City Council Meeting   12/17/2012

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And my dear, we're still good-byein' But as long as you love me so Let it snow, let it snow Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,

Call out the holly, haven't I taught you well to live each living day?

But we need a little Christmas, right this very minute, candles in the window, candles at the spinner, yes we need.

Would you pledge allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

and the memory of children and adults who have been killed in America.

Thank you.

Next is Awards and Recognitions.

Would you please read?

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

the top category for excellence for this and really it keeps us all safe so thank you.

Ms. Szakos, do you have another announcement?

If you celebrate Christmas, Christmas is on the 25th, that is three days when you're kind of panicking and you haven't finished your Christmas shopping, go down to the Holiday City Market.

and Jane Foster in the front row says they have, if you didn't hear, had fabulous handmade things.

Thank you.

and it was a lovely ceremony, friends and family, everybody was so proud but this is actually a program that we funded this fall as city council to enable 10 city residents to complete this course and hopefully go on to get good jobs.

I don't know if you want to do those now.

I apologize for missing that.

Thanks again.

So I hope you will come and join.

one representative to be named from the Friendship Court community and three representatives to be named by the Housing Authority Board.

Is there a motion?

I'll second.

They each have about three minutes to speak.

That's it.

Jimbo.

Thank you.

Chris Winter.

I now propose you vote to make it mandatory that all council members and candidates for council submit to random drug testing.

We cannot remove or relocate our beautiful park, but we can find another place for the Y.

Thank you.

So as stewards to the quality of life in this city I hope that you will be vigilant and forward thinking as housing becomes another critical resource just like water and ensure that all citizens of Charlottesville will enjoy the universal human right of decent affordable housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Henry Ludwig

Hello, I'm Emily Bledwick.

And if we can put money into these more affordable housing situations, then we can get them off the streets.

Thank you.

And we ask that he be reappointed to that commission in January.

Thank you.

I hope you all see them.

Thank you very much.

I know it is, but take it in your heart to realize that there are people out there that are sensitive to what you all do.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot for listening.

Mr. Norris, any comments?

and it has to be a continued priority, so thank you for raising that issue.

But I too worry that the lease that we are extending no longer reflects the reality of the project.

That's all I need to say.

Thanks.

Next item on the consent agenda, would you please read the consent agenda?

Item P, an ordinance for the amendment to definition of energy efficient buildings, first of two readings.

Are there any items which any member of the Council would like to remove for discussion?

No, I have a few comments about a couple but I don't want to remove four questions.

Could you make those comments?

Yes, actually I'm going to reiterate my concern that if we are going to create a new human resources planner position for next year, I'm not questioning continuing it through this fiscal year, that we need a broader discussion about what the role of that person would be and whether or not we should re-advertise it.

Thank you.

I'm not at all disputing this application.

We did post an ad in the Daily Progress per DCR's regulations that announces 30-day public comment period and that this would be on tonight's agenda.

I appreciate that.

Any other comments or questions for any member of the motion?

I'll make a motion that we adopt the consent agenda.

Second.

Second.

Brian Daley?

Allison Davies from the City Attorney's Office is here with me tonight and she's going to outline the process for the remainder of this item.

The ad was run two successive weeks on December 3rd and December 10th.

Are there any procedural questions that you need to ask the staff?

So we could either hold a public hearing and then do two readings or we could do one reading now, hold a public hearing, do a second reading.

You need to do a public hearing first.

Okay, good.

There are two people

Thank you.

Chris Morrie?

He was here.

Any comments or discussion?

I'm very pleased to see this happening and I'll move to approve the ordinance.

Presentation of Report on Dialogue on Race by Ms. Preedon Rose Gross Good evening, I'm Elizabeth Preedon from the Dialogue on Race.

Do you have any questions?

Is this the end of the presentation?

We are short but sweet.

Good.

and Gary Petty.

If you don't have any comments, I'll start.

That's the addition of $250 plus $221,367.

What was spent by the dialogue in estimated expenses up to which will take us through the fiscal end of this fiscal year so far has been $215,000

No.

That's where you see the 221.

How much do you need to operate every year?

It varies depending on where my salary comes out of and I don't know if Mr. Jones wants to speak.

Currently it's $90,000 that was put forth in this current budget and that's to cover the program coordinator's salary and I think we've done this for two years at $90,000 the last two years.

Plus programmatic?

plus programmatic because there's a salary plus programmatic as well.

Okay, great.

We utilized the city manager's office budget to pay for the program coordinator's position and then carried over the other money just in case we needed to utilize funding for action items that came out of the dialogue on race.

And one of those was the Art Company or the Statute Company.

And I don't know if you've been recording those data points?

I think they may have started out with 10 members, and I'm not sure what the membership number is now, but I definitely know what's going on.

I guess it's looking back and moving forward, but was there ever a strategic plan established that kind of set, I know you did initially, which is how you fell into the working groups, but is there an ongoing process to do a strategic plan to move forward, how you want to proceed, or is that

So we feel like we're moving along that scale, but we're not really there because so much of the work begins by changing attitudes and perceptions and changing, then changing actual statistics.

Great.

Any comments or questions?

But I just wanted to sort of throw out that I really appreciate that you have coalesced around.

And so that was the initial guidance of creating where we are today.

So thank you, very impressive.

What's the kind of sustainability model for these teams?

New Action Teams.

Thank you.

And Ms. Breeden, could you go over again what you said in the very beginning of your presentation about how you envisioned or how you thought the DOR would coexist or be part of a human rights commission?

I could not have envisioned this three years ago.

and so it's one of the reasons why I hope we don't take too long and I know we're not voting on that issue tonight but I hope we don't take too long in deliberating that because I think the good folks on the dialogue and race are sort of waiting to get a signal from us on sort of their future and it's holding up their ability to really get energized about certain things because they don't know what the future holds for them.

Next item is a new race task force presentation by Jesse Ellis and Dori Johnson Are you going to be making a powerful presentation?

Thank you.

2012 Human Rights Task Force was formed and it recommends that a Human Rights Commission be formed.

Any questions?

Thank you very much for your effort.

Would those enforcement powers that we've been hearing about apply in that situation?

I know a lot of people have said things about enforcement, but again, we recommend that you have, that the commission does have enforcement, does have that power, because if you have an ordinance, you have to be able to enforce that ordinance.

I want to be working from a set of facts that we all understand.

Can you stand please?

Or the policies of the housing authority are not serving the residents well?

If those policies and procedures are found to be violating the law, then they would have authority to intervene.

All right, number two, would the specific enforcement powers authorized by the state apply to efforts to combat homophobia in our community and reduce discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender residents?

Well, that one I can give a clear answer to, and the answer would be no.

Number three, would these enforcement powers work to improve general police community relations, particularly in low-income or minority neighborhoods?

I think the answer there is maybe, depending on the relationship that is developed between the commission and the local police force.

So how would the specific enforcement powers address relations between the police and the community?

and issues relating to law enforcement that might fall into the purview of the Human Rights Commission get discussed and worked out.

So what you're saying is that the Human Rights Commission can play a role in improving police community relations but not necessarily through the specific enforcement powers that are authorized by the state.

Okay, thank you.

Let's see, number four, ensuring that all available law enforcement resources are brought to bear when any individual goes missing in our community regardless of skin color, class, or sexual orientation slash gender identity.

I've never seen that come across the desk.

Reducing barriers to successful re-entry for local ex-felons.

There's nothing in the law about that.

Rolling back voter suppression laws that disproportionately affect low-income residents and residents of color.

I don't believe it gives the authority to do that either.

Ensuring that we have broader diversity on our appointed and elected bodies so that all segments of our community are represented when decisions are made that affect people's lives.

Those appointments I believe will be made by the City Council and I don't believe the Commission is going to have authority to do that either.

Reducing disparities in access to quality affordable healthcare to minimize the sizable gap in the infant mortality rate and improve other health-related outcomes for low-income and minority residents?

Well, there can be demonstrated discrimination in that process.

But generally speaking, it's not going to get access to healthcare or health policy or allocation of healthcare?

based on what the law says is protected by the law.

Ensuring that the cultural activities in our community at venues like the Pavilion are tailored to a more diverse array of audiences.

If it does, perhaps so, but it's not in the law.

Reducing the social segregation we see in our schools and in our community at large.

In the past, the education piece of the law has applied to private schools, not to public schools.

Expanding the supply of shelter beds or permanent supportive housing units for homeless people in our streets.

No.

Ensuring that local workers receive a living wage that allows them and their families to be economically self-sufficient.

Only if the wages are shown to be discriminatory.

Creating more skilled trades jobs in our community that will help people climb the ladder into the middle class and help provide for their families and break the cycle of generational poverty.

Again, if it can be shown to be discrimination.

How many such people have you heard from or heard about?

We've heard from one person who did not feel like he went through the system, worked with the EEOC and felt like the system did not work for him.

Okay, so how many people did you hear from roughly over the last 10 months?

We heard from a total of about 35 individuals who came in and heard complaints, but then we heard from a couple hundred individuals at forums that took place throughout the community.

So a couple hundred people and out of that you had one person who felt they had been a victim of illegal individual discrimination and had not been able to gain satisfactory recourse.

Okay, so I mean if we're talking specifically about just numbers, you can't put a number on it because there's going to be people out there that will not report specifically for that fear.

Surely Mr. Norris isn't suggesting that there is no illegal discrimination in Charlottesville.

All these, this whole laundry list of issues that involve systemic and institutional discrimination in our communities.

Do you think that the recommendation was only to have enforcement and to have none of those other things?

I think that's been the focus.

And that's what we're asking for.

Do you think that having enforcement capabilities locally would be applicable in a case like that?

and call the parties together to find out what happened.

And would the EEOC do that or do they just decide yes or no, guilty or not?

The EEOC would only be involved with employment.

I'm sorry, the housing, yeah, fair housing, sorry.

The PHA has a program to help in that effort.

But the commission could have authority to have public hearings and to order remedies.

Thank you.

The commission would not necessarily be involved in the actual investigation, but there would be staff who would investigate and come up with the recommendation or findings.

that's pretty much how that process works and a lot of the things that you talked about or you asked me about I think can be addressed under the authority to do studies and things like that where you bring this information together they find an issue that needs to be fixed they come to you and say this is what we found and then it's up to you to make a decision about what the corrective action should be but the Commission itself wouldn't have the authority to enforce those kinds of things

You said, so if a case comes before the commission that is covered under the ordinance, is it possible to write an ordinance that covers cases that would not be covered under the state and federal laws?

You're limited to what the state covers.

So a case under local ordinance would be the same as a case under state and federal laws?

And the state covers the federal laws.

What percentage of cases that come before the, are you with Prince William?

I was with Fairfax County, I chaired that commission for a while, and I chaired the State Human Rights Council.

Well, perhaps you just have some experience in any of those jurisdictions to know sort of in general what percentage of cases that are brought to the commission are in fact deemed to be legal discrimination after all these processes go through.

Now the beauty of the process is the respondent and the complainant do not need to go out and hire lawyers to have their case handled and handled properly until it ends up going for litigation perhaps and that's much less than 1% of the cases that I've ever seen end up in court.

Or is it all...

It would be cost to the staff.

Is that true of PHA for housing?

I don't know about housing.

Is it free to the complainant?

Yes.

particularly when most of the cases find no cause.

Would any of those 50 then come forward under a commission and if so, why?

And if I may say this as well,

Thank you.

And if we promise people that, you know.

So I think that would be a very important part of the commission as far as the dialogue on race would be absorbed into the commission to be able to do the training, the education, the outreach, things like that.

So the commission's trained?

Yes.

And maybe I'm misunderstanding because the other Mr. Ellis did refer to staff.

The commission would be similar to other commissions here in the city in an advisory capacity but may not be involved in the day-to-day operations of that.

If you want to respond to that, that's fine.

and basically we think although there has been improvement, it's very slow in coming and we're not anywhere toward erasing those inequities.

So I just, by narrowing your sights so much, I'm just concerned that information was being used to show and demonstrate the rationale for something when it could be really something else that's going on.

It hasn't.

but I think that to deny that that's a key piece of it is to not see what's happening.

There have been lots of changes in the division, so I want to move on from there.

And they recognize that race has a lot to say.

nor did I see any small American city or Virginia city the size of Charlottesville studied to see how smaller localities handled cross jurisdictional complaints.

Outreach piece that would let people know that this particular thing, if it's under Charlottesville's jurisdiction, okay?

I mean that's just a given, correct?

Yes.

So we really do need to look at these kinds of other items and programs that have a material impact on people's well-being.

African Americans, Asians, Indians, Hispanics, all of that because discrimination does exist when it comes to the employment too.

Are we going to really consider that that is the goal?

When is going to be the time?

That's all I'm making sure with my questions.

It should be even across the board.

There's not a limited pot of money that we can use for justice in this town.

We haven't had that strategic planning session yet, Mr. Jones.

We have to come to grips with all limited resources at some point.

It's no lack of respect of what you've done here.

It's just our job, my job.

It was unanimous.

Just a point of clarification.

There were four members that dissented.

Just a point of clarification.

Other comments or questions for the past?

Correct me if I'm wrong, we're talking about housing and employment.

Not just housing and employment.

Of the employment complaints you got, is there any way without reaching any confidentiality to characterize under what employment sector they were?

But we can definitely break down the ones that we've received by public or private.

There were four complaints that were made in the past three years.

Or other or other forms of complaints that that that rise to where state and federal laws actually intervene

We did have a couple of housing complaints.

We really got fixated on these two models, and they're not the only models out there.

But these were the two models that basically jumped out, one with enforcement powers, one without enforcement powers.

Well, you know, I'd like to put – I'm sorry.

And that's what we're looking at.

Because right now it's just city councilors if they know.

but we've got to start something.

I would love to see a Human Rights Commission take on that role.

It's clearly within the scope of the Human Rights Commissions in Virginia.

Social questions?

City used to have social development commission for many years and dealt with these issues.

That's exactly what we did.

So that's here for us to discuss at a later time.

And I think it'd just be a great role for our Human Rights Commission.

Did you look at any cities that were under 50,000?

Size.

But did you look at, was there a group that was studied that had that size?

The populace was not important.

We are only 43,000 people.

But we have the University of Virginia.

What would you like to share with us?

I'd like to hear other counselors first and then, you know, if there seems to be a support on council for the recommendation, then we should head in that direction, but I mean, I think... Well, I mean, I'll start just because I ended it and just say I would

And to carry through that same concept with knowing all that information could be the educational arm would be a natural offshoot of that.

Being without it doesn't nullify the whole thing, so I wouldn't fight against it, but I think that it really is important, and I hope that we'll do that.

I want to see how that could be shored up and built upon.

May I address that?

Sure.

Yes.

It wasn't that we didn't have an agent, it was the time it took to do it.

We're looking for something that fits Charlottesville, not specifically the Prince William model, and something that covers all human rights, not just racism.

Given that maybe a scenario or something?

Nothing's going to happen.

So if there was a, say at a restaurant, if someone thought they got fired unfairly, would enforcement power mean that the restaurant owner would

If the employer completely refuses what is in the ordinance, then that should be enforced.

Do you involve the EEOC or are there more powers before the EEOC gets involved?

Yeah, we would try to get them to mediate.

Okay, you tried that.

Yeah.

But if they refused?

And if they still refuse to come to the table, then there's at certain points where we may have to go into enforcement.

So what would you say in that letter, what is going to happen to that person if they don't come?

That would be what is in the city ordinance and that would be up to the city.

It would be... That's what I'm trying to figure out, sort of where it differentiates with state and federal powers.

That's kind of the first step and so if in listening to that from an EEOC perspective they determine that there is some cause then they would reach out to the restaurant owner which is if you're talking that's going to be the first step is to try and determine initially if there's been any discrimination that has occurred when the person comes in to speak with whether it's a city staff person or EEOC.

Is that what they?

But if there is a cause and if there is a finding, and that finding violates the city's ordinance, then the city should be able to enforce that.

whether something was legitimate.

I would see it coming into a staff person and they would kind of hear the complaint.

It would have to be investigated first.

If it was, if that staff person said yes I think there's a basis to this.

That would be the first steps.

I just wonder who's paying for that?

We would make sure that person had that skill set and that they would be capable of doing that type of work.

So that's all within the cost of the directory.

So are you saying that the person who will investigate also will be mediated?

Depending on what, because we have not looked at a staffing for this per se, the investigator would or could potentially also do some of the mediation because they would have the background of the case.

Or you could have the investigator and a separate mediator.

How does the EEOC do mediation?

I would need to, I'll talk to Marilyn Booker and get that.

I just wondered how that would work under that model.

And I had it wrong.

Dave has his model over here.

But at least I would like to start with our investigation part.

We probably wouldn't be here now asking for a commission if all of those did work properly.

I'm incremental by nature.

and not only those issues but any issues where we find that the powers that we have, the things that we can do under local ordinance are limited by state law to help us sort of lobby to change the state law.

So for that you don't need legal power for investigation.

Yes.

Those inequities are the kinds of factors that generate the vast majority of concerns and complaints and I, again, I want that to be the first and foremost focus of a Charlottesville model for protecting human rights.

I know that for firsthand, I know what discrimination looks like.

And it's probably mostly legal.

And by having a Human Rights Commission that deliberately represented parts of our community, particularly that are not represented in the elected body, would be an added benefit if it was advisory to us.

and Karl Farr, you know, these groups will try to help but there is no sort of central intake process, there's no means locally of investigating these allegations, there's no means locally of making sort of seamless connections if there do seem to be violations of...

That's what I'm trying to get at.

It's actually a much firmer, bolder commitment to get at the root of some of these problems.

The beauty of that too is that it's not just a place where people will know to come for illegal discrimination, you can also come for legal discrimination because that's the body that will deal with it.