the permit window, if you will, it offered McIntyre Park for the occupiers.

One of the things that caught our focus was the fact that the city's involvement of the fee, the permit, and all that, the whole involvement of the city.

That was one thing.

We noticed through talking to multiple city representatives and actually we went down to Lee Park and talked to some of the people there that there seemed to be a loss of focus on what they had been striving for whereas it started out as sort of a strive for the 99% turned into

seems like there's a bunch of different groups divided between all of them and we became aware of the fact that there is through the permit extension that you all had granted in light of this movement we understand that the city has been planning on making procedural changes to the permit approval system

So we've kind of got a point of concern as we encourage progress from me being on this part, being that if the movement happens to reemerge in the next, say, couple months or even a year from now, the permit procedure will be a more pertinent issue and pressing than it is today.

So, yeah, we just encourage you all to think about that.

And do you have anything else?

No?

Thank you.

Karen, oh, sorry.

Hi, I live at 1116 Little High Street.

I am a resident of the city and it seems to me that beyond all the arguments over the technicalities of dredging versus damming,

It seems to me that the main thing that is happening is that city council is working for the benefit of the small developers in the county and not for the benefit of the city residents.

You would be giving away Ragged Mountain and the water supply of the city of Charlottesville.

You will be taking away the commonwealth, the resources of the people of Charlottesville, the people that elected you and that you were charged to serve.

This is what

This is what has been happening.

The residents have been coming up with new information all the time and you have not taken this into consideration at all.

And when asked for the reasons why you are voting to dam and to build the Meadow Creek Parkway, the only reasons that

you have given for voting the way that you do is, you know, names of people and not any real reasons why the dam or the road would be benefiting the residents in the city.

So I just want to say that and I think that it would be appropriate

I live in 505 Elliot.

I've lived here for three years, came from Puerto Rico.

On December 5th, 2011, Linda Dorek died alone in a hotel room.

She was a beautiful woman whose beauty was used by the fashion industry for their profit.

Later in life, she moved to Charlottesville with her daughter because she had been hurt too severely by Hurricane Andrew in Miami.

When she moved here, the isolation she felt drove her to a downward spiral of alcoholism and physical and mental illness.

It drove her from her own family, an isolation similar to what people around the world experience due to wage labor, debt, violence in the family, police violence, imprisonment, deportations, and overall negligence from the government.

Throughout the 40 days that Charlottesville residents occupied Lee Park, she decided to come meet people because she had just been evicted from her home.

She later admitted beginning to feel a real sense of community, something she couldn't find anywhere else.

She preferred to sleep at Lee Park rather than a shelter because the way shelters are in this town, they end up recreating the same isolation people like Linda seek to break.

I remember that about a week before we were evicted,

She began to work with a man to form a network of help for homeless folks to find jobs.

Not only did she find a way to be helped, but she felt empowered enough to help others at the same time.

Late at night on November 30th, 2011, police evicted Lee Park in order to enforce a curfew that the government couldn't lift to keep this community alive.

They did this in compliance with complaints from people who preferred to have an empty park to walk their dog in, rather than a live community willing to take on all the frustrations, bad habits, aspirations, and beautiful talents that Charles has to offer, whether it meant stress or great relief.

The government ended up recreating the loneliness that had driven Linda to devastation, and which five days later drove her to death.

Her death has been painful to those who've known her and those who just got to meet her, like myself.

Have you made the connections between her death, the eviction, and the alienating society that you govern?

When I finish this statement, are you going to say that you feel very sorry about her death, express your condolences, and then go on with the same routine you always do?

Forty years from now, are you going to write an official apology, like you did with Vinegar Hill, and admit that it was a mistake to evict us, especially considering how long it took to figure out that the Vinegar Hill eviction was a mistake?

Are you going to put a plaque below Robert E. Lee that reads, in the fall of 2011, Charlottesville residents occupied this park to discuss what's wrong about the laws and policies that we get paid to enforce.

We kicked them out.

This is why 40 years later, the Robert E. Lee statue is still here.

Sorry, Charlottesville.

The mayor said that the eviction was the death knell of occupied Charlottesville.

He was partially right.

It tore apart the support network that we build with haste and inexperience but with determination.

This network gave folks like Linda the kind of space to finally feel whole and hopeful.

In that sense, unfortunately, the death knell that he predicted was literal.

But he wasn't entirely right.

Just like people across the US and the world have little option but to continue occupying in the face of repression, we too have little option.

We refuse to wait until it's our turn to die alone in a hotel room, jail cell, hospital bed, street corner, or in our homes owned by the banks.

If we continue to risk arrest, bathe the cold, challenge our privilege and work through barriers, it's because we know this in our hearts, that if we accept the narrative of death, then death will fall upon us, instead of bringing life to all the empty spaces that the economy has left behind.

I dedicate this statement to Linda and all of those who have been abused, incarcerated or killed by the same social system that we stand before today.

I think that many of us here would agree that we in this country and other countries as well have a problem with corruption.

I think the way that it happens mostly in this country is that groups of people with a great deal of money spend their money in order to fool or buy off enough people to get public money for projects which then are designed to make specifically them more money.

That is, in general, I think, a big part of the problem.

I was just looking at this guy, John Perkins, I think's his name.

He's got a website.

He wrote a book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

He worked in Honduras and Ecuador and some other places for some firm, I think, that worked with the IMF.

And he said what they would basically try to do there is they'd go to these countries and they would induce a public body to borrow a huge amount of money

to pay for some project which benefited local elites but basically perhaps even harmed the interest of most ordinary people and so now this public body is in a huge amount of debt and then you just wait for them to default on their debt and then you claim their assets and this is going over all over the world whether the assets are oil, water or public land or just about anything else and people think that that can't happen here

But that is exactly what is in the process of happening here.

If you look carefully at the information we've been given about the water plan and you look closely, you'll see that all the information is always leading in the direction of the dam in terms of the underlying assumptions that the information is built upon.

In short, it is rigged.

The demand study, the cost, the stream flows, safety, every aspect when examined closer looks rigged.

First of all, the demand, just to say two things, I think the demand study says it's going to go up and up and up.

Over the last 10 years, auto water use has actually gone down 22%.

even though population has gone up in 17%.

How can we continue to pretend like we know we're going to need more and more water in 50 years?

Also, we were initially told by the RWSA that dredging would cost $223 million.

Now we're hearing closer to $30 million.

Say someone was going to come to your house and give you an estimate on your roof.

maybe if they were 80% over you might think you know that guy's just kind of a crappy roofer but if they were 800% over you would probably think that they were a dishonest roofer and so now with the call share we're saying oh it's okay we're giving all this stuff away because we're getting a great deal the county's going to pay more for the pipeline

which of course is going to supposedly happen in 25 years and will it ever happen?

Remember the promises, or at least the condition that city council had for the Meadow Creek Parkway of an eastern connector?

Well, we haven't seen one of those yet.

Remember the promise that said, oh, well we're not going to open the county part of the parkway until the whole parkway is built.

Well, apparently that's not the case too.

Apparently we don't even

think that the county is going to keep up with this part of any bargain.

And furthermore, there are laws on the books which prevent exactly council giving away these valuable critical assets without, first of all, a referendum from the people of Charlottesville, and second of all, a supermajority amongst council.

So I will say particularly to Ms. Szakos, who ran

a lot on the issue of transparency.

I hope that you will not try to evade these laws that are meant to protect our citizens from losing control of critical assets.

You said something in the Seaville the other day about you felt like exercising non-power relative to the opening of the parkway.

You do have power, all of you, and I hope that you will use it to protect the citizens of Charlottesville.

Thank you.

Do you want to give it one more speaker?

Good evening.

Thanks for listening to me tonight.

I'm John Hossack from 617 Davis Avenue.

With respect to the Meadow Creek Parkway opening, I'd like to ask what problem will be solving by opening this road?

During commute hours, Park Street is blocked from 250 to Melbourne and beyond.

This is especially true southbound in the evening.

Logically,

In order to minimize the disruption of traffic flow, it would make more sense to not enable turning traffic.

In other words, leave it as a priority Park Street, Rio and do away with the Melbourne turning.

The proposed changes are presented as addressing safety, in particular school bus turning safety at Melbourne and Park Street.

The proposed bus safety change involves widening the junction to increase the turning radius and lengthening the turn lane on Park Street northbound.

If safety alone was a concern, the light timing and the lane placement could be adjusted to perfectly protect turning buses.

However, this section of the plan is primarily by increasing capacity to handle turning traffic between Park Street and Melbourne.

Similarly, the proposed changes at both the south and north end of the parkway are primarily by increasing capacity.

If these changes were temporary and strictly in place only for the duration of the time until the road is completed from Melbourne to 250 there might be a case for some of these improvements.

Unfortunately, the very fact that today we are talking about opening a road despite promises that at this point would never be reached leaves us wanting to conclude that facts on the ground trump promises and memos.

I'd also like to point out that I believe there's a mistake in the fifth clause of your document that involves a could instead of a should.

and also in summary I think that the changes related to the parkway should be an interest of safety and not involved in catering to the capacity of undesired cut through traffic.

If any of these changes are allowed for they absolutely must be viewed as temporary, this time with an understanding contract that lacks the breach conditions which seemingly are being invoked this time around and ideally the Melbourne crossing of the parkway should be a flyover and failing that, I understand that's not likely, it should be a traffic camera enforced no turns junction

And finally, I'd like to thank all of you for all the time you put into this job.

I realize it's a very time-consuming job.

And also for your part in expanding Northeast Park to include us on the field.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

Donna Gray, 104B, Stewart Circle.

I stand here before you today in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, with Movimiento Quinceaime in Spain on the streets where I was born, in solidarity with Occupy Manila on the streets of the birthplace of my forebears.

and foremost with the Women's Caucus and the People of Color within Occupy Charlottesville and the streets of communities of color and other non-dominant groups of my family's adopted home.

For two decades I have been an environmental, education and human rights activist.

I am a mother, I am a teacher in early education, I am the 99% and so is Linda Doig.

She and I from different starting points and by different paths found our way to the community which sprung up in Lee Park in brilliant resistance to the racist eponymous figure celebrated and defended every day in effigy in that park as well as the social and economic inequalities which plague the most vulnerable of this nation, this commonwealth, this city and which finally took their toll on Linda's very life.

In her honor and in direct conflict with many decisions made by this council in relation to the local Occupy movement, which forced Linda back into a life of isolation, I will continue to work on behalf of non-dominant groups.

And today, read the following piece by Angela Anais Juana Antolina Rosa-Aldemira Ninokumel, better known as Anais Nin, the French-Cuban writer of erotica and feminist lecturer from Houseboat.

Down the stairs I ran toward the waterfront, the noises of the city receding as I descended, the leaves retreating to the corner of the steps under the winds of my skirt.

At the bottom of the stairs lay the wrecked mariners of the street current, the tramps who had fallen out of the crowd life, who refused to obey like me.

At some point of the trajectory, they had all fallen out, and here they lay shipwrecked at the foot of the trees, sleeping, drinking.

They had abandoned time, possessions, labor, slavery.

They walked and slept in counter rhythm to the world.

They renounced houses and clothes.

They sat alone but not unique, for they all were born brothers.

Having refused to follow the procession of the streets, they sought the river which lulled them, wine and water.

Every day in front of the river, they reenacted the ritual of abandon.

Against the knots of rebellion, wine and the river, against the cutting iron of loneliness, wine and water washing away everything in a rhythm of blurred silences.

they threw the newspapers into the river and this was their prayer to be carried, lifted, borne down without feeling the hard bone of pain in man lodged in his skeleton but only the pulse of flowing blood no shocks, no violence, no awakening

To the people I say, wait no longer and rely no more on the blessings and permissions of those who sit on high.

Thank you, Ms. Brown.

Good afternoon.

Good evening to the mayor and the rest of the city council.

I want to say thank you.

I want to start with David Brown because I do remember you coming into my neighborhood.

Give my children, my grandson and the other kids in the neighborhood interested in soccer.

And you should take time out to come and sit and talk to me, you know, about the children.

And they remember you for that.

So thanks and good luck with whatever you are going to do with the rest of your life.

And to Holly Edwards, thank you.

Thank you for re-entering number one.

I have my son standing here with me because there were 60 applicants and only 5 of them were picked and one of them was my son.

So I want to thank you for that.

I want to thank you for section 3.

I want to thank you for the clinic and all of the work that you did over there.

I want to thank you for all the time that you took to come out, you know,

when you was working that far and there was things that I didn't understand and you would come and you would sit and you would talk with me.

I want to thank you for, I call it our Ten Commandments, the Bill of Rights.

And I said to you recently, I said for the new city council members, if they don't adopt that, then we know.

how they feel about public housing residents.

I just want to thank you for being such a gracious woman.

You know, you're so humble and, you know, my heart goes out to you.

We're going to miss you, Holly, really.

But, you know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but, fire, we're taking you on in.

Welcome to Fly, Holly, you know, and I know it's going to be a lot of good work we are going to do.

Patel Gilmore, 212 5th Street, apartment 8.

Hey Dave, good to see you.

Like she was saying about my son, you were a force in his life as far as the soccer program, and he never forgot that because even to this day he talks about it.

And I remember the relationship that you and I had, and I appreciate your help, I appreciate your sacrifices and everything that you've done.

And Ms. Holly, my auntie, thank you, just thank you for everything.

I mean, as far

As we've come in this city, I've seen leaps and bounds in the last few years.

It's a beautiful thing.

A lot of us take it for granted, but then you look at it in retrospect and you say, well, if she wasn't there, wouldn't that happen?

I don't think so.

And I appreciate your spirit.

I speak on behalf of a couple of the guys that's in the program.

They thank you.

I'm being a spokesman for them, I guess.

But I didn't know what to present to someone who I see as a...

I mean, I picked you up here, you know.

I know the preacher once told me, he said, when you pick people up there, they tell you you want to knock them down.

But you up there, and I think you're an angel.

I think God sent you there.

You know, I mean seriously, I feel it in my heart.

But I didn't know what to say so I thought of a lot of adjectives that describe you as a person and who you are, you know, your pervasive spirit, you know, you're permeating, you're just so kind.

But these are adjectives that I got and I'm going to get out the way.

You're faithful, resilient, courageous,

Loving, kind, non-judgmental, passionate, warm, understanding, persistent, honest, genuine, understanding.

And most importantly, I talked to the guys about this, it's your character.

You don't meet people with character like you, you know, a lot.

You know, as well as Brown, Mr. Brown.

And I got an acronym for your name and I'm going to keep this forever.

The acronym is Humble for H, Open Minded for O,

Loving for Elle, Loyal for the other Elle, and Youthful

I was once told that the choices we make create the circumstances of our environment and our conditions.

And I made a lot of unwise choices, so did a lot of people.

But it was people like you, people like David Brown, people like Mr. Jones and so forth that were there to pick us back up and to keep us motivated.

And you remind me of a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that says, it is vain that we talk of being men if we do not work of men.

The ultimate measure of a man is where he stands at times a challenge of controversy, not where he stands at times of confidence and convenience.

And I think you embody that principle to the fullest.

I know you're going to go far.

The fruits of your labor, they are everywhere.

They are in the hearts of men, in the hearts of women, in the hearts of children.

And I thank you for everything that you've done.

And I appreciate you.

And I just thank you.

And I thank you on behalf of some of the guys, some of them left.

and it takes a village to raise a child.

My mother told me that.

She said she got that from you.

We love you, we love you.

She's on there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Abigail Turner from the Legal Aid Justice Center on Preston Avenue, and I want to give a tribute from us to Holly Edwards and to David Brown.

The Legal Aid Justice Center, on behalf of our clients and staff, salutes Vice Mayor Holly Edwards for her wise and generous leadership in the Charlottesville City Council.

Her commitment to improve the circumstances of people who are low income, disabled, or have been incarcerated shows us how to combine political savvy and compassion to bring governmental resources to provide lasting improvements for their lives.

She also demonstrated that all people have an important voice in how our government should be run.

Holly's leadership in establishing the Dialogue on Race Initiative in Charlottesville provided area residents an opportunity to look at Charlottesville's sordid racial history.

Ms. Edwards helped more than 300 of us to examine our individual views about race and to chart a course for redressing race discrimination in Charlottesville.

Her staying power in the implementation of the recommendations to improve racial equity will endure even though she is leaving the council.

Her activism in support of increasing the availability of affordable housing in Charlottesville has led to more units of subsidized housing and better conditions for residents of public housing.

We particularly thank her for supporting funding for the Legal Aid Justice Center

and for several of the initiatives that we presented to council.

Thank you Holly for setting a fine example of public service representing all of the people of Charlottesville.

We still have a lot of work to do, I'm quoting you in your campaign, and look forward to working with you on your next efforts in the community.

Thank you.

And this is for David E. Brown.

The Legal Aid Justice Center, on behalf of our clients and staff, salutes Councilmember and former Mayor David E. Brown for his insightful and wise leadership in the Charlottesville City Council.

His leadership to protect low and modest income consumers from the pitfalls of predatory lenders was exemplary.

With insight into how payday lenders victimized consumers, he led Charlottesville in going on record to support curves to these practices by the General Assembly, which after many efforts were finally successful.

His understanding of the challenges of children who are refugees from other countries trying to master the English language in only a year resulted in his leading efforts to bring flexibility in those requirements.

He knows the struggles of refugee families, including the problems of children who are entering school facing a new culture and a new language.

Children in Charlottesville's public housing had opportunities to learn and to play soccer.

because of David's passion for the sport and his teaching and patience as a coach.

We particularly thank David for supporting funding for the Legal Aid Justice Center and for several initiatives we presented to the council.

Thank you David for your long years of public service and leadership representing all of the people of Charlottesville.

We look forward to continuing to work with you in your new roles in our community.

And to Mayor Norris, thank you for your leadership as mayor and particularly thank you for your steadfast support for legal services and particularly for our clients.

My name is Marnie Allen.

I'm here on behalf of the Dialogue on Race Reentry Group.

And we wanted to make a special thanks to Holly for championing the reentry efforts.

We want to thank all of the city councilors for supporting our efforts.

On the eve of the one year anniversary of the city passing the proclamation declaring Charlottesville as a city of second chances that we feel have led to many of the initiatives that city council has supported, we want to announce the printing of the Hillcomers Guide.

Our group worked very hard on this and we're very excited.

We had 3,000 copies printed.

Over half of those have already been distributed through many of the agencies.

in the city and in the county.

We want council to know that we had the support of many people to be able to do this, including a significant amount of help editing, which was quite an undertaking.

We had support of OAR, Charlottesville Social Services, The Haven, Believers and Achievers, which did an amazing thing.

They actually personally called every number that we originally had in the guide to make sure that the agencies that we were putting in here to support folks

would actually they would find a positive encounter when they called the number and we actually did remove some of the original numbers and that was a we want to thank those folks from believers and achievers because that was a really crucial part

in making this guide be successful.

Mike Murphy, Susan Erno from the Adult Learning Center.

All the people who worked on this, I would like you to stand so that you can be recognized by the council and by our community members.

We really appreciate the council's support and we hope that in some of the things that you've already done

some of the initiatives already taken that we can make this a world-class city for everyone in our city not just the 75 percent who have a big voice I think we've heard tonight how Holly's efforts have really increased the voice of our folks who don't often have a voice and we hope that this guide will help our community members feel more welcomed when they come back and feel that

not only council but community members do support giving folks a second chance and we feel that's very important as we move forward so we appreciate everything that council has done to support our group's efforts and we encourage as we have incredible supporters of our what we believe in as they exit that

the remaining council members and the new elected council members that are here present continue to set re-entry as a priority and we really heartfelt thank you for supporting our efforts.

Thank you.

I just want to, how you doing?

I'm Curtis Gilmore.

I just wanted to piggyback off of this, what you call it right here?

Homecomers Guide.

Yeah, the Homecomers Guide.

I'm sorry.

I just want to, wait a minute, I kind of feel uncomfortable.

How you doing there?

And how you doing all the counselors and the manager?

You know, I've got a chance to meet all of y'all at different functions and stuff that I attended.

But I just wanted to say that thanks to Mr. Jim Shea and Brenda Shea

They helped me along with this Homecoming Guide.

And the believers and achievers, actually all of us sat down and we worked with it and we split up our time to make the effort to call different people.

And we was getting them straight on, hey man, this is not working.

That ain't right.

That number ain't right.

And Jim, he did a wonderful job.

He sat down.

We talked over the phone.

And when we have our meetings, the believers and achievers on Thursday,

Thursday's at 530 we got a chance to talk and I just wanted to say that this is really going to help.

and people that's coming home because everybody deserves a second chance.

Some of us might need three chances, but we deserve it.

And we need to sit here, to sit there and help us out.

And I'm hoping that next year, councils, all of y'all, you know, we help people that's in need, great need, because people are getting set up to come out and don't have nowhere to go, don't have a way to get a job, and it's terrible.

and you know it's just so lucky that some of us have family and people like you that can help us.

So I hope that y'all continue to support the believers and achievers and we're looking forward to working with you.

All right, thank you to everybody who spoke tonight.

We're going to now open the meeting up to council member responses to matters by the public.

Actually, I have a question about, I'll start at the back, about this.

And I'll put, if any public is interested, I'll put some copies in the back so that you can see them.

I'm trying to think, I think there's over 20 agencies now, so I will forget some, but social... As people are coming out of jail...

Right, we actually have, I think, two different folks at the jail who have copies of this, so our intention is that everyone who's being released will get a copy.

OAR has copies, social services, both in the county and the city, have copies.

Any agency that remotely serves folks

with re-entry, has a MACA has copies, Mental Health of America has copies.

What are some of the other ones, guys?

So if you can't find one, maybe you're not looking, but if you can't find one, call the city and we'll make sure you get one.

Thanks.

Let's see.

I don't have a whole lot.

I just wanted to address the issue of the Meadow Creek Parkway and the intersection of Park and Melbourne.

There were a couple of comments of concern that making that turn too easy would increase traffic speed, would increase traffic flow, would make it a little

too easy to make that turn and after, theoretically after the parkway is open all the way through that that would continue to encourage people to cut off onto Park Street.

One thing that I just wanted to say about pedestrians who are walking, Garnett are you still here?

There you are, I'm sorry.

I take my glasses off so I can read and then I can't see you.

I need to get better bifocals.

But one of the concerns that I had actually was that the way it is now

buses in order to make the turn if a car is coming the other way either have to pull way out into traffic and block everything or bump over that sidewalk, which is very dangerous for pedestrians.

And so the hope is that by widening or by changing these lanes and moving it over, that that will keep that sidewalk from being encroached on.

So I'm hoping that it'll make it safer for pedestrians.

Yes.

I just wanted to let you know that we have been thinking about pedestrians and one thing that I'm wondering as we look at that is the idea of putting in language saying that we think these changes especially to the lane lines should be revisited after the rest of the Parkway opens because I think we need to look at that point to see if those really are

causing more cut-through traffic to happen that we don't want.

So I think they're very functional during this period when the one part of the Parkway is open, but not for a long term.

I just wanted to say to Ms. Curry, who was talking about our closed-door meetings, it's part of the reason for closed meetings.

There are very few ways that Council can have closed meetings.

and we have meetings before these open meetings often and there are only specific things that we can discuss and some of those include cost share negotiations and that's to keep it from becoming politicized.

We can't make any decisions without doing it in public and I think that we're all very committed to having that conversation in public so the negotiations are happening

behind closed doors.

why we don't have the sort of things that Brandon Collins is talking about in certain third world countries where people can buy things up and cause people to lose all of their power because we do have those open processes and I think I'm certainly committed to that and I think all of us on council are committed to having those in public and make sure that it is as transparent as possible.

So as far as when was, are you still here?

There, hi.

Talking about giving away Ragged Mountain, we're not.

The part of Ragged Mountain that we're looking at inundation in, we're actually being compensated for, for the use of that, and the rest of it will still be for recreation.

In fact, it will be as accessible as it's been.

There'll be a way to go all the way around, which there's not now.

And I think, you know, as a person who has spent a lot of time up there, I used to work at Camp Holiday Trails,

I don't think we're giving that up.

It will certainly change.

I know that there are people who don't like those changes and I understand that and I hear that.

But I think that to say that we're not paying attention to new

information about what we need and about conservation and the amount of water that the city needs.

I think that as you may have seen in the proposed agreement on cost share that we are absolutely committed to conservation, that we are taking

First and foremost, extend my gratitude for all the kind things that were said and really appreciate it.

I just want to make a couple of comments because I can't not say anything about the Occupy movement.

I thought at one point it was just going to be an Occupy moment but it sounds like it will be kept alive by I guess some of the names Donna Gray and Pat Napoleon and Carol Thorpe and Rob Schilling and Elizabeth Libby Fear and Chris Brady

and Brandon Collins as your presence here is a reminder.

And as difficult as it is, I am going to also speak about Linda to honor the moment and to say that

One of my fears has always been that there would be a decision now that when my daughter, if she decides to run for city council, she would have to apologize for the stuff her mother did, not only at home.

but local government also.

So it was always just my hope to do just the best job that I can do.

And so what I can offer you is just what I know and the faith that I have.

And that's in my father's house and many mansions.

and where Linda is, is in a far better place.

She didn't have to ask for affordable housing.

She didn't have to apply for Section 8.

She didn't have to go into public housing because there was a mansion there with her name on it.

And I just hope that as the movement continues and we all stay involved, whether you agree, whether you disagree, whether you're challenged by whatever moment it brings,

Make sure that each moment is an opportunity to make a difference because time is short.

A term will end, a life will end, but what you do in between is what matters.

Judy Curley, I'd like to believe that you just didn't stumble upon the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority meeting.

You were supposed to be there.

And your voice was needed.

So keep that in mind when you look at the other public meetings and the opportunity to get involved.

In fact, the next time you go to one day, the fourth Monday of every month is 7 o'clock in council chambers.

It was a little bit different today because of the holiday.

would continue to be that voice of advocacy.

I was glad that you were there, even if it was by accident, but your presence, you were supposed to be there.

And there were a couple comments about the Meadow Creek Parkway.

I have a letter dated October 4th, 2010, from Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

and just basically her letter says, the prohibition of opening any portion of the parkway was the condition of granting easements to VDOT over city land for the construction of the road.

The purpose of the ordinance was to address safety concerns for pedestrians, bicyclists, and school buses that may result from allowing only the parkway between Wright and Melbourne roads to open.

And the letter kind of describes a city ordinance that was approved June 2, 2008.

Toward the end of the letter she says, can VDOT legally ignore trials for city ordinances?

Is VDOT attempting to influence public opinion on an

inevitably of a parkway between Noble Road and US Route 250 bypass.

Thus far information has been asked of you.

Counselors, I ask you, did you publicly comment upon this tonight in responses to matters by the public?

And from October 4th, 2010 to December 19th, 2012, 2011,

I guess the answer to your question, I guess.

I'm going to move your flowers out of the way, if you don't mind, just so I can see people.

I kind of thought I was going to get off city council and not comment about water again, and some of that's because a lot of times people who come to comment on water, Stratton being an example, I mean they come to every meeting and comment about water, so I don't necessarily feel obliged to reply, but Vanti came tonight and asked some questions, so I thought I would make a few comments.

I think for a lot of us,

The issues about water stem from fact in 2002 we really didn't have enough water as a community and It was very hard on the Urbana River You know and I think a lot of people thought we really needed the ability to store more water Even in the present day, but certainly moving towards the future And I still believe that to be true.

I think one of the ways we protect the bigger part of our environment is

our streams and rivers in addition to having drinking water is to be able to store it so we don't have to take it all out at one time.

And there are new facts, and people sometimes say, well, you're not listening to new facts.

Well, one of the new facts that came out was partially commented upon by Stratton Salitas, which is that a dredging study was done.

The dredging study showed that it would cost to fully dredge about the same amount as it would cost to build a dam.

Well, that's to fully dredge once.

And the idea if you're doing this for water supply, you would have to do this over and over.

And so it's going to cost more than just that one time $30 million figure that he quoted.

But on top of that, if you dredged it completely, you would gain about 15 days worth of water.

So it's not a tremendous amount of water that gets gained by fully dredging the dam.

One of the things that's sad to me on this issue is the fact that we can disagree on this issue without it being somewhat respectful.

you know that in other words it becomes a conspiracy theory it's become we're in pockets of developers that we're part of a pro-growth agenda that we're supporting the county and that somehow that it can't be as simple as some of us think in the city and I think there's a lot of people in the city thinks we actually need more water you know we need to plan to have a water supply that's larger

than the water supply that was created in 1966, that someday we actually need more water as a community, as a large community than that.

So, you know, so you can agree with me or disagree with me, but there are good reasons for wanting to see us to have a larger water supply and to fully expect that the county will pay the lion's share of that new water supply because the county will be using the lion's share of the additional supply.

I don't have a lot of additional comments to offer other than everything that's been said.

Let's see here.

I did want to follow up.

Is Brandon Collins still here?

I did speak with the owner of the Dogwood Properties, and he confirmed that his intention is to maintain those as affordable housing units, meaning he would like the city to keep its money in the project.

So he's going to be coming to, I don't know if he's already talked to staff yet about that.

but he will be coming to staff with that request so that all those units will stay in our affordable housing inventory.

Thank you for raising that issue.

I do support the item you mentioned in terms of directing more funding towards a strategic fund for housing.

We'll have that conversation as the budget proceeds.

I'll take exception to something Ms. Szakos said because having now observed months and months and months of cost-sharing negotiations, I really am not convinced why those needed to be private.

I think most of the conversation that happened may well have benefited from some public transparency.

I do agree there are things that need to be dealt with and closed doors when you're talking about legal matters or personnel matters, things like that.

But I think a lot of the negotiations that have happened have been about

competing public interests and I think a lot of that, maybe not all of it, but a lot of that I think probably would have benefited from some sunshine.

But having said that, I disagree with anybody who implies that there was something nefarious going on with those negotiations.

It was genuine back and forth between competing parties trying to figure out all the finances.

I continue to believe that opening the Meadow Creek Parkway portion is simply a matter of displacing a traffic problem from one part of our community, i.e.

Albemarle County, into the city and it will create issues.

I'm glad that VDOT has agreed to make some improvements but I think at the end of the day it's going to be a net

and I'm concerned about the issues that Ms. Mellon raised and that Mr. Hasek raised and that some of the folks in Mr. Huja's neighborhood have raised about the potential for increased cut-through traffic on Grove and obviously on Melbourne itself.

Let's see.

I really want to commend the believers and achievers group.

I'm sorry they didn't stick around, but this is a group that's really showing what you can do when people come together to build community and support each other and focus on issues of importance to their community and to the broader public.

I wanted to acknowledge them.

if any of them are watching at home well I was going to get to that and I also want to acknowledge the people oh sorry there you go I wanted to also acknowledge the folks in in the community such as Jim and Brenda and Karen and Marni and Ava I mean everybody who's been working with the believers and achievers to support their efforts and of course Holly Edwards for helping to inspire that whole initiative

All right, so we will now move forward to the rest of our agenda and we have appointment to boards and commissions.

Mr. Mayor, following appointments to boards and commissions, Board of Architecture Review, Brian Pollock, Candace Deloach, and Tim Moore.

Should I stop?

I mean, I don't know.

Okay, I mean there's no switch here, so.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

And it passes unanimously.

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

On our consent agenda tonight, we have item A, the minutes of November 21st, December 5th, December 8th.

Item B, appropriation highway safety grant, $422,869, second of two readings.

Item C, appropriation reimbursement for extradition, $6,959.22, second of two readings.

Item D, appropriation reimbursement for voting machines, $7,920.00, second of two readings.

Item E, appropriation reimbursement for CATEC bus loop expenses, $69,798.37, first of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation, reimbursement for central library renovations, $41,645.41, first of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation, reimbursement for facilities assessments, $11,335.62, first of two readings.

Item H, appropriation, amend fiscal year 2012 school's budget, $575,534, first of two readings.

Item I, resolution, amendment to city-managed employment agreement, first of one reading.

Item J, resolution support for Uniting American Families Act, first to one reading.

Item K, an ordinance tax abatement program extension, second of two readings.

Item L, an ordinance Meadow Creek Parkway conditions for opening for public travel, second of two readings.

Item M, ordinance NDS fee schedule changes, second of two readings.

I actually have kind of a question.

Given my two fellow counselors' opposition to item L and intent to vote against it, I am not for consenting because I think that our consent is not necessary or being asked for and I think they'll do it whether we consent or not.

I feel like I'm under some constraint to vote yes on this because I think that the terms that we're asking are important and I'm wondering

I mean

and I brought this up at the last meeting and so I'm a little concerned about the fact that it says Council hereby consents to the opening to be undertaken with these, upon completion of the following improvements.

I am very comfortable with the completion of the following improvements part.

I'm not comfortable with the consent because I think it did violate an agreement that was made between the county and the city.

So I'm wondering if there is any way for me to

And just to be clear, I'm not sure if the agreement was between the city and the county.

I don't think the county was a party to this.

You're right.

It's in the county.

I think the agreement was between us and VDOT, and I think, as I understand it, their agreement

I mean, I'm not sure exactly what they agreed to, but I do think that the language at that time included there being an anticipating a quick connection between the two openings.

I think it's difficult to have one ordinance and be comfortable with part of it but not the other part.

Is there an amendment to the wording that you would feel comfortable proposing?

Mr. Mayor, it sounds like we're de facto taking this off.

All right, we'll take Item L, Ordinance, Meadow Creek Parkway, Conditions for Opening and Public Travel, take that off for further discussion later on in the agenda.

That was a second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please indicate your vote.

The motion carries.

Thank you very much.

We will circle back to that one towards the end of our agenda tonight.

Public hearing and ordinance on conservation easement across city-owned lands along Meadow Creek is before us tonight on the first of two readings.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

Before you this evening is one of the final steps in a multi-year effort to restore a significant portion of Meadow Creek.

In February of last year, Council approved conservation easements for three parcels in the stream restoration corridor including Greenbrier Park and two other parcels in

the northern or upper upstream portion of the restoration corridor.

Tonight, the same action is requested approval of conservation easements on three additional parcels, including two recent land acquisitions in the corridor, one adjacent to the Region 10 offices on Mickey Drive,

and the other adjacent to the Hearthwood Apartments also along Vicki Drive.

The third parcel is a former paper street near where Brandywine Drive crosses over Meadow Creek itself in the Greenbrier neighborhood.

The maps behind you on the wall identify all three parcels within the context of the stream restoration corridor and the smaller maps to your right are color coded with the larger map for a little bit more context as to where they are located within the restoration corridor.

Conservation easements on these properties are a condition of funding for the project from the Virginia Aquatic Resources Trust Fund, which is providing sole funding for the project of almost $4 million.

The restoration project is becoming a reality.

Design construction plans are almost complete and permits are currently being acquired.

Construction is anticipated to begin early next year starting on the upstream end of the stream below hydraulic road and construction will move downstream.

This is a major environmental improvement over

Almost five years in the making.

We'll take another step toward completion with the granting of the permanent easements this evening.

I'd be happy to answer any questions at the conclusion of the public hearing.

Questions for Mr. Daley?

I heard a yea.

We will now open the public hearing and I don't believe we have anybody signed up to speak on this matter.

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

Alright, it's been moved and seconded.

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

This is a very positive project for the city and I think both of you thank the Nature Conservancy.

Mr. Schuyler was very involved and city staff have been very involved, so it's a great project.

Thank you.

Next item, report water supply plan update.

Here he is.

We found him.

Should have told Brian to give me five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Members of Council.

I apologize.

As you know, the City of Charlottesville has been negotiating with the Albemarle County Service Authority since April on a number of issues that are related to the water supply plan and the cost share.

After all of those negotiations, we have come up with a proposal for City Council to consider as a report tonight and at some point in the future.

We're targeting January 3rd as a public hearing and potential vote on the cost share agreement, the 3rd.

The second is a Monday, which is a holiday.

So it's January 3rd.

You would have been here alone on the second.

Or a couple of other folks in the audience.

So tonight what we're doing is we're presenting you with the general concepts for this.

We have our legal folks who are working on the legal documents that are associated with this.

We have a couple of

A couple of things that we'll be considering as part of this.

Of course, the cost share allocation, but then also the property use agreement as well for pieces of property at the Ragon Mountain Reservoir.

I'll start by providing you with some numbers as part of the costs allocation, the cost sharing for the new Ragon Mountain Dam.

The proposal is calling for the Albemarle County Service Authority to pay 85% of the cost of the dam, and the city would pay 15%.

As part of this negotiation we have before you a proposal to have the dam a raise of 42 feet for the dam but a pull level of 30 feet for the dam.

and that would occur up front.

Previously, council had discussed doing it in freight phases, but as part of the negotiations have put forward a proposal that would consider going all the way to 42 up front.

With a trigger, that would allow for an increase of 12 feet in the future.

The cost allocation also calls for an 80% share for the county service authority and a 20% share on the pipeline.

and there's also as part of that discussion what we're calling unofficially a true up so that at some point in the future if the city as part of our allocation of the water would go beyond 6.7 million gallons per day as a 12 month running average that at that point the city would pay back a percentage back to the county service authority.

Right now we are at 5.13 million gallons per day if you include also non-revenue water use that's a part of that.

But we'll be getting at that issue as well because as part of this plan we will also have meters that will be established to identify where the water is truly going and how much of that is being lost.

So that's also a part of this discussion as well.

So we'll have a more accurate account of where all that water is going for both the city and the county service authority.

We've also negotiated a 50-50 split on dredging at the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir and the proposal for the payment of about $765,000 to the city for the value of the increased area at the Ragon Mountain Dam.

and that was based on an appraisal that the city had done on the value of the property there that will be inundated with the new water.

And we've also made a commitment to aggressive water conservation initiatives for the city and the county service authority.

So those are the general concepts.

What's happening right now, as I mentioned before, is that our legal teams are working on the details associated with both the land use agreement but then also the cost share.

And that's taking up a lot of our time and a lot of time of our city attorney over the last week or so.

And that's kind of where we are at this point.

We hope to have a more detailed agreement very soon.

for consideration in advance of a public hearing.

But we also know that there are some issues that still need to be discussed and negotiated and determined before that is ready and before we bring this back to all of you for consideration or all of you for consideration in 2012.

One thing that I want to make sure, as the tweaking of the details is happening and we're coming up with the actual proposal,

We're hoping that that will happen very quickly for a first meeting in January hearing and discussion.

I think that I would certainly hope that if it takes longer than we think it will take, that we would push that back to the second meeting so that we wouldn't be asking people to look at it in two days and turn around.

I agree.

I just had a few questions and if you can't answer all these, if we can get them into the report for the next meeting, but you said this agreement is going to allocate the city 6.71 million gallons a day.

What is our current allocation?

There was a 2003 agreement between the City of the County Service Authority and the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

that allocated the cost of a new bladder to be placed on the dam at South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.

That project was never done, so this particular aspect of it was never really implemented.

But the figures that were used in that agreement

adjusted to take into account more recent information on safe yield and by that I mean I believe during the 2003 negotiations it was assumed that there were 12 million gallons a day available and we believe now that fear is more like 12.8 million gallons a day.

That allocation I believe for the city was 8.32 million gallons per day.

I will add, I guess I'll call it a caveat in terms of those allocations in that they were solely for fixing cost share and there was no consequence for exceeding the respective allocations between the two parties.

There is.

And their allocation starts out at 11.99 million gallons per day.

And the true up, which Mr. Jones mentioned, is applicable to both parties.

No, that does answer.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

And then have you crunched the numbers to, based on the estimates at least that we have now on the cost of the pipeline and the dam, what are we talking about in actual dollars?

both real dollars and then dollars that reflect debt service to the city.

And again, if you don't have the answer at your fingertips, if we can just get that in the report, I think that's an important figure to know.

And then also, what would it cost the city

if it were simply a matter of making sure that we had sufficient water supply for the city for the next 50 years.

Because I think if we're, I think there's general agreement that we shouldn't be paying for

that any additional capacity should be borne by county consumers or by the county rate payers.

But in order to know that figure, we need to know what, at least as an estimate, what would it cost

the city for simply a matter of ensuring supply for city consumers for the next 50 years.

I think that would probably be a good place to start.

Also, there was a question about the

Whether this formula, this allocation agreement would apply retroactively as well.

So we've both incurred a lot of costs to date in planning for our water future.

The cost allocation percentages, the proposal that will be brought to you will not apply retroactively.

I believe there will be an effective date which will either be the date the agreement is agreed to by all parties or a date such as January 1st.

it is cost that in terms of and again the wording of this is I don't know whether it's been finalized or not we certainly circulated drafts but cost incurred after that effective date would be subject to on the dam the 85-15 split and on the pipeline the 80-20 split but not cost incurred prior to that day.

And what's the logic for that?

I guess it seems to me that even if I were to support the plan and the agreement as a whole, it just seems as a matter of fairness to the city ratepayers that the same allocation should apply to the projects in total, not just to expenses incurred from here forward.

So I'd just like to see if that issue can be revisited.

I know we're going to be getting more feedback from the public in the weeks ahead and I'll leave it there for now.

Any other comments or questions?

All right, well thank you very much to Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown, and Ms. Mueller as well.

I know this has been a very arduous process and you've done yeoman's work in getting us to this point, so thank you for that.

Mayor Kelso and gallery director and I want to provide a report to you tonight on the city's diversity plan.

This is actually a follow-up to some extent to an item, I'm sorry, actually I need to put the mic.

I was told earlier to make sure I do and I didn't.

And I was assured that even though there was no light on there that it would actually be working and that I would be heard in the chamber.

Can people hear?

Is everyone here?

Can?

Okay.

All right.

As I said, I'm sorry, I'll start it over.

My name is Galloway Beck, I'm the city's human resources director and my purpose for being here tonight is to provide an update on the city's diversity plan.

Actually, this is to some extent a follow-up to an item that was on the council, well it wasn't on the council agenda, it was a response to

concerns raised with council back in September.

And the issue was about cities hiring practices.

What were they?

Were we making enough of an effort to recruit people of color?

But basically a diversity.

And what I'll share with you tonight is information about that.

You received the report itself.

I have a PowerPoint that I'll provide for you.

There's a lot of information in the report and I'll apologize up front for the amount of data in going through and putting this together.

One of the things that I was told was that the PowerPoint presentation shouldn't be data-laden.

There shouldn't be a lot of words in them and this one may have more words.

So I'll try to be brief.

I'll run through the first part of this very briefly and if there are questions about anything that I have here, please

We'll have an opportunity to stop and come back to it.

The objectives are pretty straightforward.

As I said, it's to basically provide an update on the strategic diversity plan and on the results of the career goals survey.

And the career goals survey actually came out of, in response to, as I said, was a citizen communication, and essentially a council asked us to conduct a survey of city employees to ask them about career goals, ask them about

what their aspirations were especially in terms of becoming managers or supervisors and we added to that as well because in a number of cases there may be a limited number of positions in terms of

becoming a supervisor or manager, but there are lateral promotional opportunities that are there and those are just important.

So we ask that as well.

We did in fact conduct that survey and that's part of what we'll provide you information about.

We're also tied back to a survey that was done in 2010.

Since 1999, we conducted

a biannual survey roughly every two years of all city employees has asked a broad variety of topics so we've been able to track that and actually this ties into the information that's there.

The results of that survey are on the employee internet and we can provide this information there as well.

So we'll cover basically just the background in terms of where we are, where we are in terms of the city's diversity plan, guiding principles,

go over the plan itself very briefly current status and information about the workforce demographics and the applicants and number of people who apply for jobs at the city and the outcomes from that and basically look at how well we're doing in terms of realizing what the vision is and the things that we talk about.

Plans are great but at the end of the day it comes down to what you're doing and the numbers speak for themselves.

Council vision.

When you updated your vision the last time, this particular statement was added.

I'm not going to read through it, but it's there, it's on the wall, and it's shared elsewhere.

This is from the city's strategic plan and this goes back to actually 2005 and so it really represents the fact that for some time the city's had a commitment to diversity also recognizing that like a lot of things it is not something that

Working with it, it can be difficult.

To be honest with you, in terms of having mixed results, one of the things I inherited from Mr. Huja and his tenure when he was employed with the city, it was a packet of information about diversity and the things that the city has been doing.

So all of those things and some of the efforts that were going on in 2005 resulted in this basically diversity policy statement.

And included with that were a set of goals, strategic plan goals that were included.

First one was just to set a standard of zero tolerance to discrimination within the organization.

I mean, that's legal, it goes without saying, but it doesn't hurt to restate it.

Ensure accountability of the city's leadership team in furthering those goals and objectives of the plan.

And as a part of this, in fact, there was a leadership commitment statement that all of the leadership team at that point in time signed, and that's still there.

The third goal was, again, just common sense, but it was to state policies and procedures and practices that enable all employees to do their best work.

A workforce diverse at all levels of the organization.

And one of the things I talk about is when you look at us, we have diversity if you look in terms of just the numbers.

There are definitely areas, especially in terms of management and supervision, where there could be differences.

And we recognize that.

And so that's an ongoing goal for us as it is in a number of organizations.

Once we have a diverse workforce, it's how do you retain it?

And again, that changes and it's going to vary in terms of the types of incentives and so forth that you provide for employees.

And diversity here covers the gamut.

It's not just in terms of race and ethnicity, it's gender, and more and more often it's getting into generational differences, X's and Y's and boomers, and how do you create a workforce, a work environment that's going to be abrasive and inclusive for everybody who's here?

And then the sixth is, and it really kind of relates to this, is to educate managers, supervisors, and employees regarding diversity and inclusive work cultures.

So those are the goals that we have had in place and we continue to pursue.

There are specific strategic objectives associated with those and those are in the report.

In the interest of time, I'm not going to go through each and every one of those.

And what we'll really do is talk about, again, how do we make the vision a reality and understanding that it's a work in progress.

And so we'll cover the workforce demographics, applicants, management statistics, and then the survey results.

If we look at workforce demographics, and this is overall, in terms of Hispanics, actually we're very low in terms of the number of Hispanics that we have.

And when you look at the statistics in terms of Hispanic applicants as a percentage, it's pretty low as well.

But in terms of the number of Hispanic employees, we have 11.

655 who have designated themselves as white or not of Hispanic origin, 234 who are black or African American, American Indian, Alaskan 2, Asian or Pacific Islander 14, and then all others are one.

And remember as well, in some cases these are self-identifiers.

For example, when you look at applicant statistics, we ask the applicant to provide the information, but it's by choice, it's not required.

And so in some cases they provide it, in some cases they do not.

Applicant Statistics, between July 2010 and 2011, we processed 10,126 applications for 102 jobs.

Of that, on the left, you see a breakdown in terms of what the numbers were.

American Indian, 68, Asian, 192, African American, Black, 29, 291, Hispanic, 245.

White, 6452, and 248 again who didn't self-identify.

The breakout in terms of hired during that time period was one person who was American Indian, four Asian, 29 Black, three Hispanic,

There's something wrong with that.

The percentage, there's something wrong with the number in terms of, no that's right, 29 blacks, 28%, 3 Hispanic, 3%, and then 65 white.

So in terms of the numbers versus the applications, they track fairly, pretty much along the lines of the number of Africans that we have.

When you look at demographics of supervisors and managers, and this is where I think we've gotten some attention in terms of have we done enough, is there representation there, and what I'll say about this, and I said this the last time, one of the things in terms of looking at the numbers is just simply on what they are.

It's not intended to be defensive about it, just say this is where we are, there's room that we know that we can perhaps make some improvement, there are things that we can do in terms of doing outreach and trying to attract and retain

qualified people to do these jobs.

And one of the ways we go about doing it is try to have a diverse applicant pool for all of the positions that we hire for.

With some of the executive positions, especially when we've used search firms, one of the requirements is that we have a diverse applicant pool.

We can't set a quota to say we want X number of anything, but we can say we want to see a diverse applicant pool, and then we'll hire the best and most qualified candidate out of that.

So in terms of managers, we have four individuals who have

have identified themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander.

We have 26 who are African American, 159 who are white, and one who's identified themselves as Hispanic.

The career goals survey that I said that we did was a survey that we did online using Survey Monkey.

We emailed it to all employees who had or have email addresses.

We also provided hard copies to departments like Parks and Recreation and Public Works for whom have employees who work for us who don't have email with the opportunity for them to be able to get a hard copy of that completed and send it back to us.

The survey was developed by Human Resources.

We did get input.

Virginia Organizing was the organization that had asked us about it, and we did have questions and suggestions.

We incorporated that in there.

And I think there were 28 questions all together in the survey.

So it went out November 23rd, closed on December 5th, and we got 94 employees who responded.

This is a breakdown in terms of the demographics of those employees who did respond.

In terms of an analysis of the results, one of the things to simply say, one, it supplements the survey that I mentioned earlier, the employee satisfaction survey, which is a much broader survey.

That survey was, in fact, conducted by the Center for Survey Research at the University of Virginia.

CSR didn't help us to design or implement the survey.

We did help them to get

to do some of the tally of the information that came back.

And one of the reasons that we used an outside source to do it the first time was there was a concern about confidentiality, about whether or not if employees responded to the survey, where the results were going to go.

And so we used CSR and in fact one of the things in the contract that we had with them was an agreement that they would not give us information.

We don't get information from

about departments where if somebody responded it would be easy to track back to that particular individual.

So we are concerned about that.

We do want employees to participate.

In that particular survey it went to all 903.

There were multiple follow-ups and we had a response rate of 56%.

So in terms of the career goals survey, what we can say is, one, it represents those who chose to participate and they're not necessarily generalizable to the full population due to the low response.

But at the same time, it provides a good range of opinion and it's a useful resource.

Because for those people who did choose to respond, we understand that it was important to them.

They got it and they, in fact, did take the time to go back and share that information with us.

What can we say?

Of those who are interested in being a supervisor, three major reasons were cited as to why they believe they are not.

One was the lack of opportunities for education, training and mentoring.

And while, I'll come back, I'll share it now as I go through it.

The city actually has done,

In my biased opinion, a great job in terms of providing resources for continuing education.

Some organizations, especially when there are down terms in the economy, will look at cutting training funds and we haven't done that.

And for one, it's just smart not to do it.

If you're not going to increase

Staff levels, one of the things that you do is you invest in the individuals who are still here.

It's also very clear to us that in today's world that a lot of what will attract people of whatever color to come and work for us are opportunities for professional growth and development.

They're not necessarily going to stay here or come to stay 30 years but they may come to stay 5, 6 or 7 and one of the things that they want to be able to do is to continue to develop.

Whether that's

looking at getting certifications.

So we have a tuition assistance program.

Departments have training opportunities that are there and we provide other funding for training.

And we try to make sure that everyone knows about that and perhaps in some cases we need to do better, more communication about that and we'll speak to that at the end.

Formal or informal policies or practices that make it difficult or impossible for them to be selected for advancement even when they apply.

And

That's, I guess, in terms of formal policies, I would say, at least from my perspective, that's not the case.

If there are, I would ask that they be identified and we look at them.

One of the things, for example, even in terms of job descriptions and what we do for its minimum requirements for a job,

In most cases, unless it's required by statute, we do not say, for example, that you have to have a degree.

The job description will say education and training equivalent to.

So we'll recognize that someone can bring a great deal of experience, and if they've got the education and training, that will meet the minimum threshold requirement.

If they're gonna be an attorney, then they're required by law to have it.

If they're gonna work for social services, then they have to have that degree.

But otherwise, that's an unnecessary barrier that we don't put into place.

and the lack of supervisor positions coming open for hire, therefore no opportunity to advance.

That's just a fact.

I mean, we don't have a lot of turnover in positions.

In some cases, for example, especially in public safety, they have mandatory retirement age at 60.

They will come up on a more regular basis.

We've gone through a period of time where, for example, a lot of people were hired in the 70s and they're coming up on 30, 35 years and they're now retiring.

With the economy,

Over the last couple of years, I think we saw somewhat of a downturn in the number of people retiring, but that's changing.

And so there are more slots coming up, and one of the things we recognize is to make sure employees are aware of the slots that will be coming up and what will be needed for them to be prepared when those opportunities occur.

So in terms of what was asked for, additional resources to help employees reach their identified goals, educational training, cross training, and mentoring opportunities, more opportunities for advancement within the organization.

And on the last one, I think part of what becomes important is to look at lateral movement.

And we have, for example, in

and Social Services, a competency development program where employees can get into a basically a development skills development program that will allow them to, after they've met certain requirements, they can move laterally and they get paid for it.

I mean there are pay increases that go for that.

We're working with NDS to do something similar and we've got some other departments that are looking at doing the same thing.

Realizing again that those kinds of opportunities in the absence of being able to just move a ladder and become a supervisor is not the only way to grow.

And frankly, it's not the only way to be a leader or be effective within the organization.

That goes to what do we do, improve communications about advancement.

That was one of the things that was asked for.

Memos, seminars, newsletter.

We've recently

We implemented a human resources newsletter in addition to the employee connection that comes out of communications office and that goes out on a bi-monthly basis.

And we'll be including more information not just about, well about a variety of things that employees need to know about employment with the city.

And as I said that goes out by email but we also make sure that it's available for employees who don't have email addresses.

and the last one is have managers and supervisors talk to staff at performance evaluation staff meetings or town hall meetings.

As a part of the performance evaluations, when you sit down and you go through that, it's simply asked, where do you want to go?

What are your career aspirations?

And look at how, whether or not you're prepared, look at what are the gaps, what the employee's going to do and what the city's going to do and have a development plan that works toward making that happen.

The staff meetings are straightforward and

The town hall meetings are something that we've done in the past and will re-implement again and maybe just a brown bag here or go out, better yet, go out to the departments and attend staff meetings and just talk about what things are available and ask questions.

Be visible.

to ensure more fairness in promotion and decisions and policy.

That's a part of the role and responsibility for human resources.

And if someone has a concern about whether or not a promotional process is fair, they can file a complaint with us.

It does get investigated.

And if they're not satisfied with that, depending upon the nature of the complaint, they can use the internal grievance process, which starts in the department,

goes to the city manager and if they're not satisfied with the city manager's response it goes to the employee personnel appeals panel which consists of three individuals appointed by council that are not city employees and they hear it and they will make a decision about that.

The goal is, however, for that not to happen.

We'll also point out that when someone applies for a job, the process is to use our online application system that goes through the hiring process.

Before that job is approved for hire, it will get reviewed in HR, not only for in terms of pay and salary, but anything else that kind of goes along with it.

So there are built-in safeguards to try to make sure that that's a reality.

and I'll go quickly through these.

This is information just really from the 2010 survey and I wanted to share in terms of the question that these are questions that we've been asking for some time and we've been improving them with the surveys.

In 2010 one of the questions that was asked was overall how satisfied are you with

Are you with diversity and employment opportunities by the city and your department?

And you can see that 69% said very satisfied or very satisfied, 24.3% were neutral, and then 6.6% said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, and that was with 440, and you see the comparable numbers by department.

Overall, how satisfied are you with the level of dignity and worth you feel in your employment?

And this is, again, related in terms of what's important in terms of being here.

A key piece in terms of diversity, I think for all of us, is realizing that it starts with dignity and respect.

How do we treat each other?

And in terms of a work environment, if that's not there, we can provide

We could provide a 20% raise and it still wouldn't be the kind of place that we'd be able to actually retain people in.

The dignity and respect piece is critical.

Overall, how satisfied are you with handling of your employer relations issues?

And the numbers go down here.

It says 50% were satisfied or very satisfied.

31.2% were neutral.

And that could be just simply reflective of the fact that they haven't had an issue.

And then 18.8% said that they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

So again, there's clearly, I think, work to be done.

Promotions are made in my department based on employee's qualification.

43.2% said they agree or disagree, 29.1% were neutral, and then 27.6% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

If I have a complaint in my department, will it be handled fairly?

49.5% strongly agree or agree, 27.9% neutral, 22.7% disagreed or strongly disagree.

What do we do about it?

What are we doing about it brings us really to the work plan that's in place right now and we are providing basic and advanced supervisory training.

To some extent we will do one per

I was going to say semester, but one in the fall and usually one in the spring.

And to some extent on demand, we contract with PVCC to do it.

We've been doing it with them for a number of years.

It's not only open to individuals who are supervisors, so if someone thinks that they want to be a supervisor or if they know that they do, they can enroll for the class, for the basic class.

And most classes we will have a number

of individuals who would do that.

In the last session we added a section on cultural diversity, which really was to educate

supervisors to make sure that they were aware of, to increase their level of cultural competency and make sure that they were aware of the history of Charlottesville and that's something that we'll continue to build on as well.

We're developing, trying to develop additional coaching and communication skills training for supervisors and that gets back to just the communications piece, whether they're doing performance appraisal or just whether they're talking about issues, is making sure those basic kinds of skills are there.

Continued training for managers and supervisors on the hiring process.

This was something that we began as well last year, which is basically going with each department and having a run through on the hiring processes, what they can and cannot do, making sure that they were aware of that.

Provide mediation and other forms of conflict prevention.

conflict prevention and resolution training, and continued training on FMLA, the Family Medical Leave Act, non-discrimination sexual harassment prevention training for all supervisors and managers.

And that training is in process right now as well.

And we'll continue throughout the...

I was going to say...

and I'm not sure why that did that but what it should say is enhance career development resources for employees, make it a part of performance plan, provide supervising necessary skills, identify and communicate positions of incumbents who are eligible to retire

I say for example, we'll share as well, in terms of just the job ads, they're certainly available on the city's website, but we also have them available on the employee internet and I believe we're still providing hard copies to the department so that employees can actually see the jobs when they come up.

Career coaching and counseling, train the supervisor manager personnel for a sonar to instructive mentoring program.

Emerging edX training is something that we've been doing and again it's in some ways just to help facilitate communication, understand the differences and the similarities we have and how we basically interact, better understand each other.

Customer service training is, we've done one module of that and we'll continue to do it.

Communication, I'm not going to run through all these.

These are just the different things that we're either doing or we're looking at doing.

I will point out that in terms of measurement and accountability, we're working through the P3 plan to have basically a scorecard that will include diversity or light measures in that so that the accountability piece can be tracked.

We're going to look at whether or not we can do another survey in 12.

Some of that just kind of comes down to cost and we may do it in-house.

We've done it before.

And again, I apologize, I'm not sure why the overlap.

This was fine when it went through.

But basically, what this says is that we understand that diversity is not optional.

It's only how we would choose to respond to it.

That non-discrimination is not sufficient.

An inclusive work environment can only exist where everyone's treated with dignity and respect.

The plan identifies where we are and how we measure progress.

The data shows that overall the organization is diverse but clearly there's some areas that are more so than others.

And I was sure as well in terms of looking at ourselves that Transit, CAT, has a requirement because they receive federal dollars that periodically we have to do an affirmative action plan.

we don't have to do that for the city.

Did that for them in actually last year and one of the outcomes of that was when we looked at it, the area that was identified as where we were underrepresented or could have better representation was female women in public works in some of the field jobs.

And I talked to Judy Mueller who's the director and to Lauren Hildebrand about going out and in fact doing more promotional outreach

possibly going to the schools and other places and just communicating about the opportunities that are there.

Lauren's an engineer and just generally about the opportunities to do that.

So what we'll continue to do is continue to implement the current plan, learn from the successes and failures of others, listen to our employees, customers and anyone who wants to share, wants Charlottesville to be a community of mutual respect and use that information to revise current initiatives and develop new ones and provide a quarterly update.

And as I said, I keep saying as I've said, but this was the quote that I came across that I think summed it up probably better than I can about what we're about and what we're talking about.

And I will read this.

We are part of the bigger picture.

We all bring a colorful tile to add to the mosaic masterpiece of a better world.

This is a world where we are

the world we're trying to build where the people we serve see their individual views and backgrounds are valued.

We all desire an organization made up of a diverse workforce with the ability to see things through different lenses that might otherwise be missed.

And that's my answer.

Questions?

Make sure we hear your voice in front of us.

Oh, you hear my voice on this.

First of all,

Thank you for the obvious work

likely to show results.

I think the P3 scorecard is something that I've been hoping for and I'm glad to see that track because I think that that's a way that not only can it be tracked when you make a report, but people can track it all the time.

And I think that when we talk about mentoring and working with supervisors about just like real skill development, about how you build

how you help people cross train so they can do one another's job so when something opens up they are qualified for it.

I've seen that happening at the jail in really positive ways and I think that there are ways that we can continue to do that here and improve the way we're doing it.

So I don't doubt that the will is there to do this.

I still have some real concerns.

I guess a lot of this felt tweaky, sort of making small changes and I think that I just want to make sure that we understand that 25% of our workforce is African American in the city and only 13% of our supervisors are African American and that's a really big problem and 71% of our work

Force is white, 83% of our managers are white.

And so we have real inequality in the way that this is manifested in our own workforce.

And I think one of the things that we try to do as a city is to model how things can be.

When we do green infrastructure, we're doing it to show kind of how other businesses can do it in the city.

When we do, you know,

Conservation as a city, we're trying to show how with our low flow toilets and using rainwater harvesting, how residents in the city can do that so we can kind of provide an example of the best that the city can be and hope that the rest of the city can follow that lead.

And this is a place where I feel like we're not leading.

We're trailing.

and I think that all of the things that you talked about are good.

I still feel like I would very much like to have, and I think really the first, when folks came and talked about this in the first place, one of the things that they were asking for was a work session and so we kind of deferred talk about that until we got this report and I think that

Although I know that Virginia Organizing participated in the survey and have been working with us along the way, I still think that a public venue would be a really good way to get new ideas.

And so I would like to ask that we do schedule a work session on this to talk about, you know,

Some of the research that you talked about that I think is important about finding what other cities are doing, what works, what doesn't work, how we can implement more.

Because I don't want us to just be a little bit better.

I want us to be a leader in the community in this.

And I feel like, and I may be wrong in looking, because this is just kind of glancing through and sort of first impressions.

I think some of the things here are going to make big differences, but I feel like we need bigger differences.

So that's kind of my initial reaction.

Thanks.

Just to make a few comments.

I think there is a diversity in our organization, but not at a managerial level as identified by the survey itself.

It is something which has to be done on an ongoing basis.

It is accepted as an attitude in each organization, in each department,

has to be so that you can feel that you are welcome.

And that, many times, is hard to achieve, but when you hold each department accountable in this area also, like you hold them accountable for other things, you hold them accountable for diversity.

Can I address that point?

I think you're entirely right, Mr. Huja, and that's why, as part of the discussions that we have with our department heads for their annual reviews and mid-year reviews, one of the important issues that I talk about is our commitment to diversity, and especially what we can do as leaders in the organization to impress upon the employees that diversity is important to us.

One of the things that I've tried to do and have tried to utilize the city manager's office in the last year and a half since I was first as acting city manager and then as city manager was to attend employee orientation.

So either I or one of the members of our city manager's team will attend orientation.

One of the things that we talk about a lot

for Kelly could attest to this, is the importance of taking advantage of career development opportunities.

And if you feel as though, individual employees, if they feel as though they're not being given those opportunities, that there are avenues that they could take to address that, whether it's human resources or the city manager's office, and that's how committed we are to doing that.

I think the city council and previous city managers have been

committed to providing career development opportunities for our employees.

And that is the way that we're going to see those numbers change and improve.

As Mr. Beck recognized, we are hiring folks of color.

It was proven out in the statistics.

But how can we continue to look for improvement to get folks of color into supervisory and managerial positions?

And I think one way of doing that is stressing from day one the opportunities that are out there for them to be involved.

I want to thank you for all the work that went into this report and presentation tonight and I know there is a commitment on the part of the city manager.

I've spoken with him on this issue and I know there's a commitment on your part as well.

I think you laid out some very reasonable measures in terms of particularly focus on the professional development opportunities that we either make available or could make available to help employees climb the ladder.

Part of the struggle that we have here is that it goes well beyond, and I've said this before, it goes well beyond the reality that we're facing within the little universe of City Hall, but there's a broader

in our community about our ability or inability to grow and attract and retain professionals of color to our workplace and it's across the board.

University of Virginia is struggling with the same issue.

Virginia Organizing doesn't have a particularly diverse management group.

I mean, there's a lot of non-profits in town that are trying to find professionals of color to either serve as employees or as board members.

It's a challenge we all face, and so I think I tend to agree with Ms. Szakos that we need to not just sort of nibble around the edge,

really get more innovative, more ambitious about how, but I would say broaden it beyond just what we can do in City Hall, but what can we do as a community to make Charlottesville a community, as you said, a community of choice for professionals of color.

And we can lead the way.

We should be leading the way.

You will.

All right, the next item on our agenda, we have a report on solid waste update, recycling pilot program.

Mr. Mayor and members of council, as you know, we're always looking to

try to enhance our recycling program.

Last April I told you about a pilot program that we were starting with our contractor.

One of the things that we've heard from citizens all along is I'd really like a cover on my recycling bin.

and I'd like you to make it a little easier for me.

So we looked at what was working in other communities and we were able to work with our contractor to start a pilot program in Greenbrier.

Now the reason we started in Greenbrier is every

The city that we talked to said go to where you already have the highest percentage of recycling because if you can up that and make those people happy, it'll be easier to sell it to the rest of your community.

So we started a very small program in Greenbrier, but we did it at no additional cost.

and we were supposed to run for six months, which it has.

Unfortunately, there was a change in management with our contractor during this time period.

And so while we saw some results, we felt before we went a whole lot bigger with it that we'd like to just expand that a little bit.

So we've made an agreement

with the contractor to expand it to another 137 homes in the community.

Basically what the program does is we provide you with a 96-gallon wheeled covered container.

They're the big trash cans, the ones that you see on the downtown mall.

But we only pick up every other week.

instead of every week.

In the first six months, we saw about a 17% increase in our tonnage in recyclables.

We have had one registered complaint, and I think you all got a copy of that one.

But most of what we're hearing from people is we like it, it's bigger, it can hold two weeks' worth of recyclables, we like that it's covered, that we can leave our paper out there.

We think there will be some challenges if we choose to go citywide with this at a later date and so we'd really just like to, we're going to expand the program, go for another six months and do a little more scientific evaluation of all of the participants as we get to the end of this.

So I'm here to answer any questions.

Just two comments.

I'm glad you're trying a pilot.

I hope it will be successful.

But I have a very personal concern that people should have an option to opt out of it if it does not work for them.

I'm sure we can work with the contractor if you want to continue to use your van.

Actually we were able to, the only cost to us is the containers, the cost of the containers.

The contractor gave us the first 200, they paid for those.

And as we've been able to do through our budget, we've been able to put some more in the warehouse and we have the other 137 there that we're able to do it.

So it's not an additional cost.

We've paid that.

So there is cost.

If we were to do this citywide, the increased volume of recycling?

No.

No.

Got it.

And once the recyclables are collected, they're owned by the contractor.

So I guess all that we would save then is the less amount of tonnage going into the landfill.

and of course composting would be lovely.

We are looking for when an option is approved by the state and something we can be here.

I'm not a part of the pilot.

My concern is that I can speak for myself without everybody else is that when you request more physical strength to drive from where I live

But wouldn't it be easier to pull a wheeled cart than it would be to carry the green bins?

He doesn't carry any coincidence car.

I put it in my car and get it up there.

And I can't get that thing in my car.

It does seem to me not to be feasible

I can't imagine how it would be feasible to ask a vendor to have two different systems.

I would ask them for picking every week.

But that's why they were able to give us the cost of the carts because it cuts down on their costs.

They only have to run their truck through every other week instead of every week.

No, it's the same contractor.

A big advantage is that we no longer have to worry about the recycling being ruined by rain.

And I've had this concern where I've tried to push a little bit to say, can't we teach people not to put their bins out in the rain, but I've yet to see any notice come to my house advising me not to do that.

But the fact is they pick up the papers in the rain and that pretty much I think that means they throw them away because they can't be recycled.

I see people in the pouring rain taking their green things out full of newspaper because no one's including us.

Maybe we've done it in city notes, but no one's really told people not to.

and but I think this is an answer.

From the contractor's standpoint, because the 96 gallon carts are actually, they're put on the back of the truck that has flippers, so the person picking up the recyclables just has to roll it on and push a button and it flips.

So from a worker compensation

Can I just make a point that's a little off topic but I know it's an issue that's important to Vice Mayor Edwards and this is for future discussion for councils as well and that's the issue of our recycling program generally and our involvement with the

Rivanna Solid Waste Authority and the future of that because as we know over the years our involvement has dwindled and I think that's an issue that needs to come back up at some point in the near future.

We had a retreat with the Solid Waste Authority a few months ago and discussed kind of the future and I think we kind of owe it to the Solid Waste Authority and I think Albemarle County is going to have similar conversation as well about the future of their use of Rivanna and

You know, currently there are really two programs that we're supporting and that's the issues with the landfill, the mitigation there, and then of course the McIntyre Recycling Center as well.

And Household Hazardous Waste.

We do continue to support the Household Hazardous Waste Program.

All right.

Are you looking for action from us tonight or just a general thumbs up?

Thank you.

Glad to hear the positive feedback so far.

Next item is a report and resolution approval of Tonsil Park master planning process.

Good evening again.

The matter before you tonight is for council to authorize the city manager and staff to begin the public park master planning process for Tonsler Park.

Per the adopted master planning process, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board recommended at their October 19 meeting to council to begin the master planning process for Tonsler.

Staff proposes to begin the formal process in the spring of 2012.

In the meantime we will be researching previous plans and other property information and cultural and historical resources on the property in order to prepare for the formal public process.

The timeline as proposed will allow our other master planning processes that are currently underway at the east side of McIntire Park and the Meadow Creek Stream Valley, which was about to kick off, to continue through their processes and permit staff to focus on the needed background work preparing for Tonsler.

In your memo you have outlined that you will be hiring firm or team in a contract for development of master plan.

What we have done on the past two plans, and this is what we're doing with McIntyre Park, is taking advantage of an open-ended landscape architecture contract that the city has and involving one of those firms in the process to assist us in development of the design drawings themselves and the images and so forth versus facilitating the process.

We found that

For Azalea Park that worked very, very well.

It's working very well currently with McIntyre Park.

Can you comment on the difference between having someone on contract like that to assist and having someone who has design skills to really think about

creating a design based on criteria.

And I guess what in particular, I'm a little concerned about the process at McIntire Park becoming, and I don't know that it is, but becoming driven by how many people in favor of particular use bother to show up to the meetings as opposed to a broader way of looking at how the space could be used.

Not just facilitate the people who are in the room trying to think of good, contribute ideas to the discussion, but actually have someone who can, in a bigger picture, look at design.

Well, we can certainly do that.

There's a cost associated with bringing someone in to facilitate that process.

One point I think that's important to note is that there's a difference between park master planning and land use decisions

and design.

The master planning process is intended to determine how the land would be used within the park.

It's not intended to do precise design at this stage in the process.

The precise design comes later once you've decided or the community has decided how this portion of the park

will be used and then at that point the design comes along to deal with those things specifically.

I think on our staff we have probably 50 years of park master planning experience between a number of us and understand that the connections between certain things within a park and dealing with your natural constraints

Well, I think if you make a land use decision before you hire a professional designer, I think you basically set the frame already.

I tend to think that the sort of proof is in the pudding and we've got a process now that's producing some really outstanding, I mean there haven't been a lot yet, but we've produced some really outstanding master plans using this process.

Now McIntyre Park is going to be a little trickier because there's much more, there's a lot of competing interests.

God bless whoever is going to try to figure that out, I guess that's us.

But the other plans that have come forward I think where you have the public input and then you bring in the design professionals to actually do the design work.

I have to agree that I think that

These are public parks.

They're owned by the public.

And I think that the more we can bring the public into making those decisions rather than just have a paid expert to say this is what you need, I think it does work.

I think it's a little scary because we can't control quite what people will want.

But I think that's the good part is that we bring voices in that we don't have.

And I also just wanted to note that I think

Does this mean we've sort of come full circle with our parks?

Well the last master plan for Tonscla that I've been able to find dates to 1993.

And it represents effectively what is on the ground at the park today.

There's a couple of things on the plan that weren't constructed or evolved a little differently.

The building footprint is slightly different but not much.

So in some respects, yes we are.

And I think a lot of folks in that neighborhood see that the playground obviously needs replacement and some things are getting a little sort of frayed around the edges and have been for a little while.

But I think that that's partly because it was one of the first to undergo this process, at least in the kind of modern era of the way we're doing it.

And it's definitely time to do it.

Thank you for the work that you're doing.

I am not saying that we should not have citizens participate in planning of parks, but what I am saying is that there is a value to having a professional designer to do park plans because they can bring their expertise as well as ideas along with citizen's ideas.

If there was not the case, we wouldn't be needing these areas at all.

We can just have a popularity contest in the newspaper and decide how we're going to do park.

So, Councilor Huja, are you recommending, because Mr. Daley had mentioned that we would have that design opportunity with professionals as well, are you recommending that we do that earlier in the process and bring them in as part of the discussions with

Because I think it's just like designing a building.

You need architecture from the start, not from the end, or the middle.

So is there, I guess when I'm trying to, is there, is it the will of council that we try to introduce that earlier in the process or is the time in which we're bringing them in appropriate?

I think one thing that I've really seen in our kind of senior staff in the Parks Department is that we have a lot of that expertise on staff.

And I think I agree that at the design stage, at the specific design stage, I want somebody who really knows what they're doing professionally.

But at the conceptual stage and at the kind of functional design stage,

I think citizens are our best experts.

In fact, one question that I didn't ask that I meant to ask is the process for bringing youth engagement into the kind of design of the park.

Last week we had a group of third and fourth graders from Johnson Elementary School who came and talked about community design.

It was wonderful.

They had gone through neighborhoods in their school district and looked at

Things like sidewalks and crosswalks and parks and amenities like convenience stores and that sort of things from the perspective of eight and nine year olds.

And they saw the city differently than a lot of the grown-ups who make design for our city and had some wonderful suggestions and so I would like to see us as much as we can get

No, we have certified arborist, certified horticulturalist, but we do not have a landscape architect with a stamp.

That's correct.

What do the other counselors feel?

I just wanted to make a comment that occurred to me.

while we were discussing other things.

And I meant to tell you some time ago because I guess this isn't a bucket list.

I guess planting seed for the future.

We never said during the health summit that there's not a changing table at the Q center.

So when you talk about the design of

of the rec centers to include mothers with infants that utilize the playground and keep that in mind when you talk about the design and what's needed in the community.

Mr.

Counselor, you're just correct.

It depends completely upon the project.

We spent for this level of services for the McIntyre Park Westside Master Plan, I believe we spent $80,000.

This is a much, it's not as extensive as that effort.

And I would suggest, I think what Mr. Huja is suggesting is a way of utilizing skilled design services early in the process, not necessarily hiring someone to go do a plan, but to try to integrate the two.

And I think it might make sense to give Mr. Daley a chance

with the city manager to kind of craft something for the next council to consider.

I have a number with a budget and so I've got kind of a plan for how design services could occur at an earlier stages.

So there is a resolution before us to get this planning process started and we'll make sure that it reflects the addition of

Thank you Mr. Daly.

Next item, a resolution to allocation of $650,000 for the design of Crescent House Renovations and Levy Avenue Property Development, first to one reading.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council.

This item, if you remember at your last meeting, you approved the memorandum of understanding with the report that was done as a result of the MLA with the housing authority and had an action plan in it.

And one of the items in the action plan was that we immediately start moving on the design of improvements to Crescent Halls and

that we start the process for the Levy lot at the corner of Levy and Avine.

One of the reasons that the plan recommended they be done together is there's an opportunity as we do Crescent Halls to use the Levy site for relocation of the people living in Crescent Halls as that renovation goes forward.

What's before you tonight is

to proceed with the very first step of that process and that is to allocate the funding for the architectural services.

The request is for $650,000 to go with $150,000 that you've already given

CRHA that would be to pay for architectural design services from this point where we are through the production of construction documents and through the actual overseeing of the project once it's designed and once it's started.

We anticipate that Crescent Hall's renovation will take some public process, but it's a pretty straightforward

Project as it's envisioned now with the renovation of that into a first-class facility.

There'll be some complicated elements, how to deal with the HVAC, how to deal with the utilities in particular.

Fixing the elevators once and for all is a major issue.

But then how we deal with that work with the tenants that are living there is going to be a key element.

So we'll have a lot of conversation with the tenants.

The levy property, while we have a general idea of what the master plan recommended happened, I think that the master planning process taught us that the first thing we do when we hire an architectural team working there is that we start with a great deal of community process, working with the neighborhood, working with the residents of

the CRHA properties but working with both groups and so that one's going to be a fairly intense process from a public involvement standpoint as we again get to the development of a concept and construction drawings.

all the way through actually seeing bricks and mortar.

So we're asking tonight that you allocate $650,000 out of the capital contingency account to go with that 150.

We believe that on these two projects that we can

We can do the work for that $800,000.

I know that sounds like a lot of money, but we're talking about $8 to $10 million worth of construction when we get to that point, and so 10% or less of that cost going towards architectural and design services is

Everything that you would have in any construction project.

To get a feel for this, we talked to the people with Virginia Supportive Housing who have

were one of the most recent folks that have dealt with this because the SRO is probably an equivalent size project to what might happen at Levy, just from a scope, scale standpoint.

And their design fees were approximately $350,000 for the turnkey job there.

So we feel like that this will be enough money to do this, will allow us to get started, and it takes a while to get the RFP process

We've already started doing the work, pending your decision, but we'd like to get this out, hit the ground running so that as other steps of the implementation plan come in we're ready to go to work and begin that process.

We have thought about we might break out the public involvement process and have somebody that works for us rather than one of those consultants or both of those design consultants so that we can control that but we're going through the RFP process in developing that.

The idea being that with this $650,000 we are setting ourselves up to start work at Crescent and at Levy with projects there.

resolution would authorize that allocation.

And one of the things, we were asking for it from CIP contingency with the idea that if council wants to, it could be paid back out of the CHF allocation for 2013.

I have two questions.

You mentioned the possibility of breaking out the public engagement part to keep it in house.

If we do that, we would probably engage a consultant to help manage that process.

Just, we've had the internal debate of whether we do that...

But that would be the same pot.

Right.

It would be part of this, but whether we do that ourselves or whether we put it with a design team,

I was wondering the same thing.