City Council Meeting   9/17/2012

September 17th, Meeting of the City Council.

Mr. Norris?

Here.

Ms. Smith?

Here.

Mr. Huja?

Yes.

Ms. Szakos?

Yes.

Ms. Galvin?

Thank you.

I'd like to start this meeting remembering a very important part of our community who has passed away last week.

His name was Preston Koiner.

He was a dear friend of our community who died suddenly last week.

Preston was a proud resident of Charlottesville.

He was truly committed to giving back to the community, that he cared deeply.

He is specially captivated with our history, Siri's history.

and let him into it more in many ways in historical society, Boro Heart Children's Review, Celebrate 250, an oratory.

He was very dedicated to member of Boro Heart Children's Review and he will be missed by his family, friends and community.

If you would join me in a moment of silence.

Thank you.

I have Proclamation, CASA Family Day.

Let me read this and then I'll hand it out.

whereas the use of illegal prescription drugs and abuse of alcohol and nicotine constitute a greatest threat to the well-being of American children.

Whereas 16 years of survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has consistently found that more often children and teenagers eat dinner with their families are less likely there to smoke, drink, use illegal drugs.

Whereas frequent family dining is associated with lower rates of teen smoking, dental, illegal drug use, and prescription drug abuse.

Whereas the correlation between the frequent family dinner and reduced risk for teen substance abuse is well documented.

Whereas parents who are engaged in their children's lives

through such activities as frequent family dinners are less likely to have children who abuse substances, whereas the family dinners have long constituted a substantial pillar of family life in America.

Now, therefore, I, Satyendra Singh, Huja, Mayor of City of Charlottesville, Virginia, do hereby proclaim September 24, 2012 and the fourth Monday of every year

Every September is a family day, a day off to eat dinner with your children, and I urge all citizens to recognize and participate in this observance.

Signed, September 17th.

Here's somebody here to receive that.

On behalf of the Safe Schools Healthy Students Project, I just want to thank the City Council for supporting this idea of Family Day, families having dinner with their children to support their good ideas, their good choices, their health, and their academic achievement.

I wanted to make one more small announcement.

As you know, this is 250th year of city of Charlottesville.

So I hope you're having a good year and good party.

So if you're having a really big party, 250 gala, it will be on November 11th, Sunday, November 11th.

Tickets are available.

They'll be featuring cool and gang and many other local artists.

The ticket is $10-$30.

The whole community is invited to come take part in this celebration and I hope all the organizations and individuals will join in this program.

You can purchase this ticket by contacting the John Paul Johnson email box office or going online to the city website.

I want to encourage everybody to take part in this celebration.

Last Saturday, I was in another group of meeting where I was celebrating 225th anniversary of the Constitution.

We are an older than the Constitution.

We are reason to be celebrating this thing.

I hope you will all join in.

I have got to do one announcement and I'll wait for other councilors to join.

Okay.

One announcement, the Chiamba West African Dance Class.

It's going to be on Wednesdays from 6 until 7, beginning September 26th, and it will go through to November 7th.

It will be at the McGuffey Art Center.

Live drumming, high energy, great cardio.

adult dance classes, children's dance classes, and drum classes available.

and I have a couple of announcements.

Counselor Smith, I assume that you're doing the scholarship program announcements?

Government Services Day is Thursday, September 27th from 10 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.

The public is invited to the downtown mall to visit city departments and learn about what the city does every day.

We also have coming up three public meetings for people to come and give their ideas to the Charlottesville Comprehensive Plan.

These will be things that will kind of guide the future land use future decision makings for some time to come so if you're interested in the future of Charlottesville I would urge you to come to at least one of these the first is October 17th from 6 to 8 p.m. at Buford Middle School

The second is October 25th from 6 to 8 p.m. at Venable Elementary School.

And the third is November 1st from 7 to 9 p.m. at Clark Elementary School.

And I assume that information will also be on our charlottesville.org websites.

and I have one other general announcement which is if you are not registered to vote or if you have moved since you last registered to vote, I would encourage you to register to vote.

The deadline is October 15th and if you've moved, you need to file a change of address by re-registering.

You can visit the office of the voter registrar at the City Hall Annex during business hours or print out a voter registration form at sbe.virginia.gov, that's State Board of Elections, SBE.

You can also go to either of those locations to get a request for an absentee ballot if you won't be in town or able to get to the polls on election day.

Okay, and I will now talk about the Charlottesville Scholarship Program.

A deadline is coming up on October 1st for part of the Charlottesville Scholarship Program that offers scholarship opportunities to adults 25 years and older.

You need to be a resident of the city or an employee of the city of Charlottesville.

This is to continue your education.

As I say that the deadline is October 1st and the way to find out more about this is SevilleScholarship.com and speaking of Charlottesville Scholarship Program, their gala, which is their

annual fundraiser started last year is this Saturday at the Paramount starting at seven and is really going to be a special program particularly since this was another one of Preston Koiner's.

He was very dedicated to this program.

He was a sponsor actually of this gala as he was very involved with 250 and in fact his memorial gifts are going to the Charlottesville Scholarship Program.

So it is particularly touching

The fact that this gala is on Saturday.

Another school announcement.

There will be a 5K run for Clark Elementary.

It's called the Clark Elementary School Buzz-By Belmont 5K run on October 6.

is to benefit the Clark Education Opportunity Fund.

And there is information on how to register.

As I say, it's on October 6th.

Walkers and strollers are also welcome and they will also need volunteers.

The website for that is clark5k.org.

So check it out.

And this is particularly important for Clark Elementary because it is

has a very high degree of poverty and one of kind of the hidden inequities in

in that fact is that it doesn't have necessarily parents that have extra financial resources to contribute to the school.

So this is a really great way to support Clark.

And just one last little announcement, and that's about proposed route changes for CAT.

It's a different topic.

The proposed changes we talked about at, I don't know, for our last meeting or the meeting before that for Route 4 and 6,

There's going to be a public meeting about that on Monday, September 24th.

That would be next Monday at 7 p.m. Where is this?

At City Space.

So it's at City Space, 7 p.m. next Monday to talk about the, these are the short-term changes for CAT, particularly on 4 and 6.

There might have been a few other tweaks there.

But this is, I would hope that this will be announced

in a variety of ways because as Brandon Collins pointed out to us, six serves a lot of low-income residents and so I think it will be really important that we reach out and be sure that people most affected by these changes hear about this meeting.

I would like to announce that next week we have the first annual Refugee Film Festival.

University of Virginia Center for International Studies and the International Rescue Committee are hosting a festival next week.

Monday, September 24th at 6 p.m. is The Last Survivor, which features refugees from Congo, Darfur and Rwanda.

Tuesday, September 25th, 6 p.m. is Moving to Mars and Where We Live.

which features refugees from Burma and Iraq.

And Wednesday, September 26th at 6 p.m., God Grew Tired of Us featuring refugees from Sudan.

Do you have any other announcements?

Any other announcements from any of the members of the council?

Do you have a list

Thank you.

This is a period for public comments.

You have three minutes to speak.

Good evening.

My name's Carl Ackerman.

I live at 1611 East Market Street in the Woolen Mills, and I'm here tonight to ask for your help.

You will be shortly hearing, if you haven't already heard, that an establishment at the entrance of our neighborhood has requested a special use permit to go from the bar restaurant category to a music hall.

Full disclosure, I don't think a music hall is something we need right at the entrance to the neighborhood, but actually that's not why I'm here.

This has been a tremendously divisive issue in our neighborhood.

This has been an issue where personalities, our neighborhood president and the owner of the establishment have been battling via email and driving people off our neighborhood list.

What I'd like to ask City Council and each of you is to please help us reframe this.

I'm on the board.

I'm actually kind of embarrassed that we haven't been able to do this ourselves.

I feel like we kind of need a time out on this.

By reframing it, what I mean is

eliminate the things that kind of don't count here, the personal stuff, the, you know, you haven't come to my establishment.

You are not trustworthy.

It's a First Amendment right.

It's not, it's none of that.

We need to know what the process is.

Is it good process?

We need to hear from council that you understand what the neighborhood has been talking about for many years about the various pressures on the neighborhood from industrial side, from RWSA, from an expanding business community, which I think we all want to see moving down Meade part way, but then also down High Street on the other side of our neighborhood.

and finally, I think it's really important that you make a decision based on the nearest neighbors to the establishment.

Good evening.

And just a moment before I give you my prepared remarks, because I didn't hear it from the dais, I did want to recognize that today is Constitution Day.

In 1787, we had 39 brave Americans who voted to ratify the United States Constitution, 225 years old today.

So I want to thank everybody who's ever taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and for those who have fought to secure our liberties, whether in armed combat or otherwise.

Thank you for the opportunity to say that.

I'm here tonight, counselors, in the way of sort of a personal introduction.

I won't have in three minutes tonight the time to discuss in full detail why I'm here.

But in Charlottesville tomorrow, on Friday, September 7th, Shawn Tubbs had written an article entitled, TJPDC Livability Planners to be Let Go Early.

Now I know there's a couple of representatives from the City Council as well as the Board of Supervisors in the county that sits on the TJPDC.

So I'll be following up with them and all of you really in some email.

I'll be sending you some more detailed information.

But in the way of an introduction, in this article it was discussed that Mr. Williams has spent roughly 85% of the $1 million allocation for the three-year plan.

Due to a math error, as he says, that money is coming up short, that two temporary employees hired to help update the comprehensive plans will leave their jobs, and a third is already left to take another job.

That is a federal loan and I'm sure there is a lot of details and a lot of rules and such the way that has to be administrated and I am concerned with what having seven months shy of money for the planners will do to that plan.

No doubt it's an embarrassing situation for Mr. Williams.

He's paid handsomely and I would be embarrassed too if I come up with that sort of error.

And I suppose it's human nature to seek a scapegoat.

However, in that article he discussed that the Jeffersonary Tea Party had opposed the

the grant, which we did.

He called it a four month controversy, but I'm here to set the record straight for you and again we'll have more details later.

But in essence, from February of last year until June 8th, when a vote was taken at the Board of Supervisors to have them officially approve the grant, that's the four month period in which Mr. Williams refers to.

The Jeffersonary Tea Party was neither aware of nor active in any sort of argument with this grant.

We weren't aware of it until a week before they had the kickoff event on April 27th.

So at best, Mr. Williams only claimed two months.

Second of all, he says that he spent $15,000

basically to charge time for himself, extra time to address the quote controversy that we had caused.

The only controversy we had caused was voicing our objection to the exception of the grant, had made a couple of appearances in the media, and had spoke to the Board of Supervisors.

In fact, I came here on the week that they were going to do the vote, the evening before, to let you all know how we felt about it as well.

According to the grant application, Mr. Williams, I don't know if this is the exact amount, but the amount that shows on there is that he's paid $59.40 per hour.

If you were to charge that amount, let's round it up to $60.

For 40 hours a week, it would take six full weeks of 40 hours to spend $15,000.

Without shortchanging the effectiveness of the Jeffersonary Tea Party, I guarantee you that he would not have needed six weeks full time to counter what we were saying.

Thank you, so I'll conclude.

So in conclusion, again I'll be sending you more information and I realize this is really a direct project of the TJPDC, however next year

All of you and all the counselors and all the supervisors will be called upon to vote the final result of this three-year plan.

Good evening.

I'm Nancy Carpenter.

I'm a county resident.

I'm coming here this evening to say how much I enjoyed the Charlottesville Pride Festival on Saturday, and I appreciate Amy Marshall and all the organizers that put together such a fantabulous festival.

And I also wanted to note that I didn't realize that Mr. Norris was our own Charlottesville's Ryan Seacrest.

but I did appreciate his emceeing job.

That being said, I also want to notate a rather important date today.

Today is September 17th, which is the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and I didn't want a chance to not recognize what has been done in the past year.

I don't believe that we need to know that the tents are not there, that work has not been ongoing.

There have been lots of things going on in this world in the last year and actually when you think about heroic movements, one year is not a very long time to effect change.

It took the abolitionists in this country about 30 years to have slavery taken away by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Suffragettes took longer than that for 50% of the American population to enjoy the freedom of the vote.

It has taken environmentalists

a long time to work with anti-nuclear factions in order to protect us from any type of catastrophes like Japan has done.

But we will continue to work within and without trying to effect change and it's a long job like we said before a year ago when we were here at the council for various meetings

that it is a long job, that change may take a while, but I believe what Occupy has done is very articulately and incontrovertibly talked about our economic system and how it is impacting each and every one of us every day.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak who did not sign up?

I'm Casey Sperry, I'm a market vendor and I would like to propose the idea to use the old H&R block building potentially as a co-op.

Anybody else who would like to speak on that?

Good evening, Brandon Collins, 536 Meade Avenue.

I didn't think I'd have a chance to speak tonight.

A couple of things, I'm very much looking forward to the report on Jaunt, and I hope that you all keep in mind that Jaunt is an extremely necessary service in our community for people with disabilities and elderly people.

and any kind of break and any kind of support you can give to John greatly affects people that live in the city who really have very few options for transportation.

So excited to be looking at that.

I did want to say some of you probably saw in the news this past week on September 11th there was an eviction at South First Street Public Housing and a number of residents and a number of community supporters were there.

and I thought I might take this opportunity to explain just a little bit about what that was about because the news, you know, sometimes these things are hard to understand and I think the news didn't quite nail it and I think some clearing up is definitely necessary.

In public housing, what happens if you get behind in your rent, you go to court and

They may offer to work out a payment plan with you or something like that, but basically they take possession of your house, which basically means for a full year at any given notice they can evict a resident.

The lady who was evicted on

It was actually the Friday before Tuesday.

She had offered to pay the money that she owed and the housing authority went forward with the eviction anyways and that was the third eviction of that week.

Something that residents who are already extremely frustrated for a number of reasons

just couldn't tolerate anymore and that's why we were there and you know I sincerely hope that this council will pay a lot of attention to what's going on with the housing authority.

We feel like we have an ally in the city and that the city's priorities on how to treat people and how to

I hope you keep that in mind, that if the city was in the business of

evicting people that you would give people a leg up and work with them, especially elderly people who have lived in the community for a very long time.

And that said, I would like to, you know, just thank Mr. Norris for being such a great commissioner on the Housing Authority and I hope he remains on that body and he's done a lot of good and he has the trust of a lot of people in public housing.

Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak?

My name is Philip Jones.

I live at 110 Forest Hills Avenue.

Mr. Mayor, city manager, council.

I'm here to give you a report, update report on the problems that haven't been completed yet in Forest Hill, 9th Street and Forest Hill Avenue.

Some of the markings on the street have been put up.

The signs, the indicator signs have not been put up.

The fire hydrant curb markings have not been painted.

We're losing money on that position right there on Pine and 9th Street because Carl parks over that fire hydrant park every day.

One of the things I noticed this week, having nobody been over there patrolling at all, I guess the guy might be on patrol, might be on vacation or something.

So I'm waving it for another week to see if I see him around.

But, you know, it's been going on for over a year now.

And we've got school kids over there, and they don't cross all that school time.

You've got the Boys and Girls Club over there.

And the kids use that, and they're traveling through there all evening until dark.

and it's, you know, it's a lot of traffic coming through that street.

Even opening up to a G.F.P.A., it's still going to be a lot of traffic because people are going through all sides of town.

And, you know, this is just a simple project, you know.

I had a friend of mine that I was talking to the other day, he said, you know, he said, if the city gave me the paint, I'll paint the curb as myself.

You know?

And it's just so simple.

But you take somebody who wants thousands of dollars to do something, you can't do it.

You know, just take a, I don't know how many signed calls, but you make them down at City Hall, I mean City Yard, I talk to the people who make the signs down there.

And they're willing to put them up.

All they need is approval to do it.

And it's for the safety concern of the citizens.

Not only Truman, everyone that lives in the community.

We are a diverse community.

Probably one of the most diverse communities in Charlottesville.

and, you know, safety to me.

When you get old, y'all out there are as old as I am probably.

You know, maybe the mayor here.

Yeah, you probably about 72, 73 maybe.

But I'm really a 70.

And when you get old, you think about safety.

Young, you don't care about safety.

I didn't when I was young, but when you get old, you think about these things that's concerning you and everyone else around you.

So I appreciate it.

You know, let's don't make it another year until we get the job completed.

Good evening, I'm Peter Klayman.

I live at 407 Head Street in the city.

I notice there's two items that deal with bicycling, bicycle funding, bicycle waivers actually.

Bicycle funding and bicycle waivers are on your agenda today and I like to see issues promoting

improvement of infrastructure for bicycle riding as well as pedestrianism.

And there's two pedestrian items, one that is about $100,000 matching grant and I surely support any opportunities to match funds for bicycle infrastructure or pedestrian infrastructure.

and then the other is about a proposed waiver and I saw that the staff report is recommending that you not grant this waiver and I also would support that hope you will not grant that waiver but that instead use that as an opportunity to consider improving the pedestrian sidewalk along that block if you have additional funds coming in perhaps one could couple some city funds to enhance neighborhoods

or Pedestrian Way sidewalks in neighborhoods where there is going to be new sidewalks put in because of new construction.

I think it would be a nice partnership between the developers and the city and that this would encourage developers not to say well I'm just building in this one little spot and why should I build a sidewalk that runs for 50 feet.

that they would actually be the seed for a 150 foot or 200 or 300 foot sidewalk that would serve that entire neighborhood if that's possible.

Another thought would be that if you did grant waivers, not necessarily for this one but for other ones, that there be some fund set up that in lieu of building sidewalks and getting a waiver that some funds from the developer could be put in to developing pedestrian infrastructure elsewhere in the city.

so that they wouldn't be saying, well, I want this waiver because I don't want to spend the money.

The idea would be if they could build it with good sidewalk capability, it would be to their advantage to do that because they're going to spend the money elsewhere.

It would enhance the property that they're actually developing and spending.

So I don't know whether that's a legal opportunity, but I think it would be a great opportunity to encourage developers to look favorably upon building sidewalk infrastructure rather than thinking of it as something that should be waived.

Anybody else would like to speak?

If not, we'll close the public hearing part, public comments part.

I'd be happy to start.

First of all, I apologize, Mr. Jones.

I remember

even before I was on council, you coming to council about this very, what is not a complicated issue and I would request as a councilor that this be looked into and I'll follow up on it because I'm just shocked it hasn't been done yet.

Secondly,

Thank you, Ms. Starr, for coming and reminding us that it's Constitution Day.

That is an important holiday and our anniversary, I should say, particularly in this year of our 250th birthday.

And Ms. Carpenter, also, it's anniversary's all over.

It's just amazing.

and I actually wanted to thank Mr. Ackerman.

I actually absolutely agree that I think we were all at the Planning Commission meeting at least for parts of it and I think there was a lot said that wasn't relevant to the decision and I absolutely agree with you that we have to be very clear about first of all what decision is being made, what the implications of it are and what is relevant to it.

I'll agree with everything Ms. Smith just said.

I did want to get an update from Mr. Jones.

If you have one, have we scheduled the test for the Black Market Moto Saloon?

I know that there was contact.

There's someone at the back of the room who might not.

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Carpenter, I totally agree about the Pride Festival.

It was a wonderful event and I too want to thank Amy Marshall and Lisa Green and the whole crew, Buck Smith, everybody for organizing.

They did a great job.

We'll look forward to more information on the PDC issue.

Occupy Wall Street, Happy Birthday.

I think it's people like you, Ms. Carpenter, that have really, I think, fulfilled a lot of the potential.

I think a lot of us were

thinking that the energy that went into sustaining a 24-7 encampment might have been better spent doing exactly what you've been doing for the last year, which is getting involved in the civic arena, educating yourself, advocating, speaking out, organizing.

And so I want to thank you personally.

And I know you're not the only one.

We've seen Jordan, Bailey, a lot of them have gotten involved in the civic life of this community.

I think that's great to see.

I would love to hear more about the co-op idea about H&R Block and exactly what ideas you might have along those lines.

In terms of, oh well, and I definitely agree on Forest Hills.

I'll definitely follow up on that.

In terms of the eviction policy, we are going to be discussing that at the next housing authority board meeting next Monday night.

And really for me, what it boils down to is not does the, it's not,

Does the housing authority have the right to evict somebody under circumstances?

It's not could they evict somebody, but should they evict somebody?

When you look at a situation like the one that got all the news attention, you know, a woman who's 62 some odd years old, lived in public housing for 22 years, 20 of which in the same unit.

No criminal record, no record as a troublemaker, consistently paid rent for many years, fell behind.

The question is, is that somebody you want to make homeless or is that somebody you want to work with to keep in their home?

I'll kind of follow up.

I would also like to ask Mr. Jones if we can

get any report if you know of what's been happening in the Forest Hills neighborhood because I think that is something that's come before us now twice and we have asked for something to happen and it's concerning me that, did you say three times?

Okay, that at least that there isn't visible response in the neighborhood because that is something we've asked for.

I would say ditto, ditto, ditto.

There was something else I wanted to specifically mention

I guess to Mr. Kleeman we'll certainly discuss the sidewalk waiver in particular but I really I like your idea of having it you know possibly be something that could be offered as an alternative but not to be a way to get out of spending money because I think we really need to invest in the infrastructure for pedestrians in the city and this is one way that we have in our in our legal structure to make sure that happens and so we need to be paying attention to that.

I just wanted to offer one slight correction about no one mentioning Constitution Day because I think the mayor had mentioned it in his comments at the very beginning of the meeting, so just to clarify that.

Great.

Again, I would like to underline the concerns that Mr. Jones has brought up about the Forest Hills neighborhood, so that makes four of us Mr. Jones that we want to follow up on that.

Mr. Kleeman, I definitely

share your interest and concern and perhaps we could look into whether or not we could think of this as a proffer, think of it as a fund, much as we have the ability for developers to contribute to the housing fund, there could be a bike pedestrian infrastructure fund, just an idea.

Ms. Spearman, she's still here, definitely what is the co-op because there's a group of people in the community that have been looking at co-ops and light industrial incubators.

I strongly encourage you to come to council meeting on October 1st to hear a presentation by the emerging leaders in architecture architect group who is going to be talking about what they have been researching in terms of

what they call the Green Dot Initiative and it's about cooperative work experiences and cooperatives in terms of ownership arrangement.

Ms. Thorpe, I'm this council representative on TJPDC and we are

very diligently trying to make sense out of

out of the questions that have arisen since that meeting that Thursday night.

I'm part of a committee that was put together by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

Mr. Joe Cheshire, the president, the chair of that commission is the point of contact, but myself for the city and Malik for the county, and then there's the Louisa representative, Willie Gentry, and then there's Keith Smith from Flubana.

We constitute

the group that's looking into this.

So I appreciate your comments.

Definitely very appreciative of your call for reason and process.

I feel like I've kind of begun the council conversations that are about to happen and I did meet with several representatives of the Willen Mills neighborhood on Friday morning.

It is a very, very emotional time for that community.

And I must say, though, I do not know what emails have been crisscrossing about town, but I have heard that my name has been mentioned as having said certain things.

And I was not the author.

I did not see these emails.

I did not sanction any emails.

So for the record, I would like to just clarify.

for everyone what I heard and what I said.

And then we will discuss this at another council meeting.

But I do feel like it is important to clarify and make the record straight.

The three people I met, as I said, all three live in the Woollen Mills.

What I heard were questions.

Why didn't staff make recommendations based on findings?

That was their concern based on Tuesday night's Planning Commission.

Is this establishing bad precedent, namely that anyone can initiate a change to an existing zoning ordinance by first breaking the stipulations on land use imposed by that existing zoning ordinance?

Third, why didn't the Planning Commission apply its own standards of review?

This is a question they asked me.

For the Willam Mills residents have been asking to dialogue with the city for years over how to positively change the area zoned M1.

Why hasn't this happened?

So here's what I said.

I said almost on the basis of a lack of process alone I could not support the special use permit as it would establish a very bad precedent for future master planning and rezoning requests.

I also said some contributing factors with the residents past request for engagement with the city about the future of the Willing Mills in general and M1 in particular, the site in particular, coupled with a desire to have mixed use destinations within walking distance.

I did not see these folks as being opposed to mixed use development.

Third, I said to them that I would research the existing SUP zoning ordinance as well as existing planning documents including this 2006 design day and the 2007 comp plan to make my position clear to myself, to counselors, and to the public.

I said I was concerned by the Willam Mills resident's statement that the Planning Commission did not apply its own standards of review in this case.

I said I would simply look into that.

I encouraged them to meet with all counselors.

I encourage them to hold us, government, meaning council, staff, planning commission, accountable.

and I finally said the need to come up with a vision for the woolen mills that involves the entire community, not one person or a handful, but the entire community is very evident.

On that score, this situation appeared to me to be similar to the Cinthiana rezoning and that the rezoning request did not relate to a broader community vision plan.

Like the Satyendra rezoning in the Rose Hill neighborhood, the Willam Mills residents have been asking for dialogue and community vision at least since 2006 design day.

Without a community plan, this part of the comprehensive plan that articulates a vision that would justify rezoning,

A by-right zoning, in my view, should remain in place.

So that is what I said and I want the record to say.

I have that clearly stated.

Thank you.

I have two comments.

First on 4th Street, Philip Jones.

I'll take it a little different tact.

I don't want to run a report.

I'll ask the state to take care of the businesses in the next 30 days.

Second, I've talked to the city manager about the idea of what Peter just raised, whether we're taking some money and putting it in a fund for a pedestrian and he's going to check over the city attorney and see if that is legal or not.

Because there are times when it may not be wise to just build one house, but if your money can be put into the general account,

If that does not happen, I agree with the peers that maybe Sydney can join in and finish this block and doing that.

Those are only comments I had.

Any other comments from any council member?

Okay, thank you.

Item A, Minutes for September 4th.

Item B, an appropriation, Albemarle County reimbursement for the Central Library Mechanical Air Handler Replacement Project, $5,493.61, first of two readings.

Item C, an appropriation, Albemarle County reimbursement for the Central Library Elevator Project, $25,746.33, first of two readings.

Item D in appropriation revenue sharing, appropriate $100,000 and transfer $100,000 for sidewalk construction, first of two readings.

Item E in appropriation skate park relocation, $255,850, first of two readings.

I just have a couple clarifications about the skate park money.

I just want to clarify that this was actually, this money is in the interchange budget for the skate park.

We're not deciding where some money in the federal and state monies are going.

That is correct.

That's undetermined at this time.

For the purposes of the temporary relocation of the portable skate units, we're not envisioning removing any trees.

As the design for the full skate park moves forward, they may want to take advantage of some of that topography.

I actually have a related question that came from a

This question that a reporter asked me today, the $255,000 is not just to move the temporary pieces across the street, right?

Exactly, and an appraisal was done of the existing improvements in that location that are going to be lost as a result of the construction.

That appraisal arrived at this number, the $255,000.

That will cover, the cost of actually moving the temporary skate, I mean the portable skate features is minimal.

Our staff are going to do it.

There will be some grading and layout and that sort of stuff.

That's what I told them.

Thank you.

Is there another question?

Any discussion?

Next item on agenda is honorary street name designation to Mr. George Ferguson, Mayor Franklin Gibson Street.

I'll make the report very brief, Mr. Mayor.

Last year the council adopted an honorary street name policy and the purpose of this is not to change the name of any street, it's to simply add a designation that there's an honorary street name and your policy says that they will be given to individuals or events that have made an important and lasting contribution to the city or represent a key

You have two applications on your agenda tonight, two resolutions.

As the mayor said, one is for Mr. George R. Ferguson and the other is for Mr. Franklin Delano Gibson and both of them

were community members who our research says met the qualifications for designation of these honorary street names.

The application that was submitted for Mr. Ferguson was submitted by Evelyn Mason and without going into all the detail,

It does discuss the fact that he was instrumental in the struggle to integrate the University of Virginia Hospital, also active in the civil rights movement, encouraged youth to remain engaged in community activities, and was a very active leading part of the NAACP.

Mr. Gibson opened Gibson's Grocery and is noted for serving all members of the community and really being a helping hand to all members no matter who they were in the community at a time when that may not have been the thing that was done.

The resolutions would designate

The extent of Fifth Street extended as George R. Ferguson Way.

Again, it would remain Fifth Street extended for official purposes.

It would be the secondary sign there with that designation.

In both of the applications,

The applicants describe the people that we're honoring or that we would be honoring if we vote for this this evening.

And so I just gleaned some kind of key pieces from each of them to share with you who it is that we are considering honoring.

Franklin Delano Gibson owned Gibson's grocery store for 40 years and turned it into a vibrant and much needed community center.

They called it a town hall for the Belmont neighborhood.

In addition to working in the store, he went to elderly customers' homes to help fix their plumbing.

He rescued young people whose cars had broken down.

In the store, he fed hungry children, and from all we hear, treated everyone as a friend.

Something, as was pointed out, was not always done in businesses at the time.

George R. Ferguson was the son of the first black physician in Charlottesville.

He was a community leader and civil rights pioneer.

He operated a funeral home, first on Rose Hill, then on Page, and finally on Ridge Street, in the house until recently occupied by former Charlottesville mayor Maurice Kotz and his family.

Mr. Ferguson was the father of one of the Charlottesville 12 who sought to integrate city schools in 1958, and he also fought to integrate the UVA hospital, where until 1954, African American patients were treated only in the basement.

Mr. Ferguson was president of the NAACP and encouraged young people in the community to get involved in civil rights by joining that organization.

Let me say that I have worked with both of them, and with them personally, and they are very deserving of this recognition.

They are both community minded people, and I think a good example for a community to serve.

It would be nice to read the resolutions.

Kristin sort of did the... Should I read the resolution?

The first is, shall I read them and then we can have a motion and then the next one?

The first resolution is designating 5th Street SW between Elliott Avenue and Harris Road with the honorary name of George R. Ferguson Way.

Whereas, George R. Ferguson was a well-known business owner in the Rose Hill, Page Street and Ridge Street neighborhoods for several decades.

and whereas George R. Ferguson fought tirelessly for equal rights for African American citizens in Charlottesville, serving as the local president of the NAACP at one time and working in the 1950s to integrate the University of Virginia Hospital and local schools and whereas George R. Ferguson was a source of inspiration and personal mentor to many young adults in the African American community,

Let's take one at a time.

Is there a second to that?

Second.

Should I vote?

Second resolution is designating Avon Street between Levy Avenue and Monticello Avenue with the honorary name of Franklin Delano Gibson Street.

Whereas Franklin Delano Gibson was a proud native of Charlottesville from the Fifeville neighborhood who grew up to be a successful entrepreneur and business owner despite the fact that he was forced to drop out of McGuffey School to help support his family.

And whereas Franklin Delano Gibson owned and operated Gibson's Grocery in Belmont for almost 40 years and used his store as a venue to serve and connect the residents of surrounding neighborhoods, touching the lives of many with his generosity and willingness to help others at any time of day or night.

And whereas Franklin Delano Gibson

set the standard for race relations in the 70s welcoming everyone as they were regardless of their background and like to describe the stores as a town hall of sorts and whereas a request has been submitted to this council to honor the memory of Mr. Franklin Delano Gibson by placing an honorary street name sign on Avon Street between Levy Avenue and Monticello Avenue and the request meets all the requirements under the city's honorary street name policy now therefore be it resolved by the city council for the city of Charlottesville, Virginia

Discussion?

Not vote.

Are there any members of these two families here in the audience?

Would you please stand up so we can recognize you also?

Would you like to say something?

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming.

I want to go out of order now for about three minutes.

We have Mr. Grant, who was going to be here a little earlier, but he couldn't make it because of urgent reasons.

Can I say one thing before, because I just wanted to acknowledge that in Evelyn Mason's letter about Ferguson Way that she notes that Paige Barfield and Jim Herndon provided her with the best customer service that she's received in the city.

So I want to acknowledge that.

Good example.

Thank you, sorry.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

I appreciate you accommodating me outside of your normal public comment process, but I did want to spend just a couple of minutes with you this evening to update you on the development of the regional legislative program, particularly to familiarize the two newest members of council with the program and the process that we go through to develop that.

The regional legislative program typically includes a list of five to six high priority items that we anticipate will be prominent in the next General Assembly session.

A lot of times these have been in the areas such as the state budget,

public education funding, transportation funding, CSA and some others.

There's also a section of ongoing concerns which list our policy positions on other topics and also includes specific requests that have come from the different localities in the region.

I've been going to the local governing bodies to discuss the program here in September.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be drafting the program and then we'll get that out to you the first part of October and then we'll make a formal request or a request to be a formal item on your agenda in November.

to discuss the draft program with you and to seek your approval of it.

And typically what we've done is to work that discussion and approval in conjunction with your local legislative program and your local legislative priorities.

And I've been working with your staff on your local priorities and possible initiatives and will continue to do so in the next couple of weeks.

To this point, I think the reaction that I've gotten from local governments since the conclusion of the last General Assembly session and some of the actions that we're taking there, particularly in the waning hours, is that we really need to focus the program this year on state mandates and the cost shifting of programs and service responsibilities from the state to the localities.

And we really hope to do that through a couple of means through this legislative program.

but also through the annual legislative forum that we will have in late November so that they really understand the impact of what they're doing in Richmond on you all here at the local government level.

So I thank you for your time this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry for changing the procedure a little bit.

Next item on our agenda is Sidewalk.

Good evening.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, Members of Council.

This is a sidewalk waiver request for 807 Moore Avenue.

The section 34-1124B of the city code requires that sidewalk be constructed on a previously unimproved lot or parcel unless this requirement is waived by council.

As you may recall, this is a fairly recent change to the code.

The previous process allowed many of these to be done administratively, but since the Supreme Court ruling that we could no longer do that, you get these now.

When reviewing these types of requests, Neighborhood Development Services receives these requests.

We refer them to our engineering staff to take a look at the site, and their primary concern is whether there are some

challenges with that site in terms of topography that require either cutting into a slope or building a retaining wall to maintain the safety and the structural soundness of that sidewalk.

And in that situation we often will recommend that the

Sidewalk be, the waiver request be approved in part to because the cost of maintaining that on the city could be burdensome in some cases.

In this situation the engineering staff did look at the site, they found no reason to grant, to not build the sidewalk there.

They found the topography to be perfectly accommodating to a sidewalk.

So in that situation we recommended the application, the request be denied.

There was a comment earlier about the ability to waive these with a payment in lieu of building the sidewalk and our staff looked at that several months back and that is not currently an option that the city has per state code.

Sorry about jumping the gun here.

First, my name is Bo Dickerson.

I live at 138 Baylor Lane.

My statement's on my little phone there, and it's just easier if I can read this instead of me trying to remember.

I also do want to just make one comment to Mr. Haleska.

I agree, it's not a topography or a cost.

It costs about $3,500 to put a sidewalk in.

It's not going to kill me and it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference from that perspective.

My biggest, well, here we go.

First, I do believe in pedestrian access and safety.

I live at 138 Baylor Lane.

Raymond Road has a sidewalk that's two feet wide with multiple telephone poles right in the middle of it.

And I have a stroller with my wife and I try to walk up and down that street and that's just not

really a possibility with a stroller.

But it is better than nothing.

I do believe in continuous sidewalks and providing children, because I have two of them, with safe options for walking to school, walking around the neighborhood, walking with friends, everything above.

What I do not believe in is making sidewalks and I've done it many times and this is the first time where I've applied for a waiver that go nowhere and they stop.

I would be overjoyed to give you $2,500, $3,500, $4,500 to say you all deal with it because I'm just building one sidewalk and the number of people that come up and say, do I have to have the sidewalk when they're buying the home?

every single one of them.

And if you don't believe me, come to the Parade of Homes and I promise you they're going to say the same thing.

With that being said, the last waiver that was approved was a new single-family home on Elliott Avenue in artery of the city, a street that is most definitely in need of sidewalks.

This request is for a lot on a minor side street, my request, within a mature neighborhood that is entirely built out

No other owners will be building sidewalks on that side of the street.

After I submitted the application I did find out to my delight that on the eastern side of Moore Avenue the sidewalk is going to be built connecting to Hazel,

and I can't remember that perpendicular street to the left, but connecting to Hazel, that main artery through the neighborhood, which in my mind, no one's going to use the 70 feet of sidewalk I'm going to build when 10 feet across the street they have 400 feet of sidewalk that connect to the city

access points.

And I think looking at Mr. Halaska's sidewalk recommendations for the city and what city council wants, it's for a connection, arteries going through the city, and just that pedestrian safety, which I do agree with completely.

However, when you have a sidewalk that's fully incorporated on the east side of Moore Avenue to build a 70-foot sidewalk that will not go anywhere, but

It's a specific spot.

I don't see the logic in it, so that's why I'm applying for the waiver.

I do have a question now.

Actually, I think it's probably a question for Mr. Haleska.

The sidewalk across the street on Moore Avenue is on the city's list to be built.

I think I spoke with the engineer, I think it's within the next couple of years it would be constructed.

The sidewalks already in the design phase so the engineer that's working on that project for us, Marty Silman, in discussing that with him he said only as a last resort would they flip it to the other side because they've already begun kind of property negotiations for the current route and getting all the easements lined up to construct that so only if a few neighbors just

I guess as I'm looking at the map it would make sense to me just having not gone through all the process of trying to design on the other side of the street already and putting in all that work.

Yeah, I don't know exactly where they're, you know, what determined that, but I'm sure they looked at both sides and made a judgment call.

I mean they did the same thing, St. Clair.

I think the way we do the sidewalk planning is once we get, you know, the priority is first streets that have no sidewalk on them, then once it's continuous on one side, doing a second continuous on the other side is very far down the list.

There's quite a few streets that don't have it yet at all, so they would

And so why are we

The standard that we use is the engineering standard that we've used.

There's a number of streets that you walk down in the city where a new house has been built and there is that little stretch of sidewalk.

And the idea is as an eventual goal for the city, we would have sidewalks on both sides of as many streets as we could get them on.

And so every little piece that we get helps.

And anecdotally speaking, I walk down St. Clair, we do not have a continuous sidewalk on either side.

I have a question then.

Ms. Smith, are you done?

Yeah, I am.

This is actually kind of the reason why I brought up the idea of a payment in lieu because

If the goal is to get at least continuous sidewalk on one side, isn't the better achievement making that continuous as opposed to having it be a hot skip and jump across the street and down the street?

So if the applicant was instead paying into a sidewalk fund that then gave the city some latitude as to where they could invest in that to make a continuous sidewalk,

I'm bringing that up as possibly the better good.

It's not perfect.

Ideally, you would have sidewalks on both sides.

I was going to ask the applicant to follow up your question.

Can I ask you a question?

I'm not a mind reader, but I would say C is not likely to give you room.

And you realize that there is a sidewalk need, at least on the other side, going to be built.

Would you be willing to contribute?

We're not demanding anything.

Yes.

Well I think there's no, I'm not asking, I'm forcing him to do that.

I'm just wondering Ms. Attorney,

I was saying that he will... Because he was joking.

I think the timing's not quite right here.

I would say just personally that I live actually on St. Clair, the one that Mr. Husker was describing, where we do have a sidewalk here and a sidewalk there and a sidewalk here.

And I walk a dog frequently on that street and we often do climb up on the sidewalk and then we cross over and go where there's a sidewalk because cars speed through there.

Cars don't speed through your street but it is just a block away from Burnley Moran.

Kids do come through there to get to the school and to go down to the soccer field there.

It is a very heavily child-used street and I think that, you know, even if a child is walking along there and a car is coming, it's a place, it'll provide a refuge where they can get up out of the street if they're halfway through the block.

So I really support the purpose of the

the law that we have that requires people to put in sidewalks even if they're only partial sidewalks and although I understand that if you just look at it purely from a you know site-specific logical perspective it doesn't make sense it still to me makes sense for the whole city to uphold these unless there's a real compelling reason why it's you know

No, I second.

I have the same sentiments as Kristin.

It just sort of drives me crazy.

So I seconded.

I did that.

I just want to go on record.

I'm going to vote against the motion because I think

So the motion is to deny the waiver, is it?

Okay.

Then we will discuss on that motion.

If not vote.

Thank you very much.

I donate quite a bit, actually.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Okay, next item on the agenda is America Back to Work Program Report.

Good evening.

Do you want to project something on the screen?

It's going to be on the screen.

Oh, great.

If you all can see it.

One second.

This gives you mobility.

We're here this evening to talk about the Back to Work program.

We're asking for funding for 10 city residents to attend certified nurse assistant training at the CATEC facility.

The program is called Back to Work.

Can I skip one?

Okay.

Currently, the Back to Work Program includes certified nursing assistant, medication aid technician, SURF SAVE manager certification, and GED prep training.

The job trainings that are offered through Back to Work are based on employer's needs and availability of classes for interested applicants.

We generally have classes either through PVCC or CATEC.

The certified nursing assistant program involves classroom and clinical instruction, includes topics such as nurse age standards, state requirements, legal issues, safety, nutrition, patient care, special care, science and clinical evaluation, tuberculin skin tests and criminal background checks are required.

Medicaid aid technician is generally a step up from the CNA.

Classroom training that enables caregivers to dispense non-prescription and or prescription medications.

CNA certification is required for that class, before taking that class.

We have many collaborating partners that work with the Back to Work program.

some of them are the Adult Learning Center of Charlottesville City Schools, the Alliance for Interfaith Ministries, AIM, which provides a lot of emergency assistance for our clients, the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center, also known as CATEC, Charlottesville Albemarle Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the Piedmont Virginia Community College, PVCC, and the Virginia Employment Commission.

The Back to Work Program is a job training program for low income residents of Charlottesville who are unemployed or underemployed.

Training programs are in areas that fulfill the employment needs of the Charlottesville metropolitan area.

The Back to Work Program began in 2009 when we had some funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus.

That funding ended in September 30th, 2010.

The City of Charlottesville awarded MACA a CDBG Community Development Block Grant in 2011 to resume the Back to Work Program.

And then in May 2012, additional grant funding was awarded to the Back to Work Program through the University of Virginia's Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

And this past year we've had 20 people enrolled in training programs.

Is that it?

With the grant we proposed to train 20 people, we actually trained 40.

With the CDBG grant, we proposed to train 20 people, we actually trained 40.

Six people exited the program prematurely.

When the grant ended, four were still progressing towards outcome.

They have all successfully completed their training.

Only one person has completed a GED.

We anticipated finding employment for 15 people.

Currently 11 are employed.

We have two scheduled to take their state certification exams this week, so our outcomes should go up in terms of employment.

Today we're here asking for $9,849.40 to provide CNA training for 10 city residents at CATEC.

Back to Work Program is a workforce development program that targets low-income residents, improves job skills, positions them for more and better job opportunities, and provides a pathway out of poverty.

prospective back-to-work program clients are recruited and referred from other MACA programs, Hope House, CARES, and Head Start from public housing, from social service and other nonprofit agencies, and former clients.

MACA's back-to-work program case managers provide intensive case management and supportive services that eliminate barriers to successful completion of job training programs.

CNA training is an alternate route into healthcare careers, an entry position for individuals who cannot afford college or associate degrees.

An entry level wage is above minimum wage, ranging between $10.75 and $11.75.

The CNA class for the Back to Work program's 10 city residents is expected to start the first week of November and end by mid-December of 2012.

Thank you for your presentation.

We have nine and currently there are two clients from the Workforce Incentive Program who may be interested in filling that one slot.

We won't know until later this week if that slot is not filled.

Well, I know FAR has the new resident services program they started earlier this year.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yes, I do.

I'm just so very happy to see you here tonight.

I think this is a really good opportunity to discuss and it's something that is near and dear to my heart personally is to see people empowered and I think this is something that we need to be focusing on very very much over the next few years and who knows when the recession will end but I think this is really a step in the right direction so I really appreciate your efforts.

I did notice that

Looking at your previous accomplishments, there was 14 out of the 40 applicants in your back to work program that actually succeeded in getting work.

No, 11.

So then it was 11 out of the 40?

Yes.

Pretty much, so that's like 20 to 30 percent.

It's, yes.

Yes, but it exceeds what we projected.

Well, the thing about the Back to Work Program is the longer you work in it, the more relationships you build and people are much more willing to help you as you gain a reputation in the community.

Okay, so you've developed a network among the employers.

We are and with, it's a bit premature, but we are working with the dean of the nursing school at UVA.

That's very good.

And one last thing is, I know that transportation has been an issue in the past to get your clients to CATEC.

Just how have you managed to solve the transportation problem for some of your residents, from your clients to get to CATEC?

Is there a problem?

Yes, it's very challenging.

The last go round, we were able to buy gas cards and they commuted.

Yes.

Other questions?

I just had just a similar question.

You know, I'm for this in principle, but I just have some real specific concerns about kind of the

outlook for the folks who are in this program.

You mentioned before that what Councilor Galvin was talking about, the fact that instead of 15 out of 20 being employed that you had expected from the first phase of this, you ended up with 11 out of 40.

And the 40 is great.

And those are people who got training, which is what we're talking about here.

But only a quarter of them actually got employment.

And so

Yeah, a lot of them were in the GED program.

There will not be.

We don't have funding for that, but we are...

I just think that your experience with the original 40 shows that it's not just a matter of getting training, that that's not enough, because that's not going to get people into jobs.

And I know that you're talking about developing relationships and things like that, but I think that

If we do fund this, and I think it's important that people get training, and I think it's important that we create people with certifications that are actually meeting needs in our community, and we do have this need in our community, but if they're not getting jobs in those

But if you look at, okay, we provided training for 40 people.

Yes.

Right, right.

Right.

Go ahead.

I'm curious about CATEC versus Piedmont, which also has a CNA program and has public transportation as well.

So I'm wondering,

Why not Piedmont?

We also have a partnership with Piedmont.

Well, you know, I actually had this conversation and I'm going to go on to talk about the Charlottesville Scholarship Program and whether they can fill some of this gap.

That would be wonderful.

But before I, you know, I don't know whether that's true other than somebody on the board actually is at Piedmont and said that they actually addressed the CNA program and it costs

That's for one part of the program.

They divided it into two parts.

The classroom part and the clinical part.

And that doesn't... And that's what the new, Piedmont's new, they said they've changed it.

Anyway, whatever.

It may be that just keeping open Piedmont, the Charlottesville Scholarship Program is going to meet on Wednesday and it's going to talk actually about whether this kind of certified program would be appropriate for their program.

which is for city residents and for employees of the city as I was just saying earlier.

It's an October 1st for this year, but that could be a good avenue for your back to work or other programs and I would be happy to, I'm on that board, and would be happy to coordinate that with you.

And so of these 10 applicants, or these 10 potential folks that we're talking about funding,

All of them do?

So good.

So that's a leg up.

Right.

That increases the possibility.

Okay, what else did I have?

I would just like to, oh the other thing in reading, and thank you for all of this, you had to answer a lot of questions, which is actually going to come up again later when we're talking about funding other people.

But, and you did a lot of work in answering our questions and I learned a lot about your program and I appreciate that.

I was a little concerned,

And I think I'm just confused.

We do the research.

But the instructors have played a far larger role in referring students to jobs.

And that's because they are more on top of what's available.

Typically they tell them, we all reinforce one another.

when we talk to them about probationary periods and what's expected of them and even before they go into the classes to make sure they understand what's involved, what type of work they'll be doing.

Right, I guess maybe that's where I picked up on whether there was, you know, how much MACA plays a role in

connecting maybe even a broader range of jobs.

If it's the instructor, that's a valuable piece of the puzzle.

I did worry in reading, looking at the big picture that there were pieces that if you take, you know, if you have a whole, you have a Jenga thing, you know, you take one piece out and the whole thing falls down, that all of the pieces

I'm very supportive of this, of the city council filling this gap this time, but I would request that should it look like the Charlottesville Scholarship Program could

Can you make two or three comments?

First of all, like the members of the council, they're very supportive of the jobs training

and as part of our entire poverty program, I think it will be good to train people for good jobs.

But I would suggest that in the future you do go through the LGBT review process and the process has started now for next year.

It wasn't our intent to circumvent the AVRT, we happened to have 10 people and we didn't have funding for them, we didn't want to turn them down so if we could get funding.

We're also working, we met with Mike Murphy and he told us about some funds available through WEA and also VUE so we're also looking at our clients that are eligible for those two programs as well.

Behind you, by the way, is one of our graduating classes.

And there's another one.

And this is a person who was a graduate of the CNA program who we were able to get a car for.

We were talking about transportation.

We sometimes have people donate cars.

We were able to give a few of our clients a car.

I want to make sure that you do facilitate when you're looking for jobs once they get the training and do help them with transportation because the thing they learn when they succeed is out of there.

I just have one other question.

In your other kinds of training, where do the funds for those tuitions come from?

I'm looking at your budget and it looks like you use your funds for staffing.

We exceeded the number of slots we had when we had 10 people, but we had enough for, I think, 10 in the budget for this go-round.

Okay, so do you always pay the course fees, GED fees for the clients?

You have been.

Oh, you have, okay.

Actually, we even had a person who, I don't know how to describe him, a benefactor who actually contacted us and paid for somebody that he wanted to go do the program.

Of course, we're open to anybody who wants to do that.

We're always seeking additional funding for tuition.

That's the greatest part of this, getting

Sponsors, sponsorship for back to work program.

I just have a question related to what Ms. Smith though is proposing because I'm not sure I understand if voting for this request is conditional upon getting

funds from someplace else that we don't know is definite.

I don't think that's possible.

And I do want to say that I think this

This does illustrate for me when it does make sense to have contingency funds when you're outside of the budget cycle because this opportunity arose outside of that budget cycle.

The school year starts now.

It's out of sync.

I think as you build up momentum, you will understand better just how to anticipate this, but in terms of trying to get this back up and rolling again since you've lost the stimulus money,

since you don't want to get the CDBG grant money, this is, I'm looking at this almost like your pilot and then you build up steam and then yes, you can anticipate hopefully and get in the ABRT process about this but I see this as almost as a new program.

Is there a motion?

No, I will support it for that reason.

I think I've always argued that we need to be nimble in responding to needs that arise, you know, in between budget cycles and this does address the council priority.

My comment though is that it sort of continues our practice of sort of piecemeal addressing this issue and I really hope that in the coming months and years that we get a lot more strategic about it.

Yes, ma'am.

We've actually formed a strategic action team that met two weeks ago to try to address those issues.

We have another meeting that's coming up within the next couple of weeks, actually.

Yes.

I would like to move that we

We grant the MACA Back to Work Program a funding request of $9,849.40.

Second.

Is this going to come from the Future Workforce Development Program, is that right?

It's coming from the Workforce Development Fund that was set up several years ago.

There's a little over $20,000 left in that fund, and so that's where it will come from.

I will say one of the things that we do want to ensure, I think we asked this question before, but we want to make sure that we verify this, is that all of the residents are in fact, all of the folks who are participating are actually in fact city residents.

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And thank you for your efforts.

Thank you.

And we wish you success.

Thank you.

I too have a PowerPoint so because you have to look at great pictures of you know drivers and buses and stuff.

Also if anyone would like a copy of the actual printed this is like back in the 20th century but we do have a yes anti paper but if you have some if anybody would like one.

I don't know which way to face.

There you are, in case you want to pass them out to your constituents.

So thank you all for allowing me to come and give a report on what we've been up to this year, this past year, and I first of all want to thank you for appointing some great, closer to the microphone, yes, you were right Page, I did need the microphone.

Thank you for appointing four great board members.

Phil Jones is in the audience as one of our board members, as well as Kitty Pickett.

Thank you.

Ray Herron.

and who's the president of the board and I'm blanking for a moment, Lance Stewart, the at least temporary director of the Charlottesville Transit and it's great to have him because he brings some expertise to Daunt that we lost when Bill Watterson moved on.

So Lance has been a great supporter and we're real thrilled to have all of those people and thanks to council as well for your financial support.

For all the service that we provide, it makes a world of difference.

I'll start off by giving you sort of an overview of what happened system-wide for Jaunt and then I'll come and focus a little bit more on the services that we've provided in the city specifically.

You can see our ridership starting back in good old 1975 has just continued to go up.

The ups and downs generally have to do with human service agency changes.

Public ridership is actually an almost smooth line as it continues to grow.

Every year I think we're not going to get any vigor and then

you know in these tough economic times and then every year something surprising happens and in fact we are providing more service and in part because we're growing a lot in the rural areas.

So if you look at public ridership which is the part that are supported by the local governments you can see that Charlottesville is the blue line and it was always the leader and then it's been crossed by Albemarle as Albemarle continues to grow and particularly in the urban area.

We can also see we picked up Buckingham back in 2007 and they continued to grow as does Nelson County and Louisa.

Fludana took a hit this year and some of you might have read about that so we don't quite know what's going to happen with that going forward but the trend has generally been upward with a couple of exceptions.

So it's not just about picking up, it's not just about having drivers.

We have this massive call center, or it seems massive to us, but so our reservations folks handled over 70,000 calls.

Dispatch handles over 147,000 calls in a year.

So we keep the staff and we're open seven days a week.

Those folks have a tough job to deal with and trying to find homes for all the trips that we provide so it's a challenging job.

It starts at 4.30 in the morning and goes to 11 at night so those folks have a tough job.

I'll give you the overall financial picture just as operating doesn't include capital.

You can see that local makes up 40% of our funding so that the funding that we get from the city and the counties are really critical to us.

State share continues to fall.

The federal has kind of held its own most recently and then human service agencies pay some money and also we get, of course, fares from passengers.

And when you look at local share, Albemarle has taken the lead in the last few years with Charlottesville almost right behind in terms of where we get our funding.

Louisa is making a play for, it's definitely number three these days.

and then total expenses for the past year.

You can see capital is 15%.

We do have to replace vehicles.

We don't have those great buses that the city has that last for 15 years.

Ours are really good for three or four because we end up with 200,000 miles on them and those vehicles were not meant to go longer than that.

We baby them along.

And the special projects include some of our, we have a mobility management grant.

We have lots of little tiny grants that we get from places that we do to do special services.

and administration, I'm happy to say, is a fairly low percentage given our operations number.

So, and most of you know that the, we have commuter routes that head, basically head into Charlottesville.

Only one of them doesn't actually go to Charlottesville and that's the service to Wintergreen from Nelson County.

But, so, as you get closer, you can see that most of our, don't anybody get carsick from that?

So you can see that most of our routes concentrate their main drop offs at UVA Hospital in downtown and so it's pretty much the core of our service.

We do what we can to make sure people can connect to CAT.

and so that's a really a good thing because we like people, it's easier for us to bring them in from the rural area and then let them take off on CAT rather than us having to transport them everywhere.

And these are just the commuter routes, these are just the ones that bring workers into town once a day and then take them home once a day.

We have two from Nelson, two, well one from Savannah now, one from Louisa and several that come in too from Albemarle.

In this past year in the city, most of the service we provide is the ADA service, so that's the service that has to follow the hours and days that CAT operates, so if somebody has a disability such that they can't ride the CAT bus

They're certified to use Jaunt.

Right now the fare is $1.50.

It can't be more than twice the city bus fare.

And so these are folks with disabilities who use Jaunt to go wherever they want to go.

A fair number of them go to medical appointments, but a whole bunch of them go to work, as well as just out to do the things that we all do, just natural, like go to the movies, go to the grocery store, get our hair done.

Well, not me, but anyway, other people do.

and then we also do human service agency service.

So this is, most of that is Medicaid but we also do service for POTM as well as Head Start and other programs where our services are needed.

and the Miscellaneous Service, we also, to sort of back up CAT, we provide basically CAT service in the Greenbrier neighborhood, picking up people who call four hours ahead of time.

So we do that under contract with CAT.

and also we do have some service that goes outside the ADA boundaries.

So city residents, if they want to go to Northridge, which is outside, it's more than three-quarters of a mile from the city bus line, those folks have to be able to get there if you're trying to go to the doctor and other places.

So we do take city residents out to the non-urban area, although it looks pretty urban from where we sit.

So I'll talk a little bit more.

This is the ADA service.

One of our federal mandates is not to turn down anyone who calls the day before.

So someone can call on Thursday at 4.45 to get a trip at 7 o'clock the next morning and we have to find a way to make that work.

Even though at that point all our buses are booked, everything's set.

So that's an ongoing challenge and that's one of the reasons we have to have really good people in the office to do that kind of crazy scheduling.

So we did everything we could and last year we only had two requests that we couldn't meet of people who called the day before.

So we think that's a really good record.

Last year it was four people so we cut it in half but it's a pretty low percentage considering we do 76,000 trips a year.

So two of the whole year that we couldn't handle.

This is one of our ace drivers unloading somebody in the city.

and then the human service agency trips that we do, it's all coordinated.

John originally got its start as being a coordinated human service agency provider so every agency didn't have to have their own vehicles and if you wanted to pick up a bunch of people from Batesville, you could get MACA's clients, JAVA's clients and Region 10's clients all on the same bus and it was a cost saving for everybody and that was in the days when gas was going crazy and there were lines so this was a coordinated system.

So right now what we do, about half of what we do for human service agencies is for Medicaid clients but we do have a big contingent of Head Start and Potsum of course, Parks and Rec and then lots of little agencies who pay us to do a few things that are needed and we try to be really responsive.

We did a lot of summer camp transportation this summer.

We've done a shuttle to PVCC to try to get people to classes.

that are outside the usual CAT hours.

So we have a few ongoing things like that.

One of the things we've done in the last couple years is we actually responded to an RFP to provide some service from Culpeper in Madison County to bring people.

They thought most of them would want to go to UVA Hospital because there's a lack of specialists and things that you don't have in Culpeper.

But in fact, we're finding people coming down here to do all kinds of things and they go to

of course go to Martha Jefferson and different doctors that they don't have access to and some just come down to go to Wood Grill and that's a big exciting thing but we're happy to provide the service so and we've been able to also use it to take Charlottesville and Albemarle people north.

There are folks who have family in Madison or they want to travel up north to see what it looks like and there you go.

We also provide a little bit of seasonal service to Shenandoah National Park.

That funding comes from Aramark.

We work really closely with the International Rescue Committee.

They have a lot of folks who need jobs and Wintergreen certainly needs employees as well as Shenandoah National Park in the summer.

So we've been doing that service and it's worked out very well and this is actually a group of those folks down there in the picture.

None of these things does the city have any financial responsibility for.

A couple other things we like to brag that we got the Green Leader Award and the Better Business Challenge this year and we're standing, this is our staff standing in front of our rain garden that we built down the back of our parking lot.

It treats the, it stops the runoff from the parking lot from reaching Awards Creek and also solved the sinkhole problem that we were having so it was a win-win solution for us.

We also finally got into Google Transit for our commuter routes, and I'm sorry you can't see that map, I'd like to zoom on it, but what it shows is if somebody says, I live in Livingston and I need to get to Pantops, Google Transit finds the Jaunt route, which is

and then it connects and it shows you how you have to transfer to the CAT route so it's actually a very smooth process so people can connect up so we're connected with the world of transit at large and it was surprisingly difficult but now we think we've got it so we're happy about that.

We do passenger survey every year and the folks in, these are just the Charlottesville responses.

People seem very happy with the service, even when we tell them they have to wear their seatbelt.

That used to be harder to get people to do, but they're doing better these days.

and then some things that are coming up that I thought you should know about.

We just started one new route that in combination with Java that links the Woods Edge development which is up on Putt Putt Lane with the CAT route.

at Fashion Square.

Now, those folks, if you've ever been there, know that's a very steep walk and a long haul to get up to the CAT bus stop.

So, they were feeling pretty cut off.

So, we're happy to be able to do that service.

We have a small grant and then Java provided the match.

And then Jabba also provided the match for a service that is going to add a route from Crozet to Charlottesville, which will also be a boon to people from Charlottesville.

There's a surprising number of people who want to go out to Crozet.

So we're there already every two hours in Crozet and this is going to add to our frequency.

and then finally we just today got the final approval on our plans to build our new parking lot that's got permeable surface.

It's going to be the first one in the area that we're aware of and we're really excited to be doing that.

We're also doing that with stimulus money.

It's finally happened.

It only took six months to get through the process but so we're pretty excited and we hope to invite everyone to come and see it and show it off and give demos and be

I hope it will be a real asset to the community and also solve our problem of not having enough room.

So, let's see.

And my next picture does not want to come up.

Oh Page, I think there's only one more.

Oh, I could just do it by hand.

Oh, there you go.

Oh no, two more.

Okay, cool.

So,

One other thing to mention is we do have a non-profit because Jaunt, although it looks like a non-profit to everybody and in fact people have donated money to us and taken it off on their taxes at that point we decided to start a non-profit because Jaunt's actually owned by the local government so we weren't in fact a non-profit so this year we kicked off the Jeans for Jaunt program so people get a little sticker in our office you can wear jeans on Friday and you pay a dollar and get to wear a sticker so

and lots of the social service agencies are all following up and lots of businesses are doing it as well.

So we've used that money to provide ticket scholarships to passengers because even though our fares are remarkably low, there's still people who can't afford even that.

And so we're really delighted to be able to do that project.

And then finally, okay.

This is our staff at our recent safety meeting which was just two weeks ago at Monticello High School.

This is, we have 120 people working at John.

This isn't everybody because somebody has to be driving, unfortunately, and manning the office, but this is the best we could do.

So it's about 90 people.

And, you know, that's a really great group of people and we have a little cut out bus we copied from CAT.

But I'd be happy to answer any questions if anybody has.

Well, I'd like to congratulate you on the Green Leader Award.

I was a judge for that, and so I saw the competition, and yours was very impressive, obviously.

And that permeable parking lot sounds way cool.

I just have a question, because I apologize for not really quite understanding who gets to use your service.

And that depends on where you live, basically.

Out in the rural areas, we're the bus system.

We're the CAT of the counties that we serve.

In the urban area, which includes the urban Albemarle, not just Charlottesville, in order to receive the discounted fare of $1.50, you have to have a disability and be certified by CAT.

And CAT does the approval process.

There's an application.

It's on our website.

It's on CAT's website.

We have copies.

and so you have to have a disability such that you can't ride the city bus so if you could ride the city bus or you can only ride the city bus sometimes like you have a problem with very cold weather and can't move or you have relapsing and remitting multiple sclerosis there's times people can ride us and there's certainly plenty of people with disabilities who use CAT on a regular basis

So the bulk of people, you actually can ride John if you don't have a disability, it's very expensive, I think it's $15 a trip.

And that's in part because we don't want to take any business from cabs, we want to do what we're most geared up for, which is helping people with disabilities.

If you're a human service agency client and your agency sponsors you,

So do most people just pay as they get on?

They better because that's the rule.

I think it's two, well it might be three dollars each way.

It's different if you have a disability or not.

We have at least 50 different fairs and they keep changing.

You don't keep them all in your head?

Those folks, it's as if we were CAT, so they pay 75 cents or they may have a pass, a monthly pass, and so we don't collect any fare at all.

It's supposed to be bus stop to bus stop.

So it's supposed to be that they can then transfer to the CAT bus.

I see.

And the only times we don't follow that rule is if it's closer to take them where they're going than it is to take them to the transfer point.

Making reservations are, I mean, well, everybody needs to call at least a day ahead.

And usually they call a week ahead, which is great.

That way you can get the time that you really want.

You don't have to shift at all.

Dispatches handles what's happening that day.

So that's the place people call when they say, I'm done with my doctor's appointment.

I need to go home.

Or I thought my ride was supposed to pick me up at 845.

I don't know where they are.

Or their dispatch is busy.

You know, of course, all the people who work for us are human.

Sometimes they have to call in sick.

That's amazing.

And I'd just like to say that there's on my street, the circle, there's an Ark House and so a lot of jaunt buses come by and they're always so friendly.

I would like to offer another little booster comment as well.

I do occasionally hear from people who don't ride jaunt, who could, saying, oh, you can never get a jaunt when you need it, and it's just hard, and they never take you where you want to go.

And I'm really glad that you mentioned that of the people who do use jaunt, 98% said they got prompt courteous service.

And so I think often it's the perception and the sort of getting from

not using it to using it, that's a little scary and you're not really sure how it works and so you can't imagine that it's going to work as well as it actually seems to work.

So I would encourage people who haven't tried Jaunt who could to try Jaunt.

Also I was interested, the jeans for Jaunt, if a business wanted to participate in that, they charge their employees a dollar to wear jeans on Friday.

or any day, actually.

And those dollars go to Jaunt, is that right?

Yes, yes.

So if a business, say, wanted to do this or an employee wanted to convince their business to do this, do they just call Jaunt and say, hey, let us in?

Absolutely.

We provide the stickers.

And the cheerleading and all that.

Yes, that's right.

And we've actually, because we're doing that region-wide, we have special posters with local figures posing in jeans.

I think council already does wear jeans on Fridays.

But I do have, well, most of us.

So you'd get $4.00.

He should wear a denim turban.

He doesn't have to wear a jean.

But I do have one specific question.

It goes to Fashion Square just because there's more options from there, so you go either direction.

It's 10, 11, 1 and 3.

And coming back?

Yes, actually the 3 is only coming back from Fashion Square.

I have some questions about, I'm very intrigued by the commuter service and it is interesting that it's the rural to urban, going to the urban job centers seems to be a very strong tie, again because your charge is to be viewed as a bus service for the rural areas.

However, we definitely have segments of the population that can't drive, for example, reentry population that is prohibited from using their own vehicles.

And what I've been hearing over and over again in the city of Charlottesville is that

Our CAT service just isn't flexible enough, just doesn't go far out enough.

And so it really would benefit the city to have a commuter, a reverse commute program.

Particularly I went a couple weeks ago and visited with the director of planning in Louisa just to understand their industrial park development.

They have four industrial parks out there.

is that, and I've talked about this issue with Mike Murphy and Jason Ness, and I believe it actually was a subject that was part of the strategic action team discussions.

And interestingly, just last week on Tuesday, there's a Coordinated Human Service Mobility Plan meeting and the folks from economic development over there and I handed my card.

Thank you.

Michael told me about it.

No, I handed him my card and said, you know, we'd be happy to work with you.

We have done very similar things.

We, at one point, an employer in Zions Crossroads was paying us to bring work release folks from the jail out to work at the coffee plant because he was having trouble getting employees.

Where we found we've been most successful is with Wintergreen where they didn't have enough people to do the work that they needed to do.

So we were bringing city residents, I mean,

Most of them were refugees out to work on the top of the mountain.

seven days a week actually there for a while and we'll probably be doing that again this winter.

So what we find is it's employers who are leading the charge.

What we can do certainly if the city wants to work with us and set up something that would be useful, we'd be happy to do that.

We do lots of little things like that to try to fill gaps and I think that's where Don can be most helpful is because we're very flexible and

You know, we'll go anywhere.

We can't go out of state, and that would be crazy, but the furthest we've ever gone so far is the Shenandoah National Park.

Yeah, let's at least get that going, that conversation going.

Great.

Other questions or comments?

If not, thank you very much.

Alright, thank you very much.

Next item on the agenda is Architectural Design Control District guidelines.

Thank you, Mr. Huja.

You're being asked to approve guideline revisions that are recommended by the Board of Architectural Review.

These are for the design guidelines that apply in all of the eight architectural design control historic districts in which the Board of Architectural Review reviews applications.

The BAR, these are the current design guidelines.

They were adopted in 05.

Our zoning ordinance requires that they be updated at every five years, so it's time to update them.

The BAR has been working on these revisions for the past two years or so.

and they're finally ready for your adoption.

The substantive changes would be found in Chapter 5 which applies to basically new guidelines for tents and they've divided those into two sections, tents for temporary weekend use

and tents for longer periods of time which have become sort of an issue because in a historic district if the tent is up for longer than say a weekend so some of these are up for a whole winter cafe season or possibly longer even permanent and so when the tent is there for that long a period of time it basically

obscures the front of the historic building in some cases.

So that's why it's a concern.

So the design guidelines say that if it's up for that extended period of time and it affects the character of the district or the building, then it should comply with the more strict guidelines for additions and new construction.

So that's basically what that says.

And then the other substantive changes are in Chapter 6 for public improvements.

And in that case, in looking at this chapter, the BAR decided that it was really kind of inadequate for the importance that they thought should be given to public spaces and landscapes.

For instance, the downtown mall, which is the centerpiece of our community in terms of a public space.

The city certainly builds new buildings, structures like bridges.

There are a lot of public spaces such as cemeteries and parks that are located in historic districts that they have purview over.

And then the question of art.

Recently, murals on private buildings, they've had discussions about and even though they're on private property, they're so visible that you can say that they're public art.

So they wanted to address, make sure those guidelines were up to date.

Well, let's start with the art because I know it's been an issue of some concern recently.

Sure.

Well,

Basically the question is when an artist wants to put a mural on a historic building, the BAR generally reviews changes to the exterior of historic buildings to make sure that the change does not adversely impact the integrity of the building.

And then they also look at the context, the whole district, and whether the change of that building impacts the character of the district.

But when you have a mural on a building,

then it gets into how much are they allowed to actually, how much should they actually try to either change the art or say it's inappropriate because a piece of art is really up to the artist and they're not supposed to get into the content of it say or

even the color of it, whereas they're used to judging changes, even colors of buildings in historic districts.

So you see it gets a little bit hazy, what are they, you know, what is it correct to address or not in the case of public, case of art on a building.

So what these say, and I think they're appropriate, is

They can determine the appropriateness of placing a mural in a certain location.

They can address the scale of it.

For instance, does it completely overpower the historic building?

And in some cases, they might want to talk about the materiality of it.

They had a case where someone wanted to put a mural up on the corner and they were actually adding

brick arches and glass and it would have completely changed the impact of the wall that was there.

It wasn't like they were just putting a coat of paint on it that was easily changed.

So for that reason, we put that in about materials.

But I think for the most part, you know,

So material scale and location, I think it's inappropriate for them to talk about the content of the art, you know, the style of it or even the color of it.

You know, if they think that a piece of artwork is appropriate,

at that scale on that building, then really it should be up to the artist to do the art.

It should be up to them.

So that's what these are getting at.

So I think that it's not cut and dried or black and white, but I think that

You have to kind of rely on the people you've placed on the BAR to make those kind of decisions and these guidelines are meant to guide them, you know, as they're all the guidelines, so hopefully we'll get some good examples and, you know, they'll be able to work out the issues that have come up.

decision can be appealed to city council.

I was also wondering about, in terms of mural art, are there legalities, are there laws about when you start crossing over obscenity

pictures or something like that, I just wonder.

I think there is, although the definition of what is obscene is pretty narrow, it's narrower than what is distasteful or objectionable.

But you're

Your question is a very pertinent one because there are First Amendment considerations and as Ms. Scala said, it is not a black and white line there that allows you to easily regulate.

discussed at length these regulations, but we have the public art, albeit temporary, on our First Amendment monument out in front of this building.

In terms of the tents, canopies, I think it might be helpful to give some concrete or specific examples of what we're talking about here.

Yeah, those are good examples.

Well, everybody knows what a temporary tent is.

With a roof and poles.

Pardon me?

Yes.

There's some variety, but you know, they're up for a weekend or three or four days and it doesn't really matter.

They have to get a building permit if they're a certain size.

They have to get fire marshal approval if they're a certain size.

So as long as they're safe, you know, it doesn't really matter.

They're up and down so quickly.

But what's a concern are the more long term.

We had some, the one at Sky Bar was erected on the roof of it and last winter we had some complaints about that.

It wasn't a bad looking tent per se, but a lot of people thought it detracted from the restaurant, which was so nicely designed.

So we had some complaints about that.

There was also one put up on Elliwood at the Biltmore Grill.

last winter.

So when the BL was discussing this and they had one whole work session devoted to tents, they decided at that time that until they had these new guidelines adopted, they would let them go ahead in both those instances and keep those tents up through last March, the winter season, and then hopefully before the next season came, we'd have some guidelines in place.

So Mona Loco actually was approved several years ago on a permanent basis.

And so recently they came to the BAR and said that, and when it was approved, it was interesting, I remember they said that they intended to have the sides down only

in certain months, you know, the transition months, and most of the time they would be rolled up.

And as it worked out, they actually had the sides down, I would say, for most of the time.

But they came back and they said, we really need this tent, we have approval for it, we want to do it over to make it more attractive, such as the one at Beer Run.

I don't know if you've been by there.

That one's not in a design control district so it didn't go through any kind of review, but they do have a very attractive semi-permanent looking structure in front to give them more space.

So, Mona Loco came in and said we're doing a very similar one and the BAR helped them pick a color that would be compatible with the building.

So, that one is a permanent structure that will be up there indefinitely.

and so I think the BAR was happy though with the changes to it.

They thought they were more attractive than what they had up before.

So I think what we can see if we pass these would be perhaps a proposal for the top of Sky Bar

Typically it would be a restaurant that would have this tent.

It wouldn't be appropriate in a residential district, but it might be along West Main Street.

There are several restaurants that have had tents there.

It might be on a side street off the downtown mall.

We probably would not, and these guidelines say that, allow them on the downtown mall itself.

But maybe on a second floor space above the mall, maybe on a side street.

So realistically speaking if we pass this tonight

How long, let's talk about Skybar specifically, how long would it take them to go through this whole process and are we going to be cutting into, I assume they're going to be needing that tent?

Soon.

It's getting cold.

Tonight.

It depends on how much they've already done.

They could submit to be heard, for example, in the September meeting.

That would be the next deadline for submittal coming up.

It could be approved in September, for example.

Because they'd have to take it down before they got approved?

Is it up now?

I don't know how to answer that question.

Right now there's very few opportunities for waivers in our ordinance.

So they didn't have this requirement before?

There was a pretty important insight at the BAR place work session that there was a gap between what

Staff was kind of letting through the gate and what then the BAR received.

The comment was that the BAR, one of the members felt that the application was not complete or was not

was somewhat inferior.

Not in this case, not in the general case, but that according to staff guidelines though they met the staff minimum guidelines.

So there was a gap between staff's minimum guidelines to accept them in through the gate to get on the docket for the BAR, but then the BAR's got

standards of review were much more stringent and then that started kind of gumming up the process.

And that's one thing that seems to be the place design committee people kind of zeroed in and say, oh, maybe that's something we can look at.

to help facilitate the process so that we're not getting into these problems where people are left wondering why they're taking so long to get approval.

But that was just one piece.

It always helps to have a complete application.

You know, I agree.

And I understand why you're giving me a blank look before the September meeting is tomorrow.

The September deadline is the end of the month for the October meeting.

I'm sorry.

The only thing I'd like to say is that I know that I had made comments earlier when this was on the consent agenda and I do appreciate it being put on the regular agenda so that we can talk about it.

I realize now that there's a bigger

role that the place design task force is playing in terms of just taking a step back looking at systems that need to be coordinated like transportation and green infrastructure and pedestrian networks and bike networks.

But also there's a detail piece which is all about the guidelines that we have.

But there's no, we're not going to interrupt this process.

You've already, you're on your schedule five years.

So I just wanted to assure you that there's no interest and desire in doing that.

But that there is overlap in what we look at and that's what that work session talked about.

And our goal is to be assistant to the decision makers as well as the repository of best practices so that we can make recommendations for changes where it makes sense

And I think the B.A.R.

I actually have one quick friendly amendment which I think is helpful.

It's a

It's kind of a little tedious grammatical thing, but I think it might cause problems later.

Yeah, it's very minor.

Okay, that'll be great.

Discussion.

Just a question.

I don't know if it's for you or for our city attorney.

Is it conceivable that we can make one portion of this, have one portion of this go into effect later on than the other portions?

You could.

Legally you could.

I would offer a friendly amendment that we have the canopy regulations go into effect as of November 1.

Why wouldn't all of it go right away?

I know, that's the concern, is that we're making it illegal for somebody, they may have plans to put up a canopy, not knowing that this is happening tonight, and we're telling them they have to wait now until

I think, Mr. Norris, the problem is if somebody put one up now, they're going to have to have a permit to do it.

We don't have any guidelines.

They let those slide, but they also went before the BAR.

But the BAR, they should have gone, and when we went to tell them, the BAR let them go because there were no guidelines.

If somebody came in now and started erecting one, we would stop them because they didn't have the proper permits if they were in the design control.

That's why we need this.

That's why we need the guidelines.

Yeah, it would be very difficult for us to let it happen because our ordinance says what can happen, and if it can't happen,

We would probably say take it down until you get approval.

I'd be happy

I'd be happy to call them tomorrow.

Yeah, I actually, the people that complained about the Sky Bar originally, I keep saying, well, we're adopting guidelines, you know, the next time they come in, they'll be able to be subject to these and we'll get a better product.

Where does the tree list reside?

With what department?

Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, also known as DBAC, has requested that the city provide $2,000 to help fund the holiday parade.

This would be the second year in a row that the city would have provided that assistance if council votes in favor of it tonight.

Yes.

That was unclear.

I think there had been some discussion about it last year.

I think maybe they just simply forgot to go through the ABRT process for last year.

It is not, no.

Let me say that, as much as I love the BRT process, for $2,000, you have to go through a lot of gyrations.

Well, you know, one of my problems, I mean, I love parades, and I think this is an important parade, but my problem is just where do $2,000 come from?

What part of the budget is it?

We're given, just unless I

That's my problem with it.

And it adds up.

These $2,000, $5,000, they add up.

A million here, a million there, a million later, you're talking about real money.

And why couldn't this be something like with the Charles Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau?

I think the argument that the CACVB would probably make to that is that it's not attracting people from outside the area, which is where their main focus is.

And you can't say that we are not investing in the downtown area.

We are investing quite a lot, especially most recently since March.

There's been

Am I correct?

About $13,000 worth of extra police coverage.

That's correct.

We have instituted an ambassador's program that's going to be $80,000.

That's correct.

The organization knew about the ABRT process.

A lot of this is just, process is important.

And it does set a

A message to the community is to, well, if you go and you go to council at a certain point in time, they don't need to follow procedures that are fair.

They're looking at everything in context.

And again, we are all totally committed to the welfare of the downtown mall.

That's not the issue.

I'm feeling very much the same way.

I think that we have invested heavily in the downtown mall this year.

I know we did a couple of years ago, invested very heavily again when we put in new bricks for the whole downtown mall.

And at that point I know that there were some concerns from businesses in other parts of the city saying, what about businesses on Cherry Avenue?

What about businesses anywhere else in the city?

And I've argued in the past that the downtown is different because we

First of all, we don't know for sure.

They knew there was a process, first of all.

Secondly, we are here and November is coming, parade time is coming, and I will say this time we are helping people downtown.

If I can offer a couple of comments, I think

I don't think this has been really correctly framed and I'm not blaming staff but I think the DBAC should have noted the fact that this is one event among a series of events that occurs around the holidays to bring people downtown to support commerce downtown.

Only this one piece of which are they asking us to contribute to.

And just sort of taking a 30,000 foot you know for the last couple years members of the DBAC have advocated

that the city considers sequestering all the vendor fees that are paid by the vendors downtown into a separate fund to support activities like this downtown.

And I think that comes to about $50,000 or $60,000 a year if I'm... Actually a little bit more than that.

A little bit more than that.

And I've often thought there's a lot of merit to that.

Right now, those monies go into our general fund and I do think the successful downtowns and successful commercial districts in other cities are the ones that, whether it's through a downtown improvement district or a business improvement district or some other mechanism.

I know you've been researching that yourself, Ms. Galvin.

that they find a way to capture some of the revenue that's coming from the downtown or from a certain sector of their community and reinvesting in the community and events that support commerce and tourism and trade in that neighborhood.

I see this as the kind of event where if we did set up a fund of that nature, we wouldn't have to fund it out of city council funds or out of our general fund.

I think one of the things I would point out to you is that that money does go into the general fund, but the general fund does support, for instance, maintenance of the downtown mall, the police that patrol the downtown mall.

Well, you know, I appreciate that and I appreciate the big picture and that's exactly what I think council needs when we get these seemingly random requests.

You know, I feel like it almost encourages people to come forward and say, oh, they'll give you money.

You don't even have to tell them why.

But so, I mean, I'll support these downtown businesses and

Is it a motion?

Well, there's a lot of very good ideas here that I don't want us to drop by the wayside.

The context is important.

it does make this easier to think about supporting this but in the future it really does need to be part of a bigger picture it does also need to I think giving some latitude to the downtown business association to control their own money might make a lot of sense and I would really, really like us to come up with some policy ideas as to how that can be done whether it's sequestering the fees

Business Investment Districts, whatever.

I think it's starting to become very clear that this needs to be maintained with a very robust dedicated stream of money.

because as we create different destinations, as we redevelop West Main Street, that's going to be another problem.

Are we going to maintain that, too, or is there going to be some way of that district being able to maintain itself?

So for right now, I guess, I mean, did they even submit a budget?

It was just this statement?

from staff to ask money.

We did receive an email that outlined a little bit of their budget, mainly for the carts and for the vans.

It was today.

So is this their whole budget?

Yeah, there wasn't a budget in the email.

But, I mean, I just wonder, out of, this is 2000, out of 2000?

It's, I do believe it's around $6500 or so.

I'll move approval of the allocation.

So there's no more discussion, we're going to vote on it.

I just want to say that I support the downtown, but I really don't.

I don't support the way this has been done.

To me it's almost like it's harkening back to the Tom Tom test.

Okay, let's move.

Next item on the agenda is, let me just make one more comment.

I think funding sources for downtown should be explored.

Business Improvement District is a very good tool for that and many places it's been done.

I think we need to expose it again.

Can I also add that as part of our discussion that we had earlier in the summer concerning outside agency funding and festivals, we did make a commitment to provide some options for city council to consider for a process for these types of requests that come up during the year.

And I think we made the commitment that we would bring that to you for consideration at your retreat on the 28th.

And I'm glad you brought that up, Mr. Jones, because

I know timing wasn't working with us and I should have said that, that I would have felt more comfortable if we had that policy in place to make this kind of decision.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is Art Place, Leeser Room.

Let me also acknowledge that I am a member of the board of art place.