City Council Meeting   1/17/2012

Please have a seat.

Please have a seat.

We're going to get started.

Hello.

I got to use the gown for the first time today.

I hope I won't have to use it again.

Please enjoy the evening and let's have a productive meeting.

Welcome to Charlottesville City Council meeting.

It is a quite busy meeting with a number of interesting issues.

I presume you are here to speak on many of them.

We will try to accommodate everybody as much as we can.

We have a few announcements to make.

Roll call.

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Grida?

Here.

Well, I'm going to make half of this announcement.

As I make the first half, I'm going to ask a couple of helpers to come up and make the second half of my announcement.

I am announcing the H.I.C.E., Help Young People Evolve, Boxing and Mentoring Club.

It is dedicated to bringing the community together by teaching boxing and instilling discipline within the youth of Charlottesville.

And they meet every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. at Tonsler Park Recreation Center.

It's free.

All you have to bring if you are a teenager are body, mind and spirit.

Food and beverages are available.

And we're here to talk about the Hype fundraiser.

and basically we need all you guys to come out so we can raise a lot of money and help our group.

I'm sorry.

Since the program, it has helped me a lot.

Mr. West, he's been motivating me.

I've been looking for jobs.

He helped me get my ID, my birth certificate, my social security.

He's been keeping me out of trouble, out the streets.

Just push them.

Can I just take that?

It's a talent show.

It's called Talent of the Stars.

And just so you know that some of the people performing at this thing are in this room tonight.

Mr. Maurice Jones?

Freshwoman Counselor Kathleen Galvin, NBC29 weatherman David Rogers, and Councilwoman Kristin Szakos.

We encourage all of you to come and join the program and support the program.

I would like to announce some events coming up to celebrate Charlottesville's 250th birthday.

The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is going to have a speaker series that's held here in city council chambers at noon on the following days.

Tuesdays, January 24th and 31st, February 7th, 21st and 28th.

They're free and open to the public.

I don't have a list of the series, but I've seen it and they're really amazing.

Free and open to the public, so do look.

I'm sure they're on our website.

Must be.

And all month, again, as part of the celebration, please visit Charlottesville On the Move.

It's at City Space.

It's featuring photos from our area back to 1880, all focused on transportation.

It's very cool.

And stories from yesterday and today along West Main Street.

It was January 29th from 3 to 5 at Seeville Coffee.

I don't need to tell you probably where that is.

Thank you.

Are there other announcements?

If not, I have a pleasure of presenting a award

to pre-entry council, Mike Murphy, is he in the audience?

Are there people with you who are there?

We ask Jim Shay and Brenda Lambert to join me as the audience.

Jim Shay, please come, both of you.

Jim.

Welcome.

Please bring the lady with you.

Climb over the seat.

and you can't have without that.

So let me read you the awards from the Governor of Virginia.

By virtue of the authority vested in me as Governor of Commonwealth of Virginia and on behalf of the great full citizens of Commonwealth of Virginia, I hereby officially recognize the Albemarle Charlottesville Reentry Council for its leadership in furthering successful prisoner and reentry at the local level for its innovation

as one of Virginia's original six re-entry councils for its commitment to strengthening families, communities through effective delivery of re-entry services.

This is a view on Virginia Richmond, so let me present that to you.

While the recognition for the council is nice, I do want to mention that what happens locally is really important and that you all have given a lot of support and a lot of focus to re-entry over the last year and the dollars you put behind the summit have brought some attention.

Jim is a part of a group called Believers and Achievers that's doing great work.

building community for ex-offenders and family members the dialogue on race re-entry team which is also something that Jim's a part of is doing a lot of great work you just accepted their guide to services for ex-offenders and family members in December and I think that you'll find that the re-entry steering committee is really done a good job reforming to involve folks from the community so that it won't only be agency representatives

making decisions in the future about how to bring services to prisoners reentering and their family members.

So thank council very much for the support and we hope to give you a report soon about the money that you put forward for the coming home to work program where six people, all ex-felons have done a wonderful job working for the city's park department.

So thank you.

Thank you and we look forward to your report in future.

Thank you.

Before we go to public comments, I'd like to make one more announcement.

And as we start the public comment, I just want you to note that there are cookies and grapes here and those really are for people to eat when you come up.

It's a little scary to come up for public comment.

We're terribly intimidating up here.

Thank you.

They are good cookies.

So next part of our meeting is Commerce by the Public.

Each speaker will have three minutes.

May I have one of my counters?

and this counter will guide you to stop when this series is done and I will appreciate very much your cooperation and if you have something to say please organize it and present it and we will be happy to hear it.

We have an offering for you of a piece, Lily.

Actually, I'd like everyone who feels like stretching to stand up if you support peace.

And stand up if you would rather have world quality education, healthcare, transportation, housing and energy,

than more aircraft carriers, missiles, bombs and billionaires.

Feel free to stay standing, you're going to do a lot of sitting.

Martin Luther King Jr. stood up and opposed the war in Vietnam for the last three years of his life and he did not believe that by doing so he was failing to do something that goes by the name supporting the troops.

in fact his interest was in the well-being of those men and women when he said quote a true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war this way of settling differences is not just this business of burning human beings with napalm of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically

Deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Let us not hide acceptance of the mass murder of which war consists behind the patriotism of troops and flags.

Howard Zinn spoke the truth when he said, quote, there is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.

Let us not suppose that self-governance does not involve us, that using our money to kill in our name is none of our affair.

If this is not relevant, why are there so many people here, and why did they just stand up?

51 years ago today, President Eisenhower warned of the danger posed by the military industrial complex.

He said, the total influence, economic, political, even spiritual is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government.

Well, let us say this, not in our city.

Our city council opposed attacking Iraq and that stand was part of an effort that has educated the country.

There are more ears prepared to hear warnings of war today.

and the push for war is almost identical.

Iran is not allowing inspections.

The inspections that are not happening have found a weapons program.

Never mind that the Secretary of Defense says it isn't true.

Never mind that the New York Times has already had to apologize several years ahead of schedule.

Never mind that if all the claims were true, there would still be no moral or legal ground for war.

The UN Charter forbids war.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact forbids war.

The Hague Convention of 1899 requires that we take this dispute to arbitration.

We face now the danger of a war with a nation three times the size and many times the armaments of Iraq, a nation that has not attacked another in centuries, a nation which ours

has almost completely surrounded, economically sanctioned, flown drones over, and funded terrorism within its borders, a nation we continue to threaten.

and I are threatening Iran unless we say otherwise.

And our lives begin to end, said Martin Luther King Jr., the day we become silent about things that matter.

Let's not begin to end our lives tonight.

Hello, my name is Kimberly Rolla and I live at 210 Sunset Avenue in Charlottesville.

I'm here tonight on behalf of Virginia Organizing to continue the discussion regarding the disparity in the number of people of color employed by the city and the number that are in supervisory and managerial positions.

We appreciate the efforts made thus far by the city in addressing this issue, including the administering of the Career Goals Survey in November and December of 2011 and the Diversity Work Plan Report presented by Galloway Beck.

However, we are concerned by the low response rate to the recent survey.

In 2010, 56% of your employees completed the employee satisfaction survey, but only 10.3% of employees answered the recent 2011 career goals survey.

Even more concerningly, only 9 of 234 African American city employees responded.

The work plan report itself acknowledges that the 2011 response rate is too low to be, quote, taken as generalizable to the full population.

While the goals and objectives outlined in the diversity work plan report are a great starting point, it is unclear from the report whether the city management agrees with Virginia organizing that there is a serious problem in the disparity between the number of people of color employed by the city and the number of people of color in supervisory positions.

Virginia Organizing would like to know whether city management considers the low survey response rate to be a problem, and if so, how they plan to address this low response rate.

We would also like to know whether City Council plans to follow up on its commitment to organize a work session to discuss this issue and the survey results.

I know folks have already stood, but I would like to ask those in agreement with Virginia Organizing that the lack of city supervisors of color is a serious problem to please stand.

Thomasine Wilson Hi, my name is Thomasine Wilson.

I live at 4080 Cypress Point Drive, and I would like to reiterate the comments of my fellow Virginia organizing member, Kimberly, in thanking the city for its efforts related to improving access to the minority members of our community to city managerial and supervisory positions.

I would also like to highlight the following additional concerns and questions.

Considering the barriers to promotion identified by the survey, namely a lack of opportunity for education, training and mentoring, and formal or informal policies that make advancement difficult or impossible, the strategies laid out under Goal 4 in the Diversity Work Plan are welcome.

However, we feel it necessary that the City provide more concrete information about plans to improve

the performance of workplace training, support systems, and communication.

Please carry the epitome.

The city plan should also provide more specific details regarding how progress will be measured, including when, how often, and whom the progress report will be made, and how the public will be informed.

Are there ways in which the city residents can help the city achieve steady, improved performance?

and respect increasing and supporting racial diversity among city supervisors and managers.

In closing, we are pleased by the recent updated council vision and we strongly believe that if the city makes a serious and substantial effort to implement the diversity work plan, the city of Charlottesville will be more

will make more considerable strides toward demonstrating its commitment to racial and cultural diversity inclusion, racial reconciliation, economic justice, and equity.

I live at 2673 Castle Rock Road, which for all intents and purposes is in Batesville.

What my friend David Swanson said, I reiterate to you, and beyond that, the resolution that is before you tonight, I encourage you to adopt in its original form, which is the form of real strength.

It does not need to be revised.

Plain and simple, do that and you will do us all a big favor and you will speak to our nation and encourage others to do as you have done.

There is a very serious need for that to happen.

We live in a really serious time of crisis and a lot of people want to diminish that.

We've gotten used to this, uncomfortably used to this, but I say to you, no more, no more.

Don't allow it to remain that way.

Adopt the resolution in its original form and go with it.

Thank you.

My name is Tony Russell.

I live at 1404 Grace Street behind Burnley Moran School.

I believe that the resolution on the Council's agenda this evening says exactly what needs to be said on behalf of the people of Charlottesville and in communities all over the country whose pressing needs are going unmet while empire builders squander our lives and resources.

the facts as laid out in the resolution make up a damning indictment of the course our country has been following.

For those of us who watch the propaganda effort launched by our government against its own citizens to drag us into war in Iraq, propaganda which turned out to be lie after lie from the yellow cake story to the nuclear threat to the

chemical and biological weapons, none of which were ever found.

The build up for an unprovoked attack on Iran sounds all too familiar.

It's hard to believe people's memories are so short or that we've learned so little.

The usual argument against such a resolution is that city councils don't make foreign policy.

The usual rebuttal is that

The city and its citizens are being impacted in a major way as our tax money goes for destroying rather than building, killing rather than healing, propagandizing rather than teaching.

But the larger rebuttal, I think, is that our elected representatives at all levels have an obligation to represent the concerns and best interests of the people they were chosen to serve.

I don't know if it is sheer serendipity or intentional, but today, why this happened to be the day it came up, but today's the 51st anniversary of Eisenhower's speech warning of the dangerous growth of a military industrial complex.

At the federal level, government seems to be firmly under the sway of that complex, as all the whereases in the resolution so powerfully demonstrate.

at the local level, you, there's still hope for genuine, responsive, representative democracy.

We ask you, our representatives, to speak these truths plainly and directly.

There comes a point at which truth watered down is no longer truth, but simply impure water.

Speaking on our behalf, we ask you to be clear, truthful and bold.

Philip R. Toney, living at

Is the story name Philip Artoni?

That could be it.

Mr. Mayor, the council, my name is Phil Jones.

I live at 101 Forest Hills Avenue.

These concerns that I have for you this evening, I have presented them to council before and

I haven't got any feedback on them, so I'm just going to give you a few building statements as to what the concerns are.

Half of the school year have gone.

I met with you guys back in maybe September in one of the community council meetings.

And the concerns were the marking of the street crossing here for that 9th Street Southwest, Four Seals Avenue, Prospect and 7th and a half Street.

The signs over there is dilapidated.

They're not eye-catching signs.

Also, I discussed with you guys was the fire hydrant that people park all over on Pine Street, basically Pine Street now because Forest Hill is not as bad.

And all it needed is some paint to eliminate where people can park.

I think the patrolmen have given up on

for giving people tickets because he had to get out of his car, like I said before, and use a tape measure to measure the 15 feet.

So he basically gave up on it.

The day I came by there a couple times a day, you know, like two or three feet.

A fire department truck can get in there because you got your hook off the front of it from the front, so that's no big deal, but still, it's a problem.

It's a loss that'd be abided by.

And that's about it.

The other part

Hydrant is at the 10-hundred block on Forest Hills Avenue, which is straight across from the Park Shelter, the big shelter on Forest Hill.

These are just some bullet statements, I didn't want to take a whole lot of your time, but I figured that over half a year I hadn't had a response back.

So, you know, I'm a taxpayer.

I've been in the city like 50-some years and whatnot, so I appreciate the opportunity you have.

It's a safety factor, not only for the kids,

but for anybody else who walks through there.

And it's more kids across the backside of Buford School than the front side of Cheer Avenue.

And it's a whole lot of traffic passing through there coming off the interstate going up Roville Boulevard to the rest of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Helena Carbon.

I live at 206 Alderman Road and I'm the owner of a new small business called Just World Books.

I'm resident of Charlottesville for I think 15 years at this point.

I'm really proud to be a resident and citizen of this city and it's a wonderful place to live.

We came here nine years ago to pass the resolution warning against the dangers of a war on Iraq.

And all the warnings that those of us voiced at that meeting nine years ago were proven to be completely correct.

On that occasion, as today, people were promising us that there would be a quick and simple war that could, just with the use of so-called surgical strikes

and precision guided missiles solve our problems for us.

It would be a cakewalk and we could walk away making a net profit out of the whole thing because the Iraqis would pay for their own reconstruction.

We know how false those promises were.

I've worked for 38 years now as an expert on Middle East affairs.

I wrote a column in the Christian Science Monitor for 17 of those years on global affairs, including Middle East affairs.

I have traveled to all the countries of the region, including a few years ago back to Iran.

I can tell you that we are being fed a diet of lies by many people in our mainstream media in this country today.

They tell us that there is a nuclear weapons program in Iran that is not proven.

Iran has a nuclear technology program which it is quite entitled to have.

All kinds of scaremongering is put around in order to whip up

our citizenry in favor of a war or a surgical strike or an intervention.

They have all kinds of lying words that they give to these things.

But I'm here to tell you that more important than all the professional credentials that I have and I've published seven books on international affairs, four of them have to do with the Middle East,

Much more important than all these credentials is the experience I've had living in a country that was wracked by civil conflict and war.

I lived for seven years in Lebanon.

For 60 of those years, the country was at war.

When we started to invade Iraq, I had the most terrible forebodings that Iraq would end up such a torn and shattered society like the one that I had known in Lebanon and that came to pass.

but not only has Iraq been torn and shattered but the cost of that war has shattered every single community in this country as well therefore I strongly commend your resolution I think that the resolution should be passed as originally stated spelling out quite clearly that the biggest threat right now is that we will get jackknifed into a war against Iran which would be

A disaster for the people of Iran and for the people of Charlottesville and the rest of our country.

Arab Bishop.

Thank you.

My name is Ira Bashkow.

I live in Greenbrier Heights.

You're not the first.

I'm here with my wife and children, with many neighbors and friends to appreciate that my city council seeks to pass an anti-war resolution to protect the lives of our precious young people and our moral integrity.

One point that distinguishes the stronger original resolution from the diluted revision is acceptance of Iran as a legitimate object of US military action.

The drums of suspicion and demonization are being sounded widely now on Iran, but we should not be quick to fall in with them.

It is often claimed that Iran is embarking on a new path of anti-US aggression.

The specific charge, however, is less dramatic.

They are seeking nuclear capability.

Drilling in deeper, the main source that is cited is a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency pointing to an increase in this capability

According to Seymour Hersh's careful reporting for the New Yorker, there is not a single piece of significant new evidence in this report.

It reflects the replacement of Mohamed ElBaradei, the previous head of the IAEA, by a new appointee who is driven more by the politics of the US-led coalition that had him installed.

So we must not be quick to fall in with the drumbeat of suspicion and demonization against Iran.

As my neighbors and colleagues have pointed out, we have learned, we know how the drumbeat works.

We have heard it echo from Fox News to CNN and back again.

We heard it not so long ago, sounded against Iraq.

We have only just declared the end of that war.

Iran is more than twice as large as Iraq.

It is a country of 80 million people, highly literate, highly sophisticated, has one of the highest internet use rates in the world.

Let us not quickly fall in with the drumbeat of suspicion.

The people of Charlottesville want responsible government.

There is no higher calling of responsible government than to avoid irresponsible wars, to protect the lives of our young people, to protect our resources, let alone to protect the lives and resources of others in foreign lands.

I urge you to pass the strong resolution, the original resolution,

to be a model to the nation for responsible government.

I hope that we in Charlottesville can model wisdom, foresight, responsibility and integrity in not falling in quickly with the drumbeat of suspicion.

Good evening.

Brandon Collins, 536 Meade Avenue.

I've lived in Charlottesville my entire life.

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

And, you know, there's a lot of people out here this evening for peace.

And there's some here that are here for justice.

And my apologies to those who felt that they needed to speak about some other topics.

Some other topics I was going to try to wrap up into why peace is a local issue.

But there are some things that have popped up that I feel I need to address.

But just real quick, I would much rather be talking about putting $650,000 in that CIP for strategic housing fund, making sure that gets in there and moving $1 million from the economic downturn fund into the housing fund.

but tonight what I'm going to talk about it's this peace resolution and you've all heard how I feel that peace is a local issue I think the folks in this room understand that the economic implications and the moral implications of all that I'm very concerned that there will be an attempt to amend this resolution as it's been written and posted on the city and the materials for the agenda on the city website

and I think there's a danger in revising what's already there.

The resolution that's there on the website is very clear, it's very honest, it sends a very strong message to the rest of the world and I would remind you, in a sense, you are setting some foreign policy here.

This will be one of the first, if not the first city in the nation to confront this latest round of warmongering over Iran.

As you do that other cities are going to follow suit and as clear and concise as possible as you can be is really going to go a long way and it will set the bar for the rest of the country.

It's a great resolution what you have posted and I really hope you don't change it.

You know the idea that somehow our military

is supporting freedom or is supporting safety in the world is just preposterous if we look at Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our entanglements in those wars have quite honestly

destroyed our economy but also vastly decreased our civil liberties here at home and have made the world a much more dangerous place.

So any language that attempts to claim that is really not only off topic but actually goes against the spirit of the resolution.

And I'll remind you that resolution was brought to you by residents of this city and there is a real spirit to that resolution and I hope you will follow that

The other issue is about Iran.

The time is now.

This is a critical, critical moment.

There have been other times where we've heard these war drums beating and we've been able to pull back from that and a lot of that is because there are people out here committed to peace, people like you, people like me, people in government, people outside of government.

This is an extremely critical time to confront this issue and you really need to keep Iran in the resolution.

Again, you will be one of the first, if not the first in the nation to make this strong and bold statement and I really hope you'll pass it.

You know, with that, I'm going to leave it at that.

I think you all have enough information to make a good decision.

Peace is a local issue.

Funding for critical programs that we need here at home for housing, for education, for jobs, for building a green economy.

These are the kinds of reasons why we need to end these wars, bring our troops home.

We don't need to start any new wars.

Hello, I'm Brian Weimer.

I live at 704 Belmont and I'm here to talk to you and solicit your support for Project Gateway.

It is the Belmont Bridge design competition.

About a year ago, the public was brought into a process to help redesign the Belmont Bridge, which needs to be replaced allegedly.

And after a year of charrettes and things like that, they came up with a design that the community didn't like and the BAR didn't like.

and instead of the community just saying we don't like that, we decided we're Belmont.

We do things.

So we are creating our own design competition to throw a few more ideas into the mix and actually we got more ideas than we thought we'd get.

There are two prizes.

There's a thousand dollar prize for a bridge design and a new thousand dollar prize for urban design.

There are also public choice on both categories.

Now this whole competition will be displayed now, it used to be at the Bridge, but now at City Space from the 13th of February to the 19th.

It is supported by the BCNA, the Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association, downtown businesses,

and Maurice Cox, former mayor, has done something amazing.

He has gotten UVA into this process.

They have dedicated their entire architecture school.

They are doing a workshop with a genius from Barcelona who does this sort of thing.

They're having 30 teams of 10 students each, their entire faculty.

I'm asking if you guys could pick up the tab.

Otherwise I have to support it or I have to get all the money from these people right here.

It's $2,000.

You guys have allotted a million dollars for the design of this bridge in a design that's already been rejected.

I think two thousand bucks is a drop in the bucket.

I'd solicit all you people to turn out.

I also want, I need a judge from point of view guys.

So you guys figure that out amongst yourselves.

And I've spoken to some of you and I've gotten some great support and great words of hope from you.

So please support it.

I don't know what I have to go through to get 2,000 bucks from you.

We've already got the city space.

And I think we're going to have some amazing, if you want to look it up, Project Gateway.

It's spelled G-A-I-T way because it's about it being pedestrian centric.

Not just a VDOT road that's just going to bring traffic through.

How can we reimagine this space

to bring something new.

It's $14 million in a bridge and actually we have designs coming in from San Francisco and Brooklyn and I think both of those places know something about bridges.

So maybe we can show them something that we know about bridges too.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council and staff.

My name is Morgan Butler, and I'm speaking for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

There sure are some difficult acts to follow tonight, but I'll do my best.

On your consent agenda tonight is a second reading of the proposed amendments to the critical slopes ordinance.

As luck would have it, and as I just learned today, after all the work that has been put into finding a reasonable balance between tightening the definition of critical slope on one hand and on the other hand, creating a more robust waiver review process for the slopes that would still be covered,

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled this past Friday that local governing bodies may not delegate the authority to grant waivers to planning commissions.

As a result, the waiver provisions in both the current ordinance as well as the proposed changes are now legally void and the city must revisit who will grant critical slopes waivers.

We think it makes the most sense under these circumstances to hold off on voting on the changes tonight.

If you vote to approve the changes tonight, we'll only get part of the careful balance that the proposed changes were intended to strike, meaning we'll only get the more limited definition of critical slope.

The changes that would strengthen the waiver review process will not have any legal effect since they still have waivers being granted by the Planning Commission.

Because the amendments were clearly developed as a codependent set of changes, with a loosening of one part of the ordinance being balanced out by a tightening of another part of the ordinance, and since we're now required to revisit one of those parts, we think you should consider waiting to adopt the changes until we figure out the part that we must now revisit.

Fortunately, that doesn't have to mean a long delay.

While the court ruled that planning commissions may not grant waivers, it did lay out a few permissible options, including delegating the authority to the Board of Zoning Appeals instead.

As such, fixing the problem could be fairly straightforward.

And just to be clear, we're not opposed to the more limited definition of critical slope.

I wanted to address tonight again the links between our local choices that we make here and our national choices as to how the United States interacts with the rest of the world as a global citizen.

And I'm all for you all.

making this resolution and keeping it strong and I also hope that you'll take local actions that will encourage us as a nation away from our

addiction to oil.

I think that we are in denial when we say that we are moving towards a more pedestrian oriented pattern of development when at the same time we are doing everything we can or at least some of the members of this council and recent ones to put most of our money into roads and not only most of our money into roads but roads through our central park

and a road that would increase traffic in the city.

We hear about decreasing traffic.

What people mean when they say that is they mean it would decrease traffic temporarily in parts of the county and immediately shift that traffic through the heart of the city.

and that's not only going to affect the city right away but we will never be done with this road if we build it instead we will be hearing oh it's blocked up now two years after we build it let's make it four lanes oh now we've got more traffic on 250 we better widen that too if we want to stop sprawl let's not go through this now

and it's been moved forward very dishonestly in many ways.

The city does not owe this to the county whatsoever.

The city does not owe this to VDOT.

One of the things is the city's conditions for this road have not been met.

One of them was the eastern connector.

Without an eastern connector, again, that's going to be more through traffic.

Another thing is the process is based on a lie.

The central lie, the design of the lie is to get federal money for the interchange without having to adhere to federal environmental and environmental protection laws on the whole project.

And at the same time, they're saying that these are all different independent projects, the county side, McIntyre Road extended and the interchange, they're saying, oh, well, we did our part, now you have to do your part.

Well, that implies that they're not independent projects.

They named the thing the John Warner Parkway, the guy who got the money for the interchange that made this possible and yet the city's official position is we were going to do this with or without the interchange and that is the lie that undercuts this whole process.

So please stand up for the people of Charlottesville and for a healthier way of being in the world.

This concludes the public comment period at this time.

At the end of the meeting there will be another opportunity if you wish to stay around.

Now is the time for Councillors to make their comments on the responses.

I'd be happy to start.

I first of all want to thank you all for coming.

I think we saw a grand demonstration here today of how amazing Charlottesville is.

And especially thank you all who came out for the peace resolution.

And it was well said, well said by all of you.

And thank you.

And I think we have David Swanson to thank.

And if not, I thank whoever it is to really spreading the word about this.

I've been called by people from out of town saying, I hear you're going to pass a peace resolution.

I think that's a very important part.

I wonder if we can, with apologies to the folks here for water, maybe push the peace resolution up before water.

I'm going a little bit on the assumption that it won't take long.

And then just wanted also to tell Mr. Jones that I have total sympathy with your issues and I would like those issues addressed over in the Forest Hills area and I'd like to hear more about it when it's done.

I'll just echo everything that Ms. Smith just said.

I'm looking forward to talking about the peace resolution further and I agree with comments about Mr. Jones.

Thank you for coming forward.

Ditto.

I just want to make sure that we have the locations of the problems that Mr. Jones mentioned.

It's Buford Crossing at Forest Hills Avenue, Prospect at Seven and a Half, and then the fire hydrants at Pine Street and 1000 Forest Hills Avenue.

Okay, great.

I would echo the need for urgency, I think, because I thought when that came before us before that that was just sort of a matter of, oh, now we know we'll do something, so I think we need to follow up on that.

Thanks.

I just will discuss it as a council later, but I want to thank all the people who came here to

reiterate the contention that peace is a local issue, that military funding is funding that's not being spent locally, so I'll just leave it at that for the moment.

I don't know a whole lot about the Project Gateway project.

I got the emails and it looks very cool, so we'll discuss that and maybe put that on an agenda for a future meeting.

and I also would like to ask, I saw Mr. Tolbert come in.

Thank you.

Mr. Butler is correct in what he told you.

The Supreme Court on Friday actually issued a decision regarding the Albemarle County ordinance that invalidated the part of it apparently that where Planning Commissions can grant waivers.

We are studying that and the issue, we knew this was out there and knew that this might be happening, but we'd like to ask as I've talked to you for you to go ahead and adopt the ordinance on second reading tonight.

While we know that the waiver portion is probably invalid, the other things in the ordinance we think make it more easy to deal with during the transition period because of the more refined definition, the map that's now going to be used to show where critical slopes are.

Because the bottom line is, without a waiver provision, if somebody applies and they have critical slopes on their property, then

They're just dead in the water.

And we don't want to, you know, if they are legitimate slopes that would pass muster under the new ordinance, that's great.

We'll get that worked out so they can go forward.

But this will give us more ability based on the new definition to address those slopes that are most important and most critical while letting the others go, which was the aim that the Planning Commission started with several months ago.

So we feel like that for you to pass it tonight,

So we would have the same problem even with the current ordinance?

That's correct.

I would certainly encourage us to deal with that quickly.

And I just have one more thing.

The folks who came about the survey and the supervisor positions and our lack of diversity at upper levels of management in the city, thank you for coming.

I think that we did have a discussion about it, it's sort of gone back.

When we first talked about it, I was under the impression that we had asked for a work session and then it sort of got morphed into a couple of other things and we've never actually held that work session.

I guess

I would like to echo Ms. Szakos' comment about the information that was brought to us about the diversity work plan report.

I'm very, very interested and very concerned, and I am very appreciative of the really concrete feedback that was given.

That's exactly the kind of thing that we need to hear in order to make sure that we're not just speaking platitudes, but we're really implementing it.

So thank you.

I would love a work session on that.

The other thing is the Gateway Project.

I met with Maurice Cox last week.

I'm very excited about it.

I've also met with Nancy Takahashi at the architecture school and we're beginning to talk in very detailed terms of how we can coordinate.

I met with Mr. Jones about how can we create

A team from our city department to meet with the architecture school so that we can actually make sure we define the project

for the urban design so that the design competition and the school-wide charrette at the architecture school can really feed into each other.

And hopefully, we might even be able to go after a grant to then continue with a very, very, very serious urban design public engagement process at that critical gateway to Belmont and then to downtown.

So it's really exciting.

And then concerning the peace resolution,

I was at Boston University when Howard Zinn was teaching.

I went to the Hedge School and sat at his feet like many other people.

Francis Fox Piven was one of my teachers.

I understand these dynamics extremely well.

I've also had a nephew fight in Iraq and I've had parents both in World War II.

I don't take any of this lightly.

Believe me, the reason why it is on the table for serious discussion is because it's a very serious matter.

So I really appreciate everyone's fervent, fervent passion about this issue.

And it is matched by every single one of us here.

So that if there is a difference of opinion, of a difference of orientation, that is something that is part of the beauty of our process.

That we discuss it and then hopefully we become better for it.

I'd like to make two comments.

First of all, I'd like to ask the staff that at the next meeting we have some response on the questions Mr. Jones has brought so we can see what we can do in that area.

Second, as all the speakers have said about the peace resolution, I think each one of us

supports in some form that peace resolution and if it is an agenda, further down the agenda but there are so many people here who are waiting here and they'll have to wait for a long time and if council will wish we can spend 15 minutes talking about that if we can come to a resolution fine if not we'll wait till next meeting next after the agenda is so let's take about 15 minutes to talk about it and let me

Or not?

We're just deciding that we'll move that peace resolution after consent agenda.

Who would like to make a motion for consent agenda?

I am a little concerned about the critical slopes ordinance having just come so late in the game.

I mean, it's when we walked into the room earlier that we found out about this change.

And Mr. Tolbert and I, no disrespect, but I just wonder if there's really any downside to waiting a couple weeks until this kind of clarifies

I think the downside is we've got several development projects that are going through the process that will be pretty much stopped dead in the water.

One of which

may kill the project entirely because of the deadlines that they have on the backside.

And so, again, under the new ordinance, they would not be impacted.

And the Planning Commission has looked, you know, some of the Planning Commission have looked at it and agreed that that's a site that they're comfortable with.

If it's, again, if it's a site that would be impacted by the current ordinance, they're dead in the water until we get it fixed anyway.

Are there any questions or comments on that?

All those in favor of these appointments, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, no?

Okay.

Let's go to consent agenda.

And we are going to proceed with the consent agenda.

Item A, minutes of January 3rd and January 5th.

Item B, in appropriation, Azalea Park Improvements Grant, $100,000, second of two readings.

Item C, in appropriation, Community Attention Youth Intern Program, $10,000, second of two readings.

Item D, in appropriation, Virginia Fire Department Programs Grant, $99,796, second of two readings.

Item E, an appropriation for West Haven Clinic funding, $7,000, second of two readings.

Item F, an appropriation for reimbursement for traffic signal improvements, $19,454, second of two readings.

Item G, an appropriation for Multiforce Systems Corporation reimbursement, $13,000, first of two readings.

Item H, Appropriation for FY 2012 Friendship Court Sponsorship Agreement, third quarter, $22,130.50, first of two readings.

Do the members of the Council want to remove any items from the consent agenda?

Any questions?

Which one is this one?

This one?

Oh, no, no.

We can't go yet.

That's good.

You got it.

Thank you.

I've got two of them.

Well, Ms. Smith has two sets of buttons.

I'm sure she would like it to.

I'm sure she would like them tonight.

Okay.

With the agreement of the council, I will write a four-piece resolution for discussion for 15 minutes.

And if you can come to some agreement, fine.

If not, we'll wait till later on.

So let me get the process started.

There was a resolution which was presented by Citizens for Peace resolution last time and it had many interesting points.

I think most of us woke up at last meeting saying that we support the general idea of peace resolution and I think that is still true.

But since then there were a few changes made.

One of the changes related to your own, which I think Mr. Norris suggested, which was that part of the original motion we were talking about.

And then Ms. Galvin also suggested some changes to the resolution.

Sure.

Again, the first I'd like to say that I support the sentiments of the original proposal on proposed resolution.

However, I feel that

that whatever document we sign off on really does need to demonstrate that we show support and appreciation for the troops that have been involved with these wars and that we also respect the office of the president.

So my changes

were, I thought, strengthening the document, not weakening them.

And what I had written was that whereas countless American men and women who have served or continue to serve in the United States Armed Forces do so in order to protect the United States and the rights we all share as Americans at the risk of life and land, and whereas the Office of the President of the United States is charged by the Constitution to act as the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces,

armed forces in the military in the interest of maintaining our national security, and whereas the U.S. Congress is charged by the Constitution to declare wars and fund military operations in the interest of maintaining our national security, I felt those were clearly identifying roles, just as what was requested in the very beginning, that we be very clear, that we be very, very clear and strong about what we mean.

Second, I felt uncomfortable using numerical citations when no original sources were indicated.

So I added language like it has been estimated.

I did not know where the 80 percent of that the U.S. military budget could be cut by 80 percent and remain the largest in the world.

I don't know where that number came from.

So as a responsible official, I felt I needed to qualify and say it's estimated.

Another example is the people of the United States in numerous opinion polls favor redirecting spending.

I did not know that that was all American people 100 percent, so I said many Americans.

That is what I meant by changing that language to be more in keeping with what we actually know.

Again, to be very clear.

Third, in my view, the original resolution is too specific about military tactics and geopolitics, namely listing only two types of wars and identifying one country, Iran.

I changed it to say, be it further resolved that the City Council calls on the U.S. Congress and the President to work together because that is their constitutional responsibility to hasten the end of current

Wars, promote diplomacy and refrain from entering new military ventures, and reduce base military spending as practical without compromising the safety of our troops.

Again, in my view, I was strengthening the document, not just simply limiting it.

And also, by being so prescriptive, the original resolution seemed to presume that our local government really did have access to international intelligence and the authority to make such nuanced and detailed decisions about national defense.

We don't have that.

Furthermore, by directing Congress to end certain wars and not start certain other wars without any mention of the President, the original resolution confers executive powers at the national level upon a local city council.

We don't even have executive powers at the local level.

So I was trying to make this really clear.

That was my goal.

And I was also trying to make sure that we were showing due respect to the individuals that have given their lives and limbs for what they believed was right.

And the last thing I'd like to read is that the first, now therefore be resolved, I said that the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia supports our men and women in the armed forces and respects the Office of the President

and its complementary relationship with the U.S. Congress to maintain national security even as it calls on the President to continue to work with the U.S. Congress to redirect military spending to domestic priorities.

I am saying what everyone else is saying.

So I wanted it to be clear what my clarifications were.

I felt it was making it stronger.

I felt it was making it much more of a broadly supported document because of the people that have given their lives and limbs for what they believed was right.

and I don't think that we should narrow the document so far as to name Iran when it wasn't even in the original version that we saw and that we also don't just narrowly define it to ground and drone wars.

I thought the original resolution as worded was, as described earlier, a very clear statement.

I thought it was backed by supporting data.

It may not have been cited in the resolution, but there's studies and reports that back the claims that were made in the document.

This city and this city council on numerous, numerous occasions since I've been on the city council and I know in years prior has taken the opportunity to honor members of our community and members of our and citizens of our country who have served our nation in uniform and I think that's important.

This resolution

does nothing to demean the service or degrade the service of our men and women in uniform.

I think the original wording was strong and clear.

I think it's a good amendment to add

calling on Congress and the President, but I'm certainly amenable to that.

I think it's critically important that we specifically name Iran because that is the conflict which we are being now.

That's where the scaremongering is happening now.

That is where the warmongering is happening now.

And I think for us not to name it is, I think,

would be shirking our responsibility, frankly.

And I think as other potential conflicts arise in the future, we can take the opportunity to speak out on those.

But I think that was a good amendment.

My only other, actually this has nothing to do with anything Miss Galvin just mentioned, but I would like to offer a friendly amendment to the original resolution which talks about ways in which the savings from scaling back our military adventurism abroad, how those savings can be redirected, there's a lot of really good things in there, but I do think it's important that we also point out that reducing the national debt

is also another benefit from scaling back our bloated military budget because these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the enormous increase in the Defense Department budget have gone a long way towards fueling the tremendous amount of debt that we've taken on in the last decade and so perhaps a simple

I'd be happy to.

First of all, I'd like to thank Ms. Galvin for being so thoughtful about this resolution and I think she really demonstrated her talent for detail and really in-depth thinking and I think that's admirable.

I mean, that said, I don't actually think it's necessary and I would like to honor those who put a lot of time into this resolution.

I think it stands

It's fine the way it is and the President's fine.

I actually agree that I would be good to include Iran, but the original also I think is very strong and just sort of just doesn't need to be tweaked.

I'll say we have three votes for Iran.

Yeah, I've pondered this a lot in the last day or two.

I am very supportive of this resolution.

I've been working on issues of war and peace since I wrote my first protest song when I was seven.

I don't have any objection to saying that we support our troops.

And I don't have any problem with reducing the national debt with the money.

I don't really see any reason to change it at this point, given where we are.

I guess the most compelling change that I heard was the president in Congress, and yet it is Congress that has to declare wars.

So it maybe is OK the way it is.

I was ready to come in here and do it exactly as it is.

I guess I wouldn't fight it if there was a compelling group of people who really wanted to make a particular change.

I can make a few comments.

Over the last few weeks, a lot of people have talked about peace.

And it is a very important concern for every one of us.

Peace within us, peace within our community, peace internationally.

So it is something, everybody's business.

It's not just only the federal government's business.

So that's why when I last spoke, I thought it was a good resolution and I could live with the original resolution without any amendments.

and that's why I spoke in favor of it last time.

But I think changes suggested by Kathy make it a stronger resolution and I think it will help clarify it is our resolution, it is that resolution from the general public resolution of the city council.

So we ought to make changes.

I also think that the idea of debt

The reduction also is a worthy suggestion to include.

I do have some concerns about highlighting just Iran alone and not other countries.

There may be – I would say, what's Iran?

In my mind, it would be North Korea or some other places.

But more importantly, I think to

Second guest, the President and the Congress about a war which does not exist right now, it seems a bit far-reaching.

Is there further discussion on the motion?

The principles, that's why I abstained.

I want an abstention.

I abstained.

There's a middle one here.

There's no abstention.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Would the record show abstain?

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the citizens for bringing this idea to us.

I hope you'll not only be happy the resolution is passed, but also that you'll practice the idea of peace on an ongoing basis.

Okay, moving on to item number two.

Public hearing over ordinance, partial vacation of a plant on Davis Field temporary turnaround.

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, as you're aware, last month the city purchased the Davis Field property which is off Davis Avenue

The matter that comes before you, if you have been out to Davis Field, you'll know that there is a small stub of a street that leads down to the field and provides access.

What is not apparent from visiting the site is actually there is a platted cul-de-sac or turnaround within the field itself.

It's never been improved or it's never been installed, but it is shown on one of the plats for the property.

What the title insurance company tells us, and as part of this purchase we routinely purchase title insurance on acquisitions, is that to get title insurance we need to vacate that turnaround.

And that's the matter that's before you tonight in an ordinance on first reading.

Our vacation policy does require a public hearing.

Council does adopt this ordinance and the turnaround is vacated.

It certainly does not preclude council from some point in the future providing other types of access or even reinstalling this same turnaround if that's what you desire.

But this is simply to allow us to get title insurance on the property.

I just have a clarification question.

So if we do this, if we adopt this resolution, what we're doing is saying that there is not to be a turnaround there.

Okay.

Any other questions?

There will be public hearing, then you can come and speak on that.

If you like, please come forward.

My name is Deborah Dolmich, 721 Village Road.

I'm here to represent my mother, Mildred Cosner, who's at 613 Davis Avenue.

And we also bear the wishes of the neighbor on the other corner.

The corner being the two houses that adjoin the partial road

that was put into the field, which is the only access to the field.

I know the neighbors, it's supposedly on the plat is still listed as a gravel road.

It got in such poor condition about 20 years ago that the neighbors got together and actually paved it.

with their money and not city funds just so that the children and the parents and all the other people that used that field at the time could have proper access and not be suing somebody for broken legs trying to get there.

That being said, the use of the field as a soccer field has been a great advantage to the city and to the children and we wish it to remain so.

The only question we have right now is does this resolution in any way affect that partial access road by widening it or taking in any further properties on the adjoining properties of my mother and her neighbor?

and or will it affect in any way and increase the parking situation that we have.

There is no public parking at all except in front of the homes there on Davis Avenue for anybody that uses the field.

And we don't mind sharing the street with people.

Thank you, Mary.

Can, Mr. Brown, we'll wait and give you an answer after everybody else has something to say.

Well if not, maybe you just wait here for a second.

Thank you very much for coming and for your comment.

The answer to your question is that the ordinance that council is considering tonight does not have any effect at all on the existing paved access street that runs off of Davis Avenue.

What this affects is actually something you can't see

On a plat, there is a turnaround or cul-de-sac down at the end of that street.

And the effect of what council is being asked to do tonight is to get rid of that turnaround or cul-de-sac portion that is actually within the field.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this topic?

If not, I'll close public hearing.

Discussion by the council members?

Is there any second to the motion?

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

Go to second reading.

Thank you very much.

And thanks for coming there.

Next public item is

Water Supply Plan and there are three resolutions under that and people have opportunity to speak on that.

You have three minutes to speak.

Please limit your comments to those and we will appreciate your cooperation and your help and we look forward to hearing you speak.

And we have a list of people who have signed up, about 25 people.

But if you have not signed up, you'll have an opportunity to speak in spite of that, for as much as we time we can allow.

And council, this is a PowerPoint presentation, so if you'd like to move.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'm just going to take a few minutes to walk you through the resolution and agreements that we find before you this evening.

They will involve amending a previous council resolution to change the height of the new Ragon Mountain Dam, the cost-sharing agreement between the city and the Albemarle County Service Authority, and the Ragon Mountain Dam project agreement.

Once I've completed my remarks, we'll open up some clarifying questions from city council.

We'll then open the public hearing, followed by more questions and discussion by the city council.

I'll begin with the changing of the height of the Ragon Mountain Dam.

City Council voted on February 22nd of last year to move forward with a new earthen dam at Ragon Mountain that would initially be built to a height that would allow an increase of 30 feet in the normal reservoir pool.

The proposal now before the City Council is to build the new Earthen Dam at Ragon Mountain in one phase to a height sufficient to raise the normal reservoir pool an additional 42 feet.

The normal reservoir pool level would initially be increased by 30 feet with an agreed upon demand based trigger to increase the pool level to the full 42 feet in the future.

The cost of doing the height of the dam at 42 now is several hundred thousand dollars.

It could significantly be more if this was done in the future as phase two.

Constructing the 42 now also will avoid having to establish a new staging area and going through another construction period in the future.

Moving on to the cost share agreement, the proposed agreement establishes a cost share of 85% for the service authority and 15% for the city on the new dam.

The cost share split on the future proposed pipeline is 80% for ACSA and 20% for the city.

This includes a true-up mechanism that I'll get into in just a moment.

The cost here also includes a 50-50 split on Part 1 dredging of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir and there's a cap of $3.5 million in total investment by the two parties on that project.

Now to what we're calling the true up.

In essence, the city's initial commitment of 15% of the cost of the dam provides us with upwards of 36% of the water without any sort of reimbursement payment.

If we exceed 6.71 million gallons per day for a 12 month period of time, then we would be required to pay an additional cost for the new water.

The ACSA would begin paying an additional charge at 11.99 million gallons per day.

According to the AECOM projection, the city is expected to hit that 6.71 MGD in roughly the year 2042.

I would like to point out that this calculation does not take into consideration future water conservation techniques that may assist us in keeping demand down here in the city.

Let's move on to the Ragon Mountain Dam project agreement.

This agreement allows the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority to begin work on the water supply plan on city property beginning with the new Earthen Dam at Ragon Mountain.

Back in December we did receive a favorable bid that was received by Rivanna on the construction of the dam.

It provides a temporary construction easement and continues to give Rivanna the authority to withdraw, treat and distribute water on behalf of the city and ACSA on city property.

So let's talk a little bit about the benefits of this plan.

to the city, it is estimated that our rates will go down for our customers with this new plan.

We will be paying for just 15% of the dam and 20% of the pipeline cost but will receive 36% of the water use without having to reimburse ACSA for their initial cost of the projects.

If we stay under that 6.71 MGD for the foreseeable future, this will be a great deal for the city.

Even if we exceed that number in roughly 30 years and then pay for what we are using beyond that 6.71, then it simply turns into a good deal for the city.

And of course this plan ensures that our community water supply needs are met for the next 50 plus years.

Just one second.

So before we start public hearing, council people who have questions to clarify what is being proposed, if you have clarification on those issues only.

Okay, I have a few here.

There were a lot of details that were not explained and perhaps we can talk about those after the public hearing because some will probably come up.

In the 15% cost, that doesn't satisfy our demand for 50 years, right?

Can you just explain the cap?

Yeah, if we go beyond the 6.71, then we will pay for that new water.

Right, so really in truth, to meet the demand for 50 years, we're talking about a payment of 30%, because it's 15 plus 15.

It's only another 15 if we actually use 15% more water.

But that's what the projection is.

That is the projection for 50 years takes us to 30% to the dam.

And that does not include any

More of the water.

Well, I just want to be just really upfront with the public that to meet our projected demand in 50 years is where our investment is much closer to at least 30 percent.

And if you include like, for instance, the city has five million dollars in cash already into this project from the reserves that have been taken out since 2002.

I want to piggyback on this question because this is a vitally important question and the question is very simple.

If the city's demand is as projected by AECOM,

I think it's hard to say at this point only simply because we don't know what the exact cost of the power plant will be.

I would just like to make a comment that at the point that we exceed the 6.71, then the city will be paying a fractional difference more to pay for the new infrastructure that is being built today.

So that is going to be a user by user increase up to the 15% cap.

So again, it's a simple question.

So this slide up here which said the city is paying 15% of the cost of the dam and 20% of the cost of the pipeline is inaccurate.

I'm not trying to be, I'm actually not at this point trying to be contentious.

I'm just trying to get some clarity on the actual numbers because it's not 15%.

We've already, we're being charged 27%.

That was, that number was not up here.

There is a

because I think that is, as it's been said, that it's covered, that the dam's not going to cost anything, which isn't true.

It's just that we have been charged 25% more than the operations and debt service.

That was a clarifying question.

Sure.

Could you repeat the question please?

The premise of the rates going down is that we have been paying this reserve of 27% and now if we're paying

a 15% that would cover it and more.

But that assumes that reserves will no longer be taken out of our, we will no longer be charged for reserves.

And I just wonder if that's true.

I would assume that, as with all large construction projects, you always have reserves, I think.

I think that's just prudent construction management.

So our rates are going to then be reserves at 15% plus debt service for our part of the dam, which is what?

Do we know what the debt?

It's $8.85 million total.

We are anticipating, overall, the debt servicing cost would be about $59 million.

But annual?

I don't know off the top of my head what the annual debt service would be.

But overall, it would reduce our rate.

Any other questions?

Even with the debt service.

The breakdown of the costs on costs that have already incurred for design and development of the dam is based on an agreement from I think it was 2003, Mr. Brown, 2002.

and just for just to remind the public that same agreement which we're using as the basis for allocating costs already incurred also spoke to an allocation of water supply between the city and county and can you remind us what the city's allocation of

From 2003?

Correct.

In 2003, the assumption about safe yield was that it was 12.0 million gallons a day and I think there's been some additional information since then that has revised that number from 12.0 to 12.8.

If I understand your question, it's how the allocation was under the 2003 agreement.

At that time, a consultant looked at usage by the city and the county service authority basically for a 20-year period from 1983 to 2002.

The city's percentage of water acquired from Rivanna was 65%.

So kind of the baseline allocation for the city at that point was 65% of the 12.0 safe yield and was 7 point something and I'm sorry I can't remember off the top of my head.

And then there was 7 million gallons of new water

to be

So under the same formula we're using to allocate costs, the city was allocated 8.3 million gallons a day.

I just want to make that clear.

Today our allocation is 8.3 million gallons a day because as you saw up here we're now agreeing to

an allocation in 50 years of 6.7 million gallons a day.

So we're losing a significant amount of oil.

Okay, so another clarifying question is what would be the cost to simply ensure that there's enough water in the water supply system to meet the city's needs over the next 50 years?

And again, this is important for establishing a baseline.

What is simply the cost of making sure we have enough water to meet the city's needs, which include the University of Virginia, for the next 50 years?

Mr. Norris, if we look at the AECOM numbers, which we've kind of used as the demand projection, in the year 2060, they forecast that the city's demand will be 7.74 mgd.

That includes University of Virginia?

That's actually a little lower than what, but whatever.

We're going to discuss in detail.

And one other question is, how much is the city in this agreement being compensated for all the timber at Ragged Mountain Naturally?

It's about, I think, 50, 40, 50, 60,000 trees.

There's no separate amount.

The agreement requires a payment of $765,000 from the service authority to the city to compensate for the use of the city land.

But the appraiser of the city retained to come up with that value.

did not feel that the trees added any additional amount to that $765,000.

Thank you.

Other questions?

If there are any questions?

Actually, I'm asking about the difference between allocation of what we have now.

We could start there is currently in our current resources we have, as you noted, 12.8 million gallons per day safe yield and how that was distributed as our baseline.

We're going back to our baseline baseline.

is how much of the 12.8 million gallons per day does each, which we own, right?

I mean, we own all of the infrastructure.

We did not do an allocation of the 12.8.

And that's based on what information?

Sedimentation.

And yet we have newer, much better information from 2009.

Was there a reason why the better information was not used?

Which would have changed those numbers.

May I?

I think we're getting into arguments and discussions.

Right.

Let us wait for those a little later.

So, but just to clarify that we began today, we have 12.8 million gallons per day, even if it goes down to 8.8, which is there, the evidence just is simply not there to support, but we are allocated of that only 4.7.

Today we have access to all 12.8, right?

Is that true?

Because we're in a cooperative situation with Albemarle County Service Authority.

We have allocation rights, let's call it that, to 12.8 million gallons per day today.

And that goes down as soon as we sign this to 4.7.

Today we're using more water than that.

but we are only allocated 4.7 of our 12.8.

Both parties have full access to the 12.8.

Right, exactly.

Today.

Both because it's a cooperative agreement.

I think we are getting into discussion.

Let's wait till afterwards.

Here's the public hearing.

Okay?

Please be assigned a place for public hearing.

Please use time three minutes to speak your comments and address the issues and not to persons and personal attacks.

Please do share your views.

Good evening members of council.

Neal Williamson, the Free Enterprise Forum.

a privately funded public policy organization, 550 Hillsdale Drive.

The Free Enterprise Forum has been engaged in these community water discussions since really the very beginning of the community water supply plan.

By means of interest, I think it's important to recognize the long road that we've been down and the number of options that were considered and the challenges that each of those options presented.

There was a time when some were suggesting a pipeline to the James was the answer and instead what's come forward is a community water supply plan that was approved in 2006 that had what I call an alphabet soup of support.

It's very rare that I get to stand side by side with Jeff Warner from the Piedmont Environmental Council and as well as the folks from the Nature Conservancy and other natural groups that

in concert looking at a way to solve this community's water supply needs for 50 years.

The South Fork Reservoir was constructed in 1966.

The city councils that put forth that effort and purchased that land from Albemarle County were thinking way in advance.

I ask you, as you consider this issue, to consider the generations ahead, because this is a generational vote.

Thank you.

I don't write so well.

My name is Bob Hodges.

I live at 1309 Lester Drive in the city.

I would encourage you to pass all three resolutions.

I think it's very important that we go ahead.

Just a couple of other comments, though.

One on the question of true costs.

If you're looking at paying another 15 percent 30 years out, it's not 30 percent of the current cost.

You need to discount it to a current worth, and it'll come down to very, very little additional cost.

The second point is

You know, historically, there's been a lot of talk about the fact that if we dredge, everything will be fine.

I don't know how many people who are sitting up there were here in 1977, but we had in 1977 our third worst drought.

The drought that we had in 2002 was very bad, but 1977 was very bad also.

At that time, the current water supply, the current water capacity

was much greater than it is now because you did not have the siltation that you have in the Rivanna Reservoir.

It was only 11 years old.

The other thing to understand is that, and there are two other things actually to understand, living in Charlottesville and Albemarle County there were fewer people here in this whole area.

than there are currently on the current water system.

And we're looking at a growing water system.

Also in 1977, the drought was bad enough that we had restrictions on water use.

And some of those restrictions were ones that were mandatory and some of them were just people could go ahead and conserve on their own.

Some of those conservation efforts

I know personally have stayed in place.

So the increase in water usage that we normally would have seen has stayed down.

To think that just not going forward and dredging will solve the problems I think is a misindication of really what we need in this community.

Consequently, I would encourage you to go ahead and pass all three resolutions.

Hi, I'm Tuan Nguyen.

I live on 710 Lyons Court Lane.

I'm here with a double whammy.

Not only do I live in the city, but as most of you know, we have sea ball coffee.

Without water, I can't make coffee, so it's very important to us and to our livelihood.

I've been here, this is my second time, I was here two months ago asking for you to pass this resolution and I'm here again to hope that you pass it because enough time has been passed, enough talks, enough analyzing and it's time for action and we need to move on.

Thank you.

My name is Timothy Holbert.

I live in the city of Charlottesville at 2246 Brandywine Drive.

I also work for the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce and I can attest personally that Tuan does wonderful things with water and turning it into coffee.

I'm the finest.

I'm not going

I'll bore you with things that we've been saying for the last seven or eight years.

Our chamber supports this plan.

I want to applaud you, particularly you, Mr. City Manager, and you, Mr. Brown, and others in a hyper-charged environment to keep your eye on the prize and to put together an equitable, reasonable, thoughtful,

allocation of costs for a plan to move this community forward.

We will never get unanimity, not only on this city council, but in this room or in this community.

But our chamber is happy to be part of a coalition of folks that includes the Piedmont Environmental Council.

And like Neil, I rarely find myself in agreement with Jeff and others.

We have the Nature Conservancy, the Legal Women Voters, our chamber, the Free Enterprise Forum,

a whole group of people that come together for a rational, sensible, safe, adequate water supply plan.

I urge you to approve these resolutions tonight and to get forward so we can get this behind us and deal with real issues like poverty and injustice in this community.

Thank you.

Sweet, I get the great sweet spot.

Thank you for passing that peace resolution by the way.

If we want to talk about poverty and justice, we can do that.

And I think the Chamber of Commerce could play a big role in addressing that issue.

It has nothing to do with this water supply plan.

In fact this water supply plan

It's what's going to make it a lot harder for us to do a lot more for the people of this city and I think a lot of people know that and I you know I'm against the three resolutions and I hope you wouldn't pass that I think that's naive of me to think that that's going to happen I did want to express

You know, a couple of questions that were asked two weeks ago by members of this council about dredging, about what is the incentive to dredge, what's our incentive to do restorative dredging if we don't really get anything about that.

We've got the former mayor asking about the cost of the entire plan and we still can't get a straight answer.

Tonight, we don't have Tom Frederick here.

Okay, I'm glad he's here, but when council members were trying to ask questions, he wasn't present and there are still questions that we want to know.

There was a question about what kind of legal maneuver you have that's going to avoid having a referendum on this issue.

I'm sure you have an answer for that.

Would have loved to hear it two weeks ago.

Would have given people time to think about this and to respond to it.

Instead, what we heard was, well, you'll get your chance to vote next meeting.

That to me suggests that this public hearing is actually fairly meaningless and I hope you will listen to a very solid community group that's done a lot of work on this who managed to get a person on council who knows deeply about this issue who is trying to protect our interests as a last ditch effort to make sure that the city gets a good deal and this does not look like a good deal and we still can't get good answers about it.

I think all of you

owe that to us, the public, to get the answers to these questions that we're trying to find out.

So I hope you won't shut off debate tonight that if this meeting needs to go an extra three hours to get these questions answered, do it.

I mean, this is it.

This is the end of the road right here.

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, yes indeed, sorry about that.

My name is Robbie Savage and I'm the Executive Director of the Rivanna Conservation Society.

First and most importantly I want to thank you and all the government officials who have worked so tirelessly and under great duress to develop the water supply plan and the cost allocation agreements that come before you tonight.

This has been a very painful process for many in this community and it is our hope that from this point forward the community can come together in a healing process, much like the peace resolution that you passed earlier this evening.

RCS was involved with the development of the original plan to keep our water supply here in our watershed.

RCS has continued to support the plan because it is the only alternative which when implemented will meet the water supply needs of our community while protecting our rivers.

After much debate, we are now convinced that it also is the least expensive alternative.

Within the last several weeks, the State Water Control Board and US Army Corps of Engineers have issued definitive determinations.

The State Water Board unanimously reaffirmed its approval of the plan as the least environmentally damaging practical alternative.

The US Army Corps of Engineers determined that the dredging alternative was not viable and that we, quote, don't agree that dredging the water yield the community needs without being environmentally damaging.

The cost allocation agreements have been

An experience for so many that have been involved in the negotiations and we believe that they were diligent in their efforts to assure that there is no unfair burden placed on existing residents and for future growth.

It is our hope that this committee, this council,

will approve all three of these resolutions.

And again, thank you for your effort.

I hope you will not approve this water, the water scam this evening.

And I think anybody who takes a very close look at the demand study, at the costs of the dam, at the proposed costs for dredging, at the yield for those, will find that at every turn the information has been skewed in favor of building this dam.

And I hope people will check that out.

And so then when I ask myself, how could it be?

I mean, are these all mistakes?

I've been following this closely for a long time.

And they are not all mistakes.

And I've brought this up in the past and, for instance, I've brought up the 223 million

Dredging estimate at the last time and Dr. Brown did not address that particularly but then went on to say that corruption is not in fact a factor here in Charlottesville and maybe he didn't say that exactly but he countered my

And when I say corruption, I don't mean to say that anybody is just getting a paycheck for voting a certain way.

What I mean by that is a system of legalized corruption where at least some of the people I think that are in government feel,

Big money is going to get its way whether I'm here or not.

If I play Kate and play ball and give them what they want the most, then maybe I can get something for our city here.

And that's what it looks like to me.

And Ms. Szakos, you were quoted about

The parkway is saying something close to I feel like this is an exercise in our non-power something like that relative to the opening of the parkway and what I see consistently is city council moving in a certain direction and then the county

Just ignoring that completely and straight up bullying the city and I see RSWA just manipulating the information to make it seem like this is a good deal.

How could this be a good deal?

The city is getting less water for more money.

We're having our best natural area destroyed and we would be in debt for years and we could not get out of this agreement until that debt is paid off.

Thank you very much Mr. Norris and Ms. Smith for your consistent efforts for a sensible water plan that actually is in favor of the citizens of Charlottesville.

And when I hear you all saying things like this is better for us and we, what I'm hearing is that we refers to the county.

and the city together and I don't even believe it then but let me say that your first responsibility is to the city and I hope that you will live up to that responsibility.

Thank you.

Linda Goodley.

Hi, I'm Linda Goodling and I am representing the League of Women Voters of Charlottesville Albemarle.

I'm a board member representing the Natural Resources Committee.

First, we want to thank you.

We commend you for your hard work and diligence on this difficult issue.

The League has been an advocate for watershed protection for over 25 years and we have been an active participant in the water supply plan from the very beginning going out to Monticello looking at all the different plans.

Alongside other environmental, excuse me, we are not an environmental group, I want to make that very clear.

So please go to the League website, find out what else we're about.

But we have been

with the other environmental groups like the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Southern Environmental Law Center in our belief that the water supply plan is the best plan because of the environmental benefits to our rivers.

The league is a long-time advocate because for the first time we have in-stream flow requirements for the South Fork Rivanna

River, which will augment flows in the Rivanna River during the dry summer months.

And equally important, we have limits on withdrawals from the Mormon's River.

These withdrawal limits were developed by river biologists and designed to protect the headwaters of our watershed.

Protecting the headwaters will improve the health of the entire watershed and benefit all area residents.

We are pleased to see that this agreement will encourage water conservation

and we very much support you going forward with the water supply plan.

Emily Sloan.

My name is Emily Sloan.

I'm living at 106 Azalea Drive and I'm here tonight as a taxpayer, a resident of the city of Charlottesville in opposition to the agreements that are on the table.

I am not a council member, so I am not an expert in politics.

However, I hold a PhD in microbiology, and I consider myself an expert in science.

And if there's one thing I know about science, it's that it requires up-to-date and accurate measurements

and if you get new information based on new measurements, you have an obligation as a scientist and as a citizen in this case to use that information.

And when you're standing here quoting sedimentation rates from a 2002 report, when there's a 2009 report with more accurate information and then you're basing your conclusions on results from old information, your conclusions will be false.

and that is not acceptable in terms of a 50-year water supply plan for our entire city which destroys our natural area and frankly as a scientist I'm very disappointed that basic questions are being asked about the cost of the project, about the percentage of allocation and those answers aren't in hand.

Where are those answers?

Why do we not know this like the back of our hand if this has been under debate for so long?

These questions have answers and as a citizen I want to know what they are.

As a scientist, I'm disappointed that the people who are voting on these issues tonight cannot give a straight answer.

And I hope that you take this very seriously in deciding the future of our water supply.

Karen Burgess and Rebecca Quinn.

Good evening, Carolyn Burgess, 706 Gillespie Avenue in the city.

I've watched council for years and listened to the water plan debate, but the cost-sharing agreement knocked out behind closed doors hasn't been transparent and has progressed at the speed of light.

As citizens, we don't understand it, and it's shocking to see how fast it's foisted upon us.

We cannot speed ahead on such an impactful issue just to go,

done that, we voted, moving on.

And we're not accepting bogus deadlines and excuses like, oh well, we'll lose federal funding if we don't reach agreement by such and such a date.

There are lots of extensions.

So for transparency and clarity, why don't you have a public discussion on major components of it, like the cost of the dam, the cost of the pipeline.

What happens when the limits are exceeded?

And how much do those things cost?

And explain them in detail if you can.

Many of our citizens voted for Mrs. Smith because she's so knowledgeable on water issues.

We don't understand why she wasn't appointed to represent the city on the water board.

Are you afraid to stand up to the county?

I would like to see you revisit that appointment.

The very best thing for the city residents would be to have a public discussion, making open and clear the details of the calculations, make them understandable to the lay public, then have a public referendum to vote on them, and our representative to the water board as well.

How can you, in good conscience, decide these things alone?

I taught school and lived 17 years in the county.

Now I've lived 12 years in the city.

I paid half the taxes in the county that I pay in the city.

The population in the county is affluent, growing and building a lot.

The population in the city is of much more modest means and we don't need a 45 foot dam.

You made apologies to the black community for raising Vinegar Hill.

I hope 30 years down the road you don't have to make apologies to our children and our grandchildren for the debt we're incurring for the county's growth machine.

It's hard to believe we're trading our natural resource and incurring more debt.

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

You know my position on dam versus dredge, but I'm not here to talk about that tonight.

I'm sort of surprised some people still are.

You'd think I'd be one of the last men standing.

City council took a number of principle stands on water in the last few years.

An important one led to the HDR dredging feasibility study.

It's time for council to stand up again for what's right, and that is to use the HDR, bathymetry,

to update the safe yield analysis for the purposes of setting the baseline for this allocation agreement.

It is fundamentally unsound to base an agreement on the assumption that the urban water system has a safe yield of 12.8 million gallons a day and the assumption that the system capacity will fall to 8.8 mgd due to siltation.

Those numbers were developed using data that's more than 10 years old and it was collected using inferior methods.

We know it's no longer good

I used to count myself as a scientist.

I now count myself as a water resource engineer.

Any engineer who uses out-of-date, flawed data when new data is currently available should be ashamed.

But the project agreement does call for new bathymetry every 10 years.

Why start out with 10-year-old data if a new survey is already available?

That survey, paid for by the city, demonstrates the reservoir has more water than previously estimated and it's silting it at a slower rate than previously estimated.

That means there'll be more water in the future, water that should be acknowledged in the allocation.

As drafted, only if the city pays a steep penalty does the agreement give us access to water that is already physically present, water that is there because of the city's long-term investment

in the original infrastructure and yet we're given no credit for our hundred year investment.

This agreement gives it away.

Plus there are additional volumes of water in the system such as in Beaver Creek that no longer need to be reserved for Crozet.

It isn't at all clear whether and how those additional volumes are accounted for.

So I once again ask the council to ask Rivanna to revise the safe yield, use the results to come up with a new

and future safe yield and then go back to the negotiating table with good numbers.

I urge you to ask that the safe yield be done in the most transparent manner possible, allowing everyone to see what goes into that black box so that we know for sure that all new information and sources of water are included.

It will be an intentional act of negligence for you to approve an agreement

that is so dependent on a water system capacity that you know is wrong.

We, and responding to a couple of things, it's obfuscating to say that HDR didn't do a safe yield rate.

Of course it didn't.

The point is that HDR results should be used to develop a safe yield analysis.

It's obfuscating to avoid answering questions about costs

because of the uncertainty of the pipeline.

We do have an estimate.

We all know it's flawed, but at least it gives you something to work on.

And it's obfuscating to not answer questions, clearly asked questions about how the existing water is allocated and how the future water is allocated.

You are indeed elected to stand up for the citizens of this community and it's time for you to do and exercise that fundamental responsibility.

I'm Susan Dempsey, I live at 2417 Jefferson Park Avenue.

and I have questions about the water cost allocation agreement.

For years we've heard the community water plan is supposed to be a 50 year plan.

Yet last week on WINA a counselor said that the agreement you're considering allocates to the city enough water through 2040.

That's only 30 years.

What happened to the other 20 years of water we're supposed to get?

We learned from the AECOM water demand study that in

2060, the city and UVA are projected to use 7.74 million gallons per day.

Why does the agreement shortchange the city by allocating just 87% of that amount?

Why does the Albemarle County Service Authority get 130% of its projected amount?

Your discussion didn't help me understand why this is a good deal and a fair deal for city residents.

and Ms. Smith asked a question that wasn't answered clearly.

How is existing water allocated?

How is the new water allocated?

I'm Dan Beaker.

I've been a wild biologist in the community for the past 30 years and I'd like to comment on some environmental concerns.

As is most often the case with those who have no voice, the environment is the big loser in this water plan.

But as this plan moves forward, this cost share agreement represents your last and best opportunity to influence some environmental concerns about this plan.

We are spending literally millions of dollars in added infrastructure to improve streamflows in the Mormon's River, yet we do not have accurate way to monitor those streamflows.

And I suggest we have an obligation for spending that much money to get these streamflows right.

We can't do it unless and until we get stream

flow monitors in the river itself.

These gauges are common throughout the country.

They were supposed to be done years ago, and they were not.

And it's inexcusable to move forward without this information, especially given the fact that we are poised in the next several decades to suck even more water than ever out of the headwaters of the Mormon's River to fill this new lake.

We need to get these streamflows right.

It's not happening.

An example is in the summer of 2010,

There was a four to five week period when the river above the reservoir was completely dry, not a drop going in, yet there was water coming out of the reservoir.

This is not natural.

It might be more aesthetically pleasing, but we have an obligation to match the inflow to the outflow.

We can't do it without the stream gauges.

There's some talk in this agreement about triggers if the most important trigger of all is not mentioned.

And that's the complete elimination of the Sugar Hollow Reservoir if and when this new pipeline is built.

The reasons for keeping that reservoir do not hold up under economic safety and environmental scrutiny.

Concerning Ragged Mountain, let's not cut the timber during the breeding season.

This will be roughly mid-February through late July.

It would be January through July if you consider Great Horned Owls.

I mean this is just basic common sense and the fact that we need to come and appeal for this I think indicates how far we are from an environmental ethic in this community.

But this area around the lake is not going to be inundated for several years.

We have time

to deal with this.

And also as Mr. Norris pointed out before, how much money is the city getting for the timber that's being cut?

Under the appraisal, the city is getting $5,000 per acre for the land that's being inundated.

That's arguably low just for the land itself.

The timber on the land is being given no value whatsoever.

I showed this appraisal to several longtime professional foresters in the county, and they almost had coronaries that this kind of language could be put forth by an appraiser and taken seriously.

That timber is worth a great deal of money, a lot of money.

And there's not a logger in Virginia that wouldn't lock his lips to get at it.

The correct way to do this is to put it out for bid.

Let the city get the money.

This is money that could be, could go for transportation, education, housing, and it's your responsibility to protect the interests of the city residents who own these trees.

Hello.

I'm Rob Warner.

I live at 712 Highland.

Avenue in Johnson Village.

And I've come tonight to basically congratulate the council on coming up with a really good plan.

And I encourage you to approve it tonight, because I guess this is approval night, I hope.

I think the plan has been worked over enough, has enough good ideas in it, et cetera, to go forward.

I'm going to enjoy watching the new dam built, seeing this floating bridge and for many years I've been walking on the trails and even before the official trails were there up in Ragon Mountain and I think in the end when we're all finished we'll have a better park with a great protection for our water supply for at least the next 50 years.

and we won't be able to brag about our 100 year old dam anymore.

We'll have to brag about our new dam and that'll be just fine with me.

So congratulations on a good plan and please go ahead and approve it.

It's been almost 10 years.

Who knows?

We could have a drought and we could actually need a new water system.

So I encourage you to do that tonight.

David Repas to 27 East Jefferson Street I'm here to ask the council to uphold the spirit and intent of the city charter

The city charter states that, quote, the rights of the city in its gas, water, and electric works shall not be sold until such sale shall have been approved by a majority of voters.

The clear intent of that provision is to prevent the city from giving up its rights to its property without a referendum.

but lawyers and courts claim that technically the city is not giving up its rights because it is leasing, not selling.

In other words, legalistically, a 40-year lease with no return of the property after the 40 years does not constitute giving up one's rights to a property.

This is an appalling legal fiction.

A common sense interpretation of the word lease is a temporary giving over of one's property with the expectation it will be returned.

If the majority of the city council wishes to be partied to such legal subterfuge, well they can.

But I ask that you do the morally correct thing and obey the spirit and intent of the city charter.

Hold a referendum.

whether it is legally required or not.

Give the people of Charlottesville the chance to study the agreement, know what it contains, and vote on it.

Even you don't seem to know what it contains.

The people of Charlottesville deserve to have a say when their rights to tens of millions of dollars of water assets are at stake.

If the water allocation agreement is good for the city and it can withstand scrutiny, it should easily be approved in a referendum.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of City Council.

My name is David Fehmister and I live with my family.

at 716 Monticello Avenue.

I'm a city resident and I'm also an employee of the Nature Conservancy and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight.

I speak in support of these agreements for many reasons but let me emphasize two.

First, this water plan is the only solution that meets our drinking water needs of the city while also restoring our rivers and our environment.

Solutions that benefit people and nature matter.

They matter greatly to me.

Second, on the subject of cost, this is a great deal for city residents, both current and future.

The county is bearing the majority of the cost of this plan.

For essentially the cost of maintaining current system, the city will get the additional capacity it will need in the coming decades.

And if the city grows and needs additional water for new residents, these agreements are well structured to ensure that that growth will be borne not by existing residents, but by the new ratepayers.

Some people are saying that we need a referendum of city residents or a supermajority of council to approve these agreements.

There are many reasons why this assertion is patently untrue, but let me stress the most important.

These agreements are for a lease of city property, not a sale.

The supermajority applies only to the sale of property.

Specifically, section 15.2-2100 of the Code of Virginia says, and I quote, the requirement of an affirmative three-fourths vote of the council shall apply only to the sale of the listed properties and not to their franchise lease or use.

Some are also asserting that the sedimentation of the South Fork Reservoir is not happening as fast as originally thought and we should do another study of the South Fork to support their opinion.

They cite the 2010 HDR dredging study as the source of that information.

But those assertions are simply wrong.

The HDR dredging report concluded, quote, the current rate of reservoir volume loss from sedimentation appears to be approximately the same rate as was observed in the past.

As a city resident, I would adamantly oppose spending one more dollar, let alone several hundred thousand, on yet another study of an alternative that is clearly not viable.

In closing, these agreements are a great deal for city residents and I encourage you to approve them tonight.

Opponents of sensible and sound progress will always be able to raise additional questions and make an issue that as is at its heart relatively simple seem frighteningly complex.

But real leaders lead and recognize when it's time to vote and move on.

Thank you for letting a county resident speak.

I live in the county.

This agreement that's before you tonight, these three pieces, is one piece of a continuum of projects dating back to the 19th century.

I've been part of more of those disagreements maybe than I want to count, though I don't go back to the 19th century.

Each step has been accompanied with doubts and controversy.

As recently as 2003, the agreement that was being discussed earlier, this community assumed that it could drain dry or kill the rivers that were needed to meet human needs.

A community that prides itself in being environmentally aware will

prove that it is environmentally aware this evening when it adopts this plan because we will stop killing our rivers.

I'm very proud of a community that studies, ponders, and then does the truly heroic part, which is making a decision and moving on.

Tonight will be that heroic part.

You've got the approval of the State Water Control Board.

Do you know how rare that is?

And you've got the US Army Corps of Engineers saying flatly,

that the dredging alternative won't work after looking at every single piece of the most recent studies and listening thoroughly to the opposition in private meetings.

I've been concerned with the health of our streams and reservoirs since I helped write a booklet called Mud, which was in the 1960s or maybe early 70s.

A lot of what I did on the Albemarle board, such as requiring more stream buffers than ever before, were to make our waterways healthier.

Many of my hours were spent with the Rivanna River Basin Commission, the Chesapeake Bay Local Government Advisory Committee, the Reservoir Stewardship Task Force, but nothing we did was as significant as this plan and these votes before you tonight.

Finally, we will have a contractual agreement that will truly make us good stewards of our rivers, allowing a natural flow because the storage will be adequate to provide for both people and waterways.

Personally, the aspect of the cost allocation agreement that I relish most is the way it will give real dollars and cents incentives for water conservation.

City rate payers will have every reason not to trigger the higher proportion of water usage that is built into the agreement, and the same will be true of county users.

Thank you.

My name is Matthew Roddick.

I live at 1014 Locust Lane in the city.

I own a business in the city, I own Carpe Donut, it's at 1715 Allied Lane, so I'm also a double whammy, I guess.

I'd like to address, I want to thank Mr. Norris and Ms. Smith for your advocacy in this area, so I'd really like to address some of my comments to Ms. Galvin, Ms. Szakos, and Mr. Huja, because I think I know where these two folks stand, and I'm not quite sure where you all stand on this.

and I'd like to try to talk about the decisions that are being made about adopting these resolutions tonight in terms of some metaphor, because that's kind of how I work, so forgive me if it gets a little cloudy here.

To explain that, I came tonight, drove with my wife in a 2001 Mercury Villager minivan.

It's old, it's ugly, and every time I turn the key it starts.

It's very safe, it has airbags, I transport my kids in it all the way all over town and I really wish I could get a new car.

But I can't.

I'm not a donut thousand there yet, I can't just go out and buy a brand new car.

And somewhere along the way here, the city of Charlottesville has decided that we've just become intoxicated by the new car smell and we're going to go ahead and do the water plan.

I get that.

I think that has become kind of clear.

I think the Monticello Business Alliance did a great job of selling that idea and I think we're there.

So what I'd really like to talk about tonight is the specifics of the plan that were presented earlier for the cost share agreement.

Because if we're buying the new car, and okay, maybe we're just gonna do that.

Maybe you guys can note that I don't love this car.

I think this is a bad time to buy a new car.

I think we should wait till we have a little bit more money and the picture's a little clearer.

But if we're gonna buy the car, could we know what the car costs please?

We really need to know exactly what the car cost.

I'd like to know how big the engine is.

I'd like to know what its gas mileage is.

I don't want to beat this metaphor to death, but it's preposterous to me that we're on the eve of agreeing to what from, and I've been following this fairly closely, putting a lot of energy into it.

We've been hearing about the deal, the dam, the plan, and hearing both sides of that argument for a while.

We've had a few weeks to hear about an incredibly complicated

and certainly all credit to you, Mr. Jones, for trying to explain it in simple bullet points.

But as I've read the greater details, we could drill down into this and it's really complicated.

And more importantly, when you're gonna go buy the complicated, really confusing machine that is a new car or a new water supply system for our entire community, could we start with what it costs?

It is preposterous.

I'm gonna go out on a limb.

and I'm going to prognosticate a little bit because that's more fun than predicting and I'm going to say that if we go ahead and buy this car right now a year or two years or three years down the road from everything I've been able to read about the cost share agreement and granted I've only been able to get down two-thirds of the way to the bottom of it because it is complicated we are going to, you all, are going to dreadfully regret having jumped in and said yes to a plan that we cannot get the simplest answers to

I heard a couple of things tonight that really stuck in my head.

One of them was the fact that the PEC,

Nature Conservancy, Rivanna Conservation, they're all behind this plan.

The new car smell worked, and I'm getting my head around the idea that we're going to be building a big dam, and we're going to be creating structure.

But the fact that there are two dams in our community, greater community of Albemarle, that are not included in the total water supply of Beaver Creek, I don't get that at all.

I don't get how we can get to a place where

the actual long-term water supply that we pay for for a facility we own is actually less than what we get right now.

So we really need to drill down to how many millions of dollars this costs, and I apologize.

Just please, let's find out what it costs.

Hi, I'm Joanna Salides, 129 Goodman Street.

First, I'd like to ask anybody who is opposed to the water plan and particularly the cost share, please stand up so we can get a count of people who aren't speaking.

Thank you very much.

Second, I noticed that there's an odd faith from some of the speakers in

some of the agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Water Control Board and also generally some speakers seem to think that everyone reads the studies so I just want to say that I was at the State Water Control Board and it was very clear that the woman who presented for the DEQ definitely, actually it was a man who addressed this point that there was a point about why the AECOM demand numbers were lower than the

Gannett Fleming numbers and he said something about rainfall that AECOM had not assessed whether the dip was due to rainfall or economic conditions and AECOM absolutely did assess that he just clearly hadn't read it and I found that very disappointing.

Another thing is that I actually read this whole long appraisal that the city got from the night guy the appraiser and

and I didn't see in there any evaluation of what the timber cost and what it would be, you know, an evaluation of this is what it's worth but this is how much it would cost to haul out of there and I'm wondering, Mr. Brown, if you could tell me the page numbers that you saw that on.

Okay, now, so some say that we are all one region.

So, oh, finally, the other point.

There's been some criticism about HDR, whether it really showed that there was a slower sedimentation rate, and I would just ask you all to simply ask Ms. Smith to point out exactly how it shows that, because I know that she can do that with no problem.

Okay, some say that we're all one region, so we should be willing to spend money, degrade our forests, and abandon our paid-for infrastructure in order to share with our neighbor, the county.

First, I would like to hear from you tonight an acknowledgement of those three points, that this agreement does in fact cost the city, diminish the size and quality of our natural area,

through clear cutting, flooding, new roads and proximity to 64 and abandoned South Fork Dissertation.

Mr. Norris asked at the last meeting and again tonight, though it was not answered, what we need to do or spend to provide only for projected growth in the city.

Without knowing that, we really cannot answer the question of how much we are in fact giving to our neighbor.

My second point is that I do not believe that I have separate interests from county residents.

No, I have separate interests from developers who have pushed this plan from the beginning.

It is obvious that they have done so to serve their own interests, but some of you argue that this plan reduces instead of encourages sprawl.

I have three rejoinders.

One, the alternative of dredging South Fork and an incremental raise of the old dam, the Norris plan, definitely would meet the needs for growth for at least 40 years if you are aiming for the population projections in the current growth areas.

The only way to dispute this claim is to ignore HDR, which all proponents of the new dam plan do, despite its clear superiority.

As I said last time, I would really like to hear the rationale for ignoring HDR and using Gannett-Flemick's numbers.

My overall point here is that the developers have pushed for the dam plan because they intend to rezone rural areas to growth areas as fast as they can.

Near doubling of the population as called for in the current plans is not enough for them.

Two, infrastructure.

Okay, ran out of time.

Hi, Jen Downey, 1014 Locust Lane.

My husband says I put too much trust in public servants.

After all I've heard tonight, and all I haven't heard, I must beg you, I'm depending on you not to vote on this tonight.

I've heard a lot of people who like this plan

those who are here, expressed a sentiment that we should move on, move on at all costs.

And I have to say, whenever I hear people saying, move on, move on at all costs, it makes me very nervous.

There's no reason to rush, none at all.

These are huge questions.

I want to be proud of all of you when this is all said and done.

I don't want to be ashamed.

We all, as humans, have moments of arrogance and moments of humility.

I know I have lots of the kind you don't want but I'm asking you tonight to have a moment of humility and put this off until we, I mean someone pointed out that it didn't seem at all clear that you were in possession of all the facts we need and the public has not had time to digest this.

It's really important stuff and to deny that

is to be on the side of rushing to get the vote, as though you were afraid some piece of information might come out that could scuttle things.

Why do you have to be afraid?

If you believe in this, then give us time to absorb it and join you in accepting this as a good thing.

Persuade us.

But we deserve the right to really understand this thing.

And there are people who aren't here who are out in that world who don't know anything about this yet.

And there have been no efforts really to reach them.

And this is complicated stuff.

I'm asking you to not vote on it, despite the sanguine comments of those here to congratulate you on voting on the plan, which is a little

Thank you.

129 Goodman Street, I live in the city.

First I just wanted to say recently I saw an interesting document which was actually the 2006 water supply agreement that the Nature Conservancy and SELC and PEC and the Rivanna Conservation Society all supported and it was really surprising to me because the agreement

looked a lot more like the Norris plan than it does the current agreement that we have in front of you.

So I think all those organizations need to take another look because there's been a bit of a bait and switch here and the current agreement does not necessarily reflect the original intents and also does not reflect the most current information.

I wanted to read a quotation from the Rocky Mountain Institute's new book called Reinventing Fire.

This book lays out a roadmap for the US to eliminate the use of coal and imported oil by 2050.

The quotation reads, and I just bumped into this when I was reading it last night,

Land use policies that now subsidize and mandate sprawl should be reversed to reward smart growth.

Otherwise, the socialized costs of sprawl will continue to burden businesses by raising taxes, commuting times and the salaries needed to offset commuting costs.

This water supply plan and cost share agreement are perfect examples of subsidizing sprawl.

According to the agreement, city and county rate payers and taxpayers will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize new developments inside and outside of the urban growth area.

According to recent studies, the city and the county have plenty of water to meet the requirements for projected growth.

This plan is intended to enable planned new developments outside of the current urban growth area.

There are already 12 requests on the books to expand the urban growth area.

If the city wants to live up to its reputation as a truly progressive city, we need to change our practices so that we stop subsidizing sprawl in Albemarle County.

So I urge you to vote against this cost-share agreement, which is terribly unfair to taxpayers and ratepayers both in the city and in the county,

Mr. Mayor, members of City Council, my name is Rick Seaman.

I live at 2010 Greenbrier Drive in the city.

It's been a very interesting meeting so far, a lot of comments on all sides of this particular issue.

I will agree certainly with many of the people who are seeking more information and asking to be educated on this particular issue because it is very complex.

I do think also that there are pieces of information that might be useful to folks.

In particular, I've heard very little comment about the issues of the fact that there's a lot of land that's going to be replaced around the rim of Ragged Mountain Reservoir that was

either put under conservation easement by Nature Conservancy or was actually donated as land in kind to compensate for the loss of the land that may be taken by the reservoir.

So I think there are opportunities to inform the public, but I am here to speak in favor of the water plan that I hope will be adopted by this council and to support the cost-sharing agreement that you're discussing at this particular hearing.

As to the property use agreement, I think to the best of my knowledge, the construction of the Earthen Dam has been approved by city council and also by state and federal regulators who found the approved design to be the least environmentally damaging, practicable alternative available as had been mentioned earlier.

Therefore, I support authorizing RWSA to proceed with letting a contract to build the new dam on the Maggie Mountain Reservoir.

As to the cost sharing allocation agreement,

From my look at it, I think it is a good deal for the city water users for the following reasons.

According to the AECOM Technical Memorandum 2, which was issued as recently as July of this year and has been referenced several times in people's comments so far this evening, the city's 2010 water usage was 5.4 million gallons per day.

Regardless of where we are with previous

Safe yields and previous allocations, that's how much water we used was 5.14 million gallons per day.

The cost allocation agreement being proposed sets an upper bound as we have heard earlier this evening of 6.71 million gallons per day before the city would exceed its allocation and have to make this true up payment to the county.

allocation of 6.1 million gallons represents over 30% more water than we used in 2010.

Not only have we been talking about that, but we've also been talking about trying to institute more aggressive water conservation efforts.

And if we are able to be successful in that, then we may be able to push that level of consumption out even farther into the future and maybe even beyond the 2042 line and closer to the 50-year line.

if we do a good job of conserving water.

As we have talked about and as counselors have discussed previously, the idea is that, boy, we wouldn't have to have all this water if we could do a better job of conservation.

Well, if we do a better job of conservation, then we probably won't exceed the cap that everybody seems to be worried about.

So I support the plan that would have the city pay 15% of the cost of a new dam, which increases our total water storage capacity and at a cost that is less than it would be just to fix the spillway on the old dam to comply the safety regulations.

I support the plan that would have the city pay 20% of the cost of the pipeline, which increases the availability of our total water supply by connecting two of our largest reservoirs.

It's a deal that seems to me to be the best long-term interest of the city, while also meeting the requirements to maintain a healthy flow rate in our rivers, even in times of drought.

I also remember the drought 10 years ago, with brown lawns, unwashed cars, paper plates in restaurants, and widespread concern about whether we would run out of water before precipitation returned to normal.

We have the opportunity to prepare now so that we don't have to experience that kind of situation again.

I urge you to approve the cost sharing proposal that is on the table so we can get started on this project.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

My name is Kelton Flynn.

I live at 101 Robertson Lane.

I am very concerned that the citizens of Charlottesville are getting a raw deal with their proposed cost sharing agreement.

There is one aspect that I wish to address.

According to the agreement, if the city's water usage exceeds a specified threshold, the city will have to pay more for its water.

It is my understanding that the university's water comes from the city.

Even if the city puts in place tremendous water conservation to stay under the cap, we could be undone by the university's plans for growth.

Has this been taken into account?

AECOM projects

Warding is his first year in the future for the university, but has the university bought into those numbers?

Good evening.

Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

I had prepared three minute remarks for this public hearing.

I will not use them.

I will not use them because for me it comes down to one question.

Why, oh why, are three of you planning to crucify the people of Charlottesville, the electric

All the people who have already signed have spoken.

Thank you for the opportunity.

My name is Phyllis Kochiris.

I've been a resident of the county for 37 years.

I also own a business in the city for the last 30 years or so.

And I'm here because I'm very concerned and I also address my remarks to the three of you about taking a vote at this point.

I'm appalled that we are not able to answer questions like the cost and some of these other allocation questions that have been addressed and I too love this city, I love the county, I want to respect this council, I want to respect how you will deal with this issue and of course we all want water for our citizens and we want this to be a place that we continue to love

to live and to raise our children.

And if you go ahead with this the way it seems to me it is now and that we have the kind of growth that the people that seem to be supporting this plan want, I'm afraid that I will not want to live here and that people won't want to come here anymore because it won't be what we love and what we have now.

And that's why I'm here.

And especially to you, Ms. Galvin, I wish that you would take more time.

You've only just gotten here.

Please, please look at this new information.

I really believe that if you look at it, you will understand why we are here, why we are making this plea for you to take more time to consider this.

I don't know really how else to ask you either to please take your time and reconsider this so that we have something that we can be proud of.

and not be ashamed of because I do not think that we will be living in a place where we can be proud of our rivers.

We're going to be killing our rivers.

We're sucking them out.

We haven't done maintenance dredging.

If we had done that, we might not even be having to answer some of these questions that we are.

So let's go and maintain the wonderful resources we have.

And please do not vote on this tonight.

Take your time and reconsider this.

My name is Bailey Elizabeth.

I live at 505 Elliott, no longer homeless.

There's a couple of things that came up in my mind listening to you guys talk about all this tonight.

This isn't an issue that I'm well educated on, so my apologies to everybody else that knows so much about all this stuff because I should have been paying attention.

The majority of people here don't support this plan and your job as council is to listen to that, not rich people who believe that constant growth is always what's best.

When you think about how much this is going to cost the city, you need to think of

how we as a nation tend to commodify everything.

And that's not necessarily what's best for our country.

What's the worth of a tree?

What's the worth of a river?

What's the worth of losing nature and species that live in that area?

My name is Stanton Braverman at 226 Douglas Avenue here in Charlottesville.

I am against building the dam.

And I have a quick comment as the people who were in favor of the dam keep mentioning the blessings of the Army Corps of Engineers and the nation's Conservancy.

The Army Corps of Engineers were the ones who built a dike over around New Orleans.

And we know what the quality of their work is and a lot of their estimates.

Good evening.

I'm Jeff Warner.

I'm a city resident.

I live at 212 Wine Street.

I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of my family, my wife, my two kids, and I'm here to represent the Piedmont Environmental Council.

It's a little disappointing to hear people clapping behind me to comments that go against the Nature Conservancy.

It's an organization that I've had a lot of pride to work with and it has taken tremendous amount of concern for the health of the rivers in this community.

Back in 2005 when this all started, I remember Rich Schuyler came in my office because it was my birthday and he said, it looks like they may go to the James River for our water supply.

and I put together a group, some of you know who was on that group and we fought and we fought and we argued and we made Tom Frederick's life hell saying we wanted to keep our water supply local and we achieved that and we achieved that with a plan that restores flows to these rivers.

and these are not decisions that PEC made or I certainly didn't make it because of some new car smell.

I am certainly, no one in this room could ever argue that I am in support of sprawl or development in the county.

I do most of my work in the county going toe to toe with those folks.

Kathy, you know very well.

Mr. Huja, you know.

This was a plan developed with a lot of analysis.

It was a plan developed under state and federal regulations about stream flows, about how much you had to project forward for population.

This was not just something that Mr. Frederick came up with to annoy folks.

I didn't want to get into it, but it's a little frustrating.

It's a little offensive to hear people claim that my support, PEC support for this plan is part of some sort of corrupt agenda or some effort to misinform people.

I would argue that our organizations have done more to try to inform people about what's going on.

And as I've said to many of my friends who I have unfortunately been arguing with over this one,

I've yet to see a qualified set of documents that say that I should change my position on this.

But we know that dredging will not provide enough water for our people and for the rivers and streams.

You guys know this is a good plan.

You know the reasons why we have discussed this ad infinitum.

And I urge you to move forward tonight.

I thank you all for your service.

It is thankless.

David, Dede, Huja, Kristin, Kathy, you guys are amazing to put up with all this.

But you know what the information is.

Please move forward.

I thank you.

My family thank you.

Hi.

Brett Buchanan, 710 Ridge Street in the city.

I've got a lot of concerns about this agreement, but I'm going to focus on just a couple of things.

One, I have to say I was pretty taken aback when Dave asked the very simple question, what will this agreement cost us if things go exactly according to projections?

And we don't have an answer for that.

I mean in my mind that kind of reminds me of someone who goes in to get an adjustable rate mortgage and says tell me what the rate is before the mortgage goes up but I don't need to know what it costs after that because I'll figure something out in the meantime that'll take care of that.

I think we need to know what it's going to cost for 50 years if things go exactly according to our projections and of course we can you know argue after that whether their projections are right and all that kind of thing but the second point is

I've been confused from the beginning on how the basic conception of cost sharing is founded.

And it seems like I'd liken it to we're two families and we own a car together.

There was a cost of buying the car.

There's a cost of driving the car and there's depreciation off the value of the car.

And everything in this agreement seems to be premised on the basis of one family says, I drive the car 40,000 miles a year and another family says, I drive at 20,000.

And so going forward, we're going to let you guys drive at 40,000 and we'll let you guys drive at 20,000.

That to me doesn't seem like a very sensible or equitable way to figure out who's going to pay for what.

I think the more sensible way to do it would be what did that family contribute to the cost of the car and the cost of running the car and the cost of putting gas in the car and what did that family contribute to the cost of the car, running it, and putting gas in it.

And I mean, I've never seen anything anywhere in this discussion that even began to try and look at it in that way.

So, those are my comments.

Do you have any tea?

Good evening, my name is Blake Carabotti and I live at 1108 Little High Street.

I come tonight because I have been involved I guess for 10 years with the water plan starting in 2000 I remember specifically with Mr. Tropier.

A good saying I often go by is there's nothing new under the sun, things have never been like they are today.

and I take that to heart because some of the comments I heard tonight obviously because of my service I heard many times over crucify intentional acts of negligence are used as arguments to something that's very serious 50 years from now very very serious and I think it's reprehensible to the discourse now

The good thing about it, we are Charlottesville, so we're used to those kinds of words and can filter them.

My point tonight is first, please pass this.

I really want to look at the long term.

I want to know if it's a three to two vote, so I direct this comment to you two guys on your right and my left, that what are you going to do if it passes?

Are you going to let it go so that we can go forward and provide water?

Or will there be, like the word one person used five times, obfuscation continuing on?

That's my concern because I think it will pass.

I think it's a great plan.

It certainly has flaws.

The figures are going to change tomorrow.

There's nothing new under the sun.

Things are never like they are today.

You'll be saying that next week.

So please, for the whole community, not us, 50 years from now, and please, Dede and Dave, please concentrate.

If you lose the vote to move on and try to build the best system we got, try not to obfuscate it because we'll need it.

Your short service, if it's 8 or 12 years, no matter, is really irrelevant.